To Mask or not to two - Mask Megathread cont.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117733823#Comment_117733823

Yes,further away unfortunately

Also making use of online feeds

Mrs OBumble

I've been in two churches since things opened up.

One applies distancing and attendance limits strictly, very well ventilated, and everyone is masked. The only issue is with Travellers who will only take Communion from the priest, so insist on some inter-section mingling. Interestingly lots of people with a medical/ science background attend there.

The other was a $hit-show that I won't be going back to.

Official Church position is that masks are to be worn by all: if you're mask exempt, then don't go to church either.

Beasty

Threads merged

mcmoustache

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117732860#Comment_117732860

That study only demonstrated that mask wearing provided a small amount of protection for the wearer. The main reason for wearing a mask is to stop the wearer from spreading covid which they are fairly good at. You not only cherry-picked a study but you also interpreted its findings to your liking.

Here it is in pictures from quite some time ago:

The numbers aren't exact but they're there or thereabouts.

growleaves

mcmoustache,

This study has been debated and, as explained in a letter to the British Medical Journal by Dr Anthony Lazzarino - a medical doctor and epidemiologist from University College London - if viral droplets can pass one way through a mask they can also pass the other way. The study itself reported “inconclusive results” re transmission, not that transmission doesn't occur.

The Danish scientists who carried out the study were strongly pro-mask and went looking for evidence that masks prevent transmission but couldn't find it.

Edit: Your "transmission probability" statistics are modeled estimates offered in lieu of definitive evidence.

mcmoustache

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117733807#Comment_117733807

Unless you're wearing an N95 mask, the cloth and surgical masks will only give you a little bit of protection.

I presume you're in the country side with the other parishes a bit away from you? Might there be another church goer with similar concerns who might be in a position to drive to another more careful priest's service?

You could also try writing to the bishop of your diocese to see if he (assuming you're Catholic) could issue or reiterate whatever the official church guidance is these days.

mcmoustache

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117735173#Comment_117735173

The specifically tested for the impact on the wearers and found that it wasn't statistically significant. They weren't testing the effect that mask wearing has on others. Tests on that are easy to do and have shown a large impact.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117735308#Comment_117735308

Exactly

I find those not wearing them in church profoundly unchristian for the potential harm not wearing them does to others

45 mins or so is not a lot to ask

Seanergy

Dozens of Waterford businesses have received fake ‘pre-action’ legal letters from ‘Anti-Corruption Ireland’ over refusing entry to customers who do not wear masks. 

The letters carry a forged signature. Anti-corruption indeed.

https://www.irishexaminer.com/opinion/ourview/arid-40357121

growleaves

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117738856#Comment_117738856

A protest by a tiny group of people is 'the road to autocracy'? Poor stuff

CalamariFritti

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117735112#Comment_117735112

Don't you think if that was even remotely true masks would have eradicated the virus a long time ago? Or on the other hand where masks aren't mandated numbers would go absolutely through the roof compared to places that mandate masks? And with 'through the roof' I dont mean like 10% more but more like 50 times more.

Something in these 'simple truths' diagrams does not add up, would you not agree?

odyssey06

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117739286#Comment_117739286

Well there's a strawman argument if ever there was one.

A measure can be effective at reducing the R number without being 100% effective.

Meanwhile, this is what scientists say:

The mandating of masks during Melbourne’s COVID-19 second wave in July 2020 was the single-most important control measure and “turned the epidemic around”, new world-leading Burnet Institute research shows.

https://www.burnet.edu.au/news/1473_

CalamariFritti

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117739401#Comment_117739401

I dont know what your straw man statement even means.

The diagram makes a pretty bold statement. unmasked vs both masked from 90% transmission chance down to 1.5% and the OP is claiming the numbers are maybe not exact but 'thereabouts'. 90% vs 1.5% is factor 60. Like I said, its not quite adding up no matter how many 'here is what the scientists say' links you post.

Graham

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117739286#Comment_117739286

Sometime even the simplest of truths aren't simple enough for some.

A mask isn't a cure, it's a means of reducing spread.

Canis Lupus

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117740170#Comment_117740170

One would imagine it involves proper mask use. Even well meaning people wear the same mask multiple times, continually touch the mask to readjust with their hands, touch their own eyes, mouth and nose and other stuff around them and don't practise good hand washing. Then you've the less well meaning/dumb chin nappy wearers, the ones who take the mask off so they can be heard clearly when speaking and the outright morons I've seen who do things like take the mask off to cough into their hands and then put the mask back on.

You can give people the tools just you have to rely on said people to use them correctly.

Seanergy

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117740912#Comment_117740912

Sadly said person has a track record of infusing noise and misinformation into this thread and not owning it when pulled on it.

Said person injected that they "read that the mask exemption had expired" and still have been unwilling to correct. Pride? Agenda?

Yes "proper" mask use is required to see 'through the roof' numbers. No NPI is going to preform 'through the roof' unless properly executed. When NPI's start prefoming at 99.9+%, then truly remarkly results are witnessed.

The best documented exmple we have of 'through the roof' numbers was when our HCW's and all the staff working in LTRC(nursing homes) masked up in unison on April 22nd of last year, and that was with just surgical masks. They must have been proper grade SM's properly worn.

Unison and proper being key. Our approach to masking to date has been ad hoc at best.

Seanergy

Poor stuff

Touché.

After a year of threat's from Anti-maskers in doorways to shops as they leave with their tail between their legs on the back of not being served without a mask they come up with fake ‘pre-action’ legal letters.

AGS could be taking this extremly seriously. A fake pre action legal letter could be interpreted as intimidation. Enough abuse has wrongly been hurled at staff and owners of businesses by Anti-maskers, mainly because their fake claim to exemption was not swallowed whole.

Is there anything real about them? Surely, the realist of all of them has to be "Cork's Anti-mask granny" who is currently serving time. She did not beat about the bush, she acted strong in her beliefs and got her well earned day in court, quiet a few times. Her argument has not legally sound.

No doubt there are a few people in the Anti-mask brigade who are in it for the potential compensation. One that springs immediately to mind is "serial litagator" aka Trump Supporter Christian Morris. He has faked a 'legal excuse' by self diagnosing himself with a medical conidition, gingivitis. Before that, he was citing anxiety as a sound reason not to don a mask. It's all been well documented by himself, nearly too well.

Speaking of legal letters, he had(now suspended) one pinned to his twitter account to AGS outlining his reason for not wearing a mask. Some would say he was paving the ground for a future case. Whilst he may succeed at fooling businesses to allow him to operate unmasked or even AGS as he is known to them he won't succeed at fooling a Judge in his courtroom with his fakeness.

I have been told the fake ‘pre-action’ legal letters are downloadable from a failed journalist's website.

https://www.independent.ie/irish-news/courts/greasy-fries-teacher-previously-sued-multiple-sclerosis-sufferer-for-defamation-36648676.html

*edit spelling

CalamariFritti

@Graham

Sometime even the simplest of truths aren't simple enough for some.

A mask isn't a cure, it's a means of reducing spread.

A real eye opener, as always, Graham. Maybe you could say something about what is being discussed? Like the numbers in that diagram.

CalamariFritti

@Seanergy

Sadly said person has a track record of infusing noise and misinformation into this thread and not owning it when pulled on it.

Said person injected that they "read that the mask exemption had expired" and still have been unwilling to correct. Pride? Agenda?

'Said person' is anti-mask and pops in here from time to time yes, that much is true. 'Said person' has never claimed the mask mandate has expired. Dont be spreading misinformation now 😀. Maybe a word or two on those numbers would be nice too. Since they are what I was trying to discuss.

Stormyteacup

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117740991#Comment_117740991

Not disputing high-grade masks properly worn by all has some effect on reducing spread, but as you say masking has been ad hoc - I can’t see how that graph is showing effect of mask usage on spread.

Maybe missing something but remove the narrative from the graph and those trends could be surely attributed to vaccination effect in those settings coupled with the end of a wave?

Seanergy

I can’t see how that graph is showing effect of mask usage on spread.

Maybe missing something but remove the narrative from the graph and those trends could be surely attributed to vaccination effect in those settings coupled with the end of a wave?

Because you did not read the post correctly, post clearly states last year. No maybe about it.

Sadly this new Vanilla theme does not allow for posting images to a decent size.

Graph is reproduced on this primetime link.

https://www.rte.ie/news/primetime/2020/0528/1143221-how-covid-19-hit-irelands-nursing-homes/

Seanergy

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117741027#Comment_117741027

Surely the 90% should be 100%, it's a respiratory virus FFS.

Poster admitted numbers not precise but wasn't hung up on numbers as focus was attempting to make a point about transmission whilst addressing the completely bogus Danish mask study that the previous poster had mis understood.

Kinda simple.

growleaves

Seanergy what does your post have to with mine?

I was commenting on the Examiner's opinion that anti-masker protests against the BBC are 'the road to autocracy'.

Are we in danger of slipping into an anti-mask dictatorship where people are given prison sentences or worse for wearing a mask? I think not.

growleaves

'the completely bogus Danish mask study'

Nothing bogus about that study, and the scientists who conducted it were and are pro-mask. I retailed commentary on it that appeared in the BMJ from a prominent epidemiologist from University College London.

If you reject his conclusion that's fine of course, but that doesn't mean that you've definitively won the debate.

growleaves

Also note the poster says the study itself is 'completely bogus' and that I've misunderstood it. Well if it's completely bogus what does it matter whether anyone understands it or not? Since he's sayings its without merit completely - including presumably the methodology as well as the conclusion.

PintOfView

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117742518#Comment_117742518

Can you see any commentary in that study on whether masks reduce transmission from infected people (who wear masks) to others?

Yes, it is acknowledged that the cloth masks that people commonly wear offer minimal protection to the wearer, and this is what that study is saying (but of course there are other masks, eg. N95, that do offer a level of protection to the wearer)

Are you saying, that on the basis of this study you think masks are also ineffective at reducing transmission from an infected person to others?

growleaves

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117742644#Comment_117742644

It was Dr Anthony Lazzarino, who is both a medical doctor and an epidemiologist, who said in the British Medical Journal: ‘The study did not evaluate whether people with masks are less likely to infect someone else. However, given that we now know that surgical masks have limited filtering capacity, we must derive that it is very unlikely that surgical masks provide a substantial protection from an infectious wearer’.

odyssey06

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117742706#Comment_117742706

Well there's some faulty logic and some faulty science right there.

Why 'must we derive' that? Faulty logic.

And the faulty science is, if that's some obvious it must be derived, then where is the study showing droplets getting through the masks as a barrier?

growleaves

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117742799#Comment_117742799

He is saying is that if the droplets can go one way through a mask (as the Danish mask study shows), they can also go the other way.

That's why he says 'given that we now know masks have limited filtering capacity'.

He is making a one-step logical deduction.

odyssey06

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117742842#Comment_117742842

The Danish study showed a small direct protective element to mask wearing although due to the low prevalence of covid at the time statistically significant numbers could not be established.

You'll have to point to where in the Danish mask study it shows that ALL droplets can go through a mask.

It's very easy to make a one step logical deduction that's wrong or overly simplistic.

Masks make distancing more effective, by limiting how far the droplets are expelled and containing large droplets before they disperse into smaller droplets.

Does he consider that:

Masks may be more effective than restrictions in people’s interactions for controlling the spread of infectious virus because they prevent the larger expelled droplets from being converted into smaller droplets that can travel farther, rather than removing the interactions between individuals that cause droplets.

Examining the interplay between face mask usage, asymptomatic transmission, and social distancing on the spread of COVID-19 | Scientific Reports (nature.com)