To Mask or not to two - Mask Megathread cont.

fun loving criminal

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117932889#Comment_117932889

I don't know if you're joking or not.

I know it's hard to eat through a mask. But what's the point keeping masks in other places of the building if there's no social distancing in the canteen?

expectationlost

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117932968#Comment_117932968

I have been asking myself the same questions.

I guess it reduces the risk of spreading (and catching ) covid when you are wearing your masks.

patnor1011

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117875629#Comment_117875629

That is hardly ever going to happen again. Not for covid anyway. It would have to change IFR rather dramatically something like marburg virus or similar. No government can afford it for long and we pretty much exhausted that option. Nobody knows how we will pay for what we already spent anyway.

patnor1011

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117876682#Comment_117876682

Everybody essentially cares about themselves in a first place, then family and friends. Well nobody other than mother Theresa but she is gone and there are not many people like she was left anyway. Never were, that is why she and just a handful of others are such examples.

patnor1011

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117904687#Comment_117904687

It was not a problem before at the height of pandemic and without vaccines.

Why should it become problem now?

patnor1011

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117914622#Comment_117914622

That is too much of logic. It never fare well against faith.

patnor1011

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117932968#Comment_117932968

Social distancing at a canteen for 500+ individuals make no sense unless that canteen will be roofless in a field. Even then it may depend on direction of the wind.

Fandymo

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117932830#Comment_117932830

Were you wearing shoes at all times in work? Maybe they stopped you catching covid. Or underpants?

Seanergy

Sounds like Ivor "Smiles Matter" Cummins might be getting a bit of an unmasking tomorrow. 😀

https://twitter.com/ciananbrennan/status/1441479734035050497

odyssey06

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117934064#Comment_117934064

Thats a pretty good indication of your understanding of respiratory diseases. You seem to have confused covid with a fungus of some sort or verrucca maybe. Explains a lot.

Sconsey

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117933548#Comment_117933548

It does not take Mother-Theresa levels of compassion to put on a mask in the supermarket and a few other indoor public places.

xhomelezz

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117933548#Comment_117933548

And if you care about yourself properly, you care about the others too. Unless of course you are the one of handful suffocating, dying..etc, while wearing a mask. And I get that some peeps have conditions preventing them from wearing one. Genuine conditions!

expectationlost

Free Face Masks To Be Distributed on Campus From Monday

https://universitytimes.ie/2021/09/free-face-masks-to-be-distributed-on-campus-from-monday/

TCD atleast if not all the others

is_that_so

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117936881#Comment_117936881

Few people indulge in this level of reflection on mask wearing, they tend to do it because they have to. It will become personal responsibility in time and eventually disappear.

Seanergy

https://www.newscientist.com/people/dr-wu-lien-teh/

The Chinese-Malaysian epidemiologist Dr Wu Lien-teh pioneered the use of face masks to control an epidemic more than a century before the advent of covid-19.

He was born in Penang, Malaysia, on 10 March 1879 and educated at the University of Cambridge in the UK, and was recruited to work on a deadly disease outbreak in north-eastern China in December 1910. The first people to be affected were marmot trappers and fur traders, who were part of a flourishing trade in marmot pelts in the region.

From a postmortem examination – the first performed in China – Wu succeeded in isolating and culturing the bacterium responsible for the disease, identifying it as Yersinia pestis, which was known from earlier bubonic plague epidemics.

Wu understood that the disease could be spread by respiratory droplets and wasn’t just caught from rats or fleas, as many believed at the time.

Wu produced a mask made from cotton and gauze, with extra layers of cloth and more secure ties to improve on previous designs. He encouraged medical staff and others to wear these surgical masks to protect themselves, the first time widespread mask use had been part of an epidemic control strategy. It was met with some resistance, however: a French colleague died of the plague after refusing to wear a mask.

Wu advised authorities to impose restrictions on movement, including stopping trains, to limit the spread of the disease, and to instruct sick people to self-isolate. He also persuaded officials to authorise the cremation of dead bodies, which wasn’t normally accepted in China.

The last case of the disease, which killed an estimated 60,000 people, was recorded in March 1911. It came to be known as the Manchurian plague.

Wu chaired an international conference on the plague that year, helping disseminate knowledge about how to respond to outbreaks. The epidemic helped convince China’s leaders of the need for a modern public health service, and Wu helped establish it in numerous roles before returning to Malaysia in 1937.

On 10 March 2021 a Google Doodle celebrated what would have been his 142nd birthday.

Key facts

Full name: Wu Lien-teh

Birth: 10 March 1879, Penang, Straits Settlements (a group of British territories in what are now parts of Malaysia and Singapore)

Death: 21 January 1960, Penang, Federation of Malaya

Famous for pioneering the use and development of face masks to help control the spread of deadly diseases.

Lumen

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117936881#Comment_117936881

Mother Teresa wasn't a bg fan of prophylactics, to be fair.

Seanergy

In the two largest Arizona counties, with variable K–12 school masking policies at the onset of the 2021–22 academic year, the odds of a school-associated COVID-19 outbreak were 3.5 times higher in schools with no mask requirement than in those with a mask requirement implemented at the time school started.

https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/70/wr/mm7039e1.htm?s_cid=mm7039e1_w

Dohnjoe

Anti-masker in Vancouver. Says it all really.

Spudman_20000

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117946440#Comment_117946440

Still advocating masking under 12's, including 2-3 year olds I see? Is this something you Google for a lot in your spare time? 

Anyone pushing for the images like the below in our creches, pre-schools and primary schools strikes me as kinda odd.

Fortunately HIQA still advise against it, and reference multiple reasons why.

Children have bigger issues, not least of which is the 100K plus on waiting lists for treatment, assessment and diagnostic tests.

https://www.irishtimes.com/news/health/consultant-warns-of-impact-on-children-as-over-100-000-on-waiting-lists-1.4684784

odyssey06

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117948232#Comment_117948232

(a) K-12 schools doesn't mean under 12s necessarily, it covers equivalent of primary and secondary system here.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/K%E2%80%9312

(b) What does wearing masks in schools have to do with waiting lists? Classic whataboutery.

Spudman_20000

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117948291#Comment_117948291

(a) "K-12, a term used in education and educational technology in the United States, Canada, and possibly other countries, is a short form for the publicly-supported school grades prior to college. These grades are kindergarten (K) and the 1st through the 12th grade (1-12)."

The study linked is from Arizona.

(b) I suppose I'm just interested in why Seanergy is so interested in children wearing masks when there are bigger health issues facing children than a disease that the vast VAST majority of children are not affected by. Do they have a professional interest in the topic? Just strikes me as strange, they continually post links on here in relation to masking kids without comment.

Dohnjoe

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117948335#Comment_117948335

When children are infected, they can spread it to other children and adults. Masks reduce that spread. Up to countries/schools/etc whether they think it's feasible or not.

Spudman_20000

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117949046#Comment_117949046

Rules around contact tracing in schools were significantly eased since Monday, Ireland has the highest vaccination rates in Europe, HIQA have recommended masks are not needed for under 12's and NPHET agreed. Explain to me the purpose of someone posting a study on kids wearing masks from Arizona, without context or comment? Does the sight of unmasked, rosy cheeked children send some people into an incandescent rage or something? All very odd if you ask me. Time to move on lads.

Dohnjoe

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117949137#Comment_117949137

Nothing odd about it. Some countries have it worse than others. Personally I don't think kids need to wear masks here, but I can't comment on other situations, regions or countries where it might be feasible due to clusters, spikes, etc.

CalamariFritti

You'd imagine some Spanish boards where some anti-restriction, anti-mask guys tell the people that it's crazy to still (or ever) wear masks outside going about their daily lives. Which is apparently what the Spanish still do in large numbers. Voluntarily even.

And some Spanish mask advocates then educating those anti guys how wrong they all are and how important it is and here is that study and this model. And how its not 'rocket science'.

And then some Swedish guy thinking wtf are they all on about?

At the end of the day its all about what we've been told and continue to be told to believe. And that can be one thing here and another thing altogether over there. And thats reasonable countries. Nothing that could be dismissed as nut job countries.

That alone should tell any mask advocates that at best its marginal...

political analyst

Why isn't there anyone in authority mentioning the damage caused to the environment by the mandatory wearing of masks in schools, workplaces and businesses?

odyssey06

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117950741#Comment_117950741

Cos they are too busy talking about the reduction in emissions from the lockdown?

Did you express concerns about extra water usage from washing of hands???

Or maybe they are talking about neither cos ... priorities in a crisis?

odyssey06

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117949137#Comment_117949137

Why would there need to be an answer ... Its the masks thread in the covid forum and its a post sharing info of a study about masks and covid.

Theres lots of posts on this thread declaring masks do nothing.

The linked study is a refutation of that - whether you agree or disagree on their need in schools, it shows how masks can reduce spread in institutional settings.

Seanergy

Best cover the nose and mouth when wearing.

https://twitter.com/EricTopol/status/1442914414701649921

Seanergy

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117948232#Comment_117948232

What's with having a stab at my personality and then attempting to redirect the conversation into another topic?

Why did you dive in on 2-3 year olds? Report outlines at the beginning that the CDC recommends universal indoor masking by students, staff members, faculty, and visitors in kindergarten through grade 12 (K–12) schools, regardless of vaccination status, to reduce transmission of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19. Going by that it would appear but it is not conclusive that the study focused on kindergarten and beyond, which is generally speaking 5 year olds plus.

The multiple reasons referenced by HIQA are fairly questionable, but I'd imagine you'd prefer drift into silence rather than discussing them on a public platform just in case the reasoning is exposed as deeply skewed.