To Mask or not to two - Mask Megathread cont.

Where did I say they were going on strike over mask mandates???? I said they are threatening strike AND looking for mask mandates. 🙄

So there's no link between the two.

So this post is a deliberate attempt to mislead by your own admission then? You linked the strike reference to masks to bolster your unjustified description of it as a 'demand'.

Direct quote of the executive summary complete conclusion....(I'm not picking and choosing a single line that might suit my purposes).

Conclusion

• A preliminary conclusion is that medical masks may help in preventing respiratory virus infection. However, the currently available experimental results are too preliminary to support an informed policy.
• More well-designed and robust research on the effectiveness of masks in preventing COVID-19 infection is needed.

So even the study you are quoting says masks may help reduce spread, while many many more reports say they do reduce the risk of spread. With all that evidence is it such a crime to ask people to wear them in certain situations?

The studies prior to 2020 did not consider their use as barriers by the general population, they were e.g. studies into cloth masks as direct protection for HCW. That's not why mask mandates were rolled out.

Having seen a sample of Spira's twitter comments about 'mask fanatics' and having to have a religious belief in masks, let's say I'd be strongly sceptical of any claims he makes and of Cureus's peer review process.

A large study from Bangladesh had a reduction of about 10% in the number of people who became infected, when compared to the control group that received no interventions.

A study in Johnson County, Iowa, reported that when an uninfected person and infected person both wore a face mask, the secondary attack rate—the rate at which the infected person passes on the infection to the initially uninfected person—was halved from from 25.6% to 12.5%.

https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/science/science-briefs/masking-science-sars-cov2.html

A re-analysis of the Bangladesh study here;

Authors note that behavioural changes as a result of mask wearing have an impact on transmission reduction.

So does mask wearing altering behaviour reduce transmission? Perhaps, while the population are mostly in fear of becoming infected. But mask wearing alone? Still no evidence for it.

I suppose there’s dirt on the authors or their peer reviewing process to be uncovered but I’ll leave that to anyone else who wishes to do that.

I Would say it doesn’t reduce cases by 10%. It could slightly delay when you get infected. A bus or a Luas now will be overrun with sick people and most workplaces.

The viral load thing, yes I agree that makes sense.

People are going to know they are wearing masks, hard to RCT that. I supposed they would have needed to have 2 intervention groups, one with masks and distancing and one with distancing.

It should also be pointed out this study showed a 10% reduction when mask wearing got up to near 50%. On the 'barrier' principal the authors suggested the reduction could be greater with higher use. Against that, it would have been versus Delta variants I think and not Omicron.

And this isn't the only study showing an effect though.

Plus there are also the lab studies into the effects of masks on droplets, so we have a plausible mechanism of action versus respiratory viruses such as covid.

So which is it, masks are too effective or not effective enough at blocking respiratory viruses?

And why do we vaccinate vulnerable groups against flu if we 'need' it to circulate?

Kicking the can down the road makes sense if we've had a large section of the population exposed in this season already and the hospitals are at max dealing with that load.

The calls for masks at present are in specific settings - public transport and medical settings. Essential services where there's random intergenerational mixing, especially with those of vulnerable groups.

"If masks were going to solve the problems I'm sure we'd see them mandated but barely a dickybird"

So are you done rehashing the same lines every week or so that I pointed out yesterday(below)?

"Every time a union of any sort says something rinse and repeat the above post and guess what nothings happened.

Sure you were posting in mid December about Varadkar bringing back masks and telling people to expect a recommendation for a mandate....."