Masks

na1 wrote: »

Here you are to start with:


Trials and Studies on mask use:
https://www.rcreader.com/commentary/masks-dont-work-covid-a-review-of-science-relevant-to-covide-19-social-policy

Ah yeah I'll be on board with the usual American paranoia about big gubbernment from an outlet that is heavily skewed in that direction. The type that would be moronic enough to use a term like "plandemic". No doubt Bill Gates is out to get them too. Never mind the author makes a tonne of logical fallacies couched in duh big words that might work for your public school educated Yank already convinced the state is out to take their sh1t and give it to the poor, but doesn't stand up to much real scrutiny. Never mind that again for these chumps it's all about the me fein, protecting myself, nada about how masks and other measures protect others.

Jacobs, J. L. et al. (2009) “Use of surgical face masks to reduce the incidence of the common cold among health care workers in Japan: A randomized controlled trial,” American Journal of Infection Control, Volume 37, Issue 5, 417 – 419.https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/19216002/

N95-masked health-care workers (HCW) were significantly more likely to experience headaches. Face mask use in HCW was not demonstrated to provide benefit in terms of cold symptoms or getting colds.

Cowling, B. et al. (2010) “Face masks to prevent transmission of influenza virus: A systematic review,” Epidemiology and Infection, 138(4), 449-456.
https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/epidemiology-and-infection/article/face-masks-to-prevent-transmission-of-influenza-virus-a-systematic-review/64D368496EBDE0AFCC6639CCC9D8BC05
bin-Reza et al. (2012) “The use of masks and respirators to prevent transmission of influenza: a systematic review of the scientific evidence,” Influenza and Other Respiratory Viruses 6(4), 257–267.

You missed this part: There is some evidence to support the wearing of masks or respirators during illness to protect others, and public health emphasis on mask wearing during illness may help to reduce influenza virus transmission.

Again and for the hard of thinking it's much more about reducing the amount of virus contained in droplets in the environment, not about protecting oneself. However it's pretty clear that wearing something like an n99 respirator will in fact protect the individual. If anyone disbelieves that tell that to researchers working in labs dealing with pathogens.

Smith, J.D. et al. (2016) “Effectiveness of N95 respirators versus surgical masks in protecting health care workers from acute respiratory infection: a systematic review and meta-analysis,” CMAJ Mar 2016

Offeddu, V. et al. (2017) “Effectiveness of Masks and Respirators Against Respiratory Infections in Healthcare Workers: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis,” Clinical Infectious Diseases, Volume 65, Issue 11, 1 December 2017, Pages 1934–1942,

Radonovich, L.J. et al. (2019) “N95 Respirators vs Medical Masks for Preventing Influenza Among Health Care Personnel: A Randomized Clinical Trial,” JAMA. 2019; 322(9): 824–833.

“Among 2862 randomized participants, 2371 completed the study and accounted for 5180 HCW-seasons. ... Among outpatient health care personnel, N95 respirators vs medical masks as worn by participants in this trial resulted in no significant difference in the incidence of laboratory-confirmed influenza.”

Long, Y. et al. (2020) “Effectiveness of N95 respirators versus surgical masks against influenza: A systematic review and meta-analysis,” J Evid Based Med. 2020; 1- 9.

Which is looking at the effectiveness between two types of mask, not comparing to not wearing masks at all.

Oh and I hate to break it to you, hand washing doesn't show a particularly strong protective effect and the two metres social distancing measure has no scientific backing at all.

One major symptom of this virus that is ignored and is just as dangerous is an attack of the dumb in the already susceptible and sadly there's no vaccine for that, and not many treatment options beyond forcing them to cop on whether they choose to think or not. Like I've said before thank christ this wasn't a novel form of smallpox that emerged as going on this relatively "mild" virus and how too many people have reacted to it, we'd be utterly and completely bloody screwed.

I mean look at America at the moment. The current ground zero for idiocy masquerading as independent thought with no thought to speak of at all and the virus is running rampant through the place. They're at over 130,000 thousand officially dead already.

MrMusician18 wrote: »

That's more than a little unfair. Much of the initial guidance around masks was given in order to protect supplies for healthcare workers.

And they should have stated that and certainly should have stated it when PPE supplies were back on track. They could have also taken the lead in advising and mandating for face coverings in general. They did none of the above and it's not as if they didn't have ongoing examples of authorities that handled it better(rather than comparing ourselves favourably to the village idiot in the room the UK authorities who screwed up).

The virus is also novel so as more has been learned about it the advice has changed.

There's the talk of the virus's novelty MrM, but it's not that novel outside of it's scientific name. It's a respiratory virus and not the only one of the coronavirus family, never mind we have had SARS and MERS before it(where masks were found to be effective in the population). Medical science has been dealing with respiratory viruses for over a century and pandemics with it. It was not some mad alien thing that we had no experience of that just landed in our laps out of the blue.

Even if it had been and leaving out the usual benefit of hindsight; in January of this year we already knew it was infectious from human to human, asymptomatic spread was a factor, that it was most dangerous to and killed mostly those over 60 and those with existing health conditions and it spread by surface and droplet transmission and was spreading worldwide because of modern mass transportation and could quickly overwhelm a nations medical services if left unchecked. What we have learned since then have been some of the details like some populations appear to be more susceptible to it, but what we knew in January is still the guts of it.

I'd agree though that 2m social distancing was chosen as the largest practical distance to could get people to separate that they would adhere to. It's the same rationale behind recommending 5 portions of veg a day: the behavior that will reduce risk and that will have a reasonable chance of being adhered to. If it was 10m people would say it wasn't practical and you'd be as well hung for a sheep as a lamb and ignore it completely.

Pretty much. Interestingly in cultures that already eat five a day their advice is to eat double that.

weldoninhio wrote: »

https://www.marktaliano.net/masks-dont-work-a-review-of-science-relevant-to-covid-19-social-policy-by-denis-rancourt-phd-11-june-2020/


All the numerous studies above are wrong then??

Me. Earlier. wrote: »

Ah yeah I'll be on board with the usual American paranoia about big gubbernment from an outlet that is heavily skewed in that direction. The type that would be moronic enough to use a term like "plandemic". No doubt Bill Gates is out to get them too. Never mind the author makes a tonne of logical fallacies couched in duh big words that might work for your public school educated Yank already convinced the state is out to take their sh1t and give it to the poor, but doesn't stand up to much real scrutiny. Never mind that again for these chumps it's all about the me fein, protecting myself, nada about how masks and other measures protect others.

Oh and the author of that opinion piece?

If I am to be defined by what I do, then define me as a supporter of civilization, a supporter of Islam, Christianity, and Judaism, a supporter of the right to choose, a supporter of secular government and democracy.

Define me as pushing against the wind, because Western governments oppose these things. Our governments oppose democracy in Syria and beyond. They oppose secular governance. They support anti-democratic fundamentalist interpretations of Sharia law, they support terrorism.

Our governments support al Qaeda, ISIS and their affiliates. Our governments willfully destroy countries, create chaos, sectarianism and commit mass murder so they can control, loot, and plunder prey countries. I oppose this. Define me by my opposition to this and I won’t object.

Our governments no longer represent decent people. How could they? Our governments and their agencies demonstrate time and again that they are vassals to NATO and to globalizing trajectories that are anti-Life, anti-democracy, anti-you and me. Define me in my opposition to NATO and to the dictatorship of publicly bailed-out “neoliberalism” and I won’t object.

A fabricated groupthink has poisoned and corrupted us all. I oppose the messaging that makes us cogs in a mindless war machine. Define me by my opposition to the overseas holocaust that our governments create and sustain, and I won’t mind.

But it isn’t just me. We are all being swept across a stormy frothing sea, rudderless, despairing. Not one of us is alone.

When we find a common language of truth and peace, we will find salvation.

The cancerous hands controlling our fates, our thoughts, our minds, keeping us apart, will be no more. Then we will be free.

Indeed. Seems logical enough, but veers right into barely concealed NWO conspiracy stuff.

Never mind the rest of that post where I picked apart his logic.

timmy_mallet wrote: »

Masks are risk reducers too, but utterly irrelevant outside of healthcare settings or inside a home with an infected person, yet they are seen as being mandatory.

So called experts? Which 'experts' do you want to believe? The ones that your worldview relates to?

Read and think about your first sentence again. Your logic and belief is that masks do indeed work in healthcare settings and when dealing with a confirmed case, yet magically lose this ability and become utterly irrelevant in other settings where the infection is present in the community? How does this work then? I know it's what the HSE used to claim, but it's self evidently contradictory and illogical. It's akin to saying seatbelts work in cars but wouldn't work in buses. If you believe one part of your sentence you quite simply can't believe the other. Not with a straight face anyway.

My worldview such as it is didn't initially see community mask wearing as being of much benefit and was much more about how I could protect myself with P3 level of filtration. I bloody hate wearing one and further if I'm honest don't want us to look like many Asian cultures constantly wearing the damn things.

However the more I read and observed of nations that fared far better than us, it became pretty bloody clear that they were another effective risk reducer in community spread of a respiratory virus that western nations for the most part were ignoring for reasons like shortage of PPE(understandable) a need to feel it's all grand and yeah the "I don't want to look like a twat" angle(understandable if idiotic).

With the exceptions of Greece that had a much more severe and enforced lockdown than most so communities weren't out and about to spread it(though Greece has subsequently added masks to the mix as they came out of that), Iceland which had the most comprehensive track and trace on earth and New Zealand over in the arse end of the planet who locked down their borders, every single nation that has had the best results against this virus mandated masks from the get go. The worst didn't. Its quite as simple as that.