Lifting Masks = Back to Getting Down With The Sickness

[Phoenixmgs]

Masks never did anything but social distancing, work from home orders, lockdowns etc ofcourse do a lot to curtail infection rates. I think at this point there is widespread immunity either from people being vaccinated or having been previously infected. Covid might surge again in fall with colder weather, immunity waning off and new variants. Who knows? Mass gatherings will probably remain tricky.

There will probably be a "spike" in the fall/winter but covid will be still be less than a normal flu season with all the built-in immunity, which shows no signs of being short-lived.

They found during the pandemic that a lot of infections happening at home. You and your family not wearing masks so someone gets it then everyone gets it. I think that is why Italy was so bad because you have like 4 generations in the same home.

I always had the stance that i dont think the precautions were all that helpful because they were halfassed. The tightest states saw the worst covid cases. Population density is the argument for that but people protesting in the streets never seemed to cause case increases.

They were outdoors of course, no masks, definitely not socially distant, so the conclusion has to be made that you have to have significant exposure to someone for quite a bit of time to pass infection. Like your family at home.

Covid aint the t-virus and if someone so much as brushes by you is enough to get you sick.

Hell even airlines didnt socially distance people. You can claim air filtration all you want but you sit fucking 3 inches from someone not masked, and very few of any infections arose from airtravel.

From what I've seen is that ventilation is the biggest factor, which is why outside is super safe and opening a window inside is more important than wearing a mask. I'm assuming the planes have a system that moves the air in the cabin so the virus (if someone has it) isn't constantly building up in the cabin over time. Filtration would be important if the same air is recirculated obviously.

 

[Phoenixmgs]

Maybe stuff didn't work because people like you, Stroopwafel and Phoenixmgs fucked them up.

I mean, here you all are saying "Nah, I didn't bother taking proper care... hey, I don't think these measures worked". Yeah, funny that. When people don't comply with health measures the health measures don't do so much. In much the same way if you are offered some pills or surgery and decide to not take them, they're not going to work to make you better, either.

I followed all the mandated health measures, I freaking work across 10+ main hospitals, you think I wasn't wearing a mask? And, by the way, I was one of the safest people to be around during the pandemic because I had covid at the very start (before any measures were implemented) so I had natural immunity the whole time, nobody was getting it from me. I even called off work simply because my temperature in the morning (as we were taking our daily temps then) was a NORMAL 98 degrees because every other day it was like 94-95 degrees, and later that day (or the next day) I got normal covid symptoms and followed the guidelines and I didn't get anyone sick. I follow guidelines and I'm safe when it makes fucking sense to do so.

Dude, like a total of twelve people frequent this sub-forum. This has been going on for a year and a half, everybody knows what's up.

View attachment 3963

Come to the dark side. Search your feelings, you know it to be true.

And, this is why America is in the state it is, nobody cares to listen to anyone else unless what they're saying agrees with their beliefs. It is literally what Metal Gear Solid 2 predicted. I'll listen to anyone regardless if I don't like them or not.

 

[crimson5pheonix]

The CDC doesn't recommend wearing a mask to PREVENT the flu.

Honestly I could (and should) disregard anything you say on this subject purely on this one interaction. What, do they say people with the flu should wear a mask because they're extra pretty?

Do you not understand that when you look at infections across the entirety of the pandemic and compare them to mask mandates and mask use, you don't have any significant data saying masks do anything?

You realize that talking about mandates is a red herring and I don't give a shit what you think about it, because you have yet to say anything intelligent on the subject?

A lot of Asian countries are used to wearing masks when THEY ARE SICK, they don't wear them when they aren't sick (prior to the pandemic).

Do you unde-

Nevermind.

Because you spread diseases when you have them, and you can spread them before you show symptoms. A disease that is unusually infectious warrants precautions you would not normally take and it shouldn't have to be explained to you like you're a 2 year old.

Comparing one country to another just based on masks is a bad comparison

Because it makes you look hilariously uninformed and dense?

New Zealand did the best

No they didn't. Laos, Vietnam, and China did better. Along with several other countries that likely have other extant reasons why they may be doing better.

Look at Czechia

No, nobody cares. It's a non-sequiter.

 

[Phoenixmgs]

Honestly I could (and should) disregard anything you say on this subject purely on this one interaction. What, do they say people with the flu should wear a mask because they're extra pretty?

You realize that talking about mandates is a red herring and I don't give a shit what you think about it, because you have yet to say anything intelligent on the subject?


Do you unde-

Nevermind.

Because you spread diseases when you have them, and you can spread them before you show symptoms. A disease that is unusually infectious warrants precautions you would not normally take and it shouldn't have to be explained to you like you're a 2 year old.


Because it makes you look hilariously uninformed and dense?


No they didn't. Laos, Vietnam, and China did better. Along with several other countries that likely have other extant reasons why they may be doing better.


No, nobody cares. It's a non-sequiter.

And you don't realize the study that shows masks didn't do anything used survey data on whether people actually wore masks or not..

And we have mask flu studies saying it doesn't prevent flu infections.

My bad, I thought I was at the end of this list doing 50 per page. So are you gonna argue that masks are the actual reason why New Zealand did worse than Vietnam? Also, we all know China's numbers are fudged big time by the way, you literally can't trust any of China's numbers about anything. Anyway, there's nothing saying masks do much of anything.

Are masks why Vietnam has done great or other things like, I don't know, being proactive and stopping the virus before it greatly spread through the country unlike the US and Europe?

Vietnam enacted measures other countries would take months to move on, bringing in travel restrictions, closely monitoring and eventually closing the border with China and increasing health checks at borders and other vulnerable places.

Coronavirus: How 'overreaction' made Vietnam a virus success

Vietnam chose to prevent rather than fight Covid-19, a strategy which means it has had no virus deaths.

www.bbc.com

---

Pretty great video about how being extreme on the mask issue makes you look pretty ridiculous. Rachel Maddow said she had to "rewire" her brain to not see unmasked people as a "threat". Joy Reid said she would wear TWO MASKS when jogging in the park to guard against BACKDRAFT, that is fucking crazy shit right there. One dude said it's better to keep wearing a mask so people don't think I'm a conservative. I love the paradox Tim brings up about if democrats want people to know they're democrats, then wearing a mask signals they're not vaccinated but if they take the mask off, they might be mistaken as an unvaccinated anti-masker, what are they ever to do!!!

 

[crimson5pheonix]

And you don't realize the study that shows masks didn't do anything used survey data on whether people actually wore masks or not..

Neat, not like we've seen people wear a mask with their nose uncovered or anything. I don't trust survey data here.

And we have mask flu studies saying it doesn't prevent flu infections.

No we don't, at least not reputable ones. Certainly nothing to convince the CDC or any other state authority that's not licking the asshole of some dictator or dictator-adjacent.

My bad, I thought I was at the end of this list doing 50 per page. So are you gonna argue that masks are the actual reason why New Zealand did worse than Vietnam?

Probably a big factor, yes. Of course New Zealand probably got off as light as they did because they're an island nation as well. It's a testament to the effectiveness of masks that densely populated continental nations outperformed several small island countries.

Also, we all know China's numbers are fudged big time by the way, you literally can't trust any of China's numbers about anything. Anyway, there's nothing saying masks do much of anything.

I actually don't disagree, but I'm also pretty sure they beat the average by a wide margin and are still likely one of the best countries against it because if there's one thing a totalitarian government can do, it's actually enforce pandemic protocols.

Are masks why Vietnam has done great or other things like, I don't know, being proactive and stopping the virus before it greatly spread through the country unlike the US and Europe?

You mean by masking up early on and not waffling on it later? Yeah, probably. Turns out masks work best when you actually follow protocol on them early and consistently.

Pretty great video

Funny beanie man has never made a great video and I'm not wasting my time watching him. I don't care that he thinks it's crazy and I don't care if there are some people who are silly about masks, that's not the point and not important.

 

[Seanchaidh]

Pretty great video

no

 

[Kwak]

So if you don't believe masks help stop spreading infection, how is it you think it spreads and what does help?
It's pretty much acknowledged by everyone at this point that it spreads through breath, how can inhibiting that breath not have ana effect?

 

[Phoenixmgs]

Neat, not like we've seen people wear a mask with their nose uncovered or anything. I don't trust survey data here.



No we don't, at least not reputable ones. Certainly nothing to convince the CDC or any other state authority that's not licking the asshole of some dictator or dictator-adjacent.



Probably a big factor, yes. Of course New Zealand probably got off as light as they did because they're an island nation as well. It's a testament to the effectiveness of masks that densely populated continental nations outperformed several small island countries.



I actually don't disagree, but I'm also pretty sure they beat the average by a wide margin and are still likely one of the best countries against it because if there's one thing a totalitarian government can do, it's actually enforce pandemic protocols.



You mean by masking up early on and not waffling on it later? Yeah, probably. Turns out masks work best when you actually follow protocol on them early and consistently.



Funny beanie man has never made a great video and I'm not wasting my time watching him. I don't care that he thinks it's crazy and I don't care if there are some people who are silly about masks, that's not the point and not important.

So any mask data given about masks not working just come down to people not wearing them right? Seriously? You do realize how much of a logical fallacy that is right? What about health care workers, do they wear masks properly? Because the medical community hasn't been able to show surgical masks do much of anything either. As the surgical mask studies show, CDC recommends masks basically as a "better safe than sorry" approach. Also, Americans don't wear masks for the flu anyway nor do even healthcare workers in hospitals so it's something nobody follows. You're seriously arguing Vietnam did better because of masks than New Zealand? There's so many variables that you can't pinpoint any one thing working outside of either not letting the virus in basically (letting it in ever-so-slightly and controlling it as I don't think any country accomplished zero covid) or people staying away from each other. That's the thing with even the estimations for the Indian variant being say 60% more contagious, it's all based on models that have a high amount of errors in them, there's too many variables to accurately account for. You had the UK variant in the UK during the fall/holiday and not in the US but both countries infection curves mirror each other so how much can you really say the UK variant affected how many got infected? The US was predicted to get a spike in March because of the UK variant but that never happened.

So if you don't believe masks help stop spreading infection, how is it you think it spreads and what does help?
It's pretty much acknowledged by everyone at this point that it spreads through breath, how can inhibiting that breath not have ana effect?

I don't think that masks do absolutely nothing but their benefits are probably rather minimal. I was on the train that was for masking lowering initial viral load, which in turn would lower infection severity which would lower hospitalizations and deaths, but I doubt there's any significant numbers there if you compare places where people masked more vs places that masked less. Look at the say the California restrictions (and I'm sure much more masking too) vs Florida basically being open the whole time, California should've done a lot better if all these things work even half as good as we think but Florida only did ever-so-slightly worse than California. I'm from the Chicago-land / Northwest Indiana area (I live within walking distance of the Indiana border) and Illinois had all these restrictions all the time whereas Indiana barely had any and both states curves mirror each other; restaurants and bars were open the whole time in Indiana after that 1st month or so and never closed back up while Illinois restaurants were like eternally closed the entire time.

Anyway back to why masks probably do very little. Since covid is airborne, the mask isn't catching that much of the particles. And the places you'll catch covid is being indoors for lengthy periods with someone contagious so they are putting covid in the air and it slowly builds up in the breathing air. A mask probably slows the process a bit but you're asking a piece of cloth to stop an airborne disease, it's just not gonna do the job. If covid was mainly spread via droplets, a mask would do much much better.

 

[crimson5pheonix]

So any mask data given about masks not working just come down to people not wearing them right? Seriously? You do realize how much of a logical fallacy that is right?

It doesn't, but it's going to be inherently difficult to make any mask study since a large part of wearing masks is wearing masks properly, in the first place. And in the second place masks are more about spreading an illness than preventing catching it yourself. Which is why whenever someone says that wearing a mask is pointless since it doesn't stop you from catching a disease is an idiot.

What about health care workers, do they wear masks properly? Because the medical community hasn't been able to show surgical masks do much of anything either.

You fell victim to a poor headline. The article mentions one study that did poorly, and then several studies that show masks work in the settings we're talking about.

If only you read.

Also, Americans don't wear masks for the flu anyway nor do even healthcare workers in hospitals so it's something nobody follows.

Nobody except people in SE Asia which, you may notice, also has a much much lower incidence of seasonal flu infections, and thus deaths.

You're seriously arguing Vietnam did better because of masks than New Zealand?

Yes.

There's so many variables that you can't pinpoint any one thing working outside of either not letting the virus in basically (letting it in ever-so-slightly and controlling it as I don't think any country accomplished zero covid)

Oh gee, how can you do that? Well if you aren't blessed to be a small island nation with little inernational travel, like New Zealand, you better have people mask up so there isn't a ton of early infections. Literally, literally, LITERALLY, masking up is how you accomplish this goal. Masks, social distancing, and hygiene. None of which Americans want to do because they think they know better than doctors when funny beanie man tells them something. You don't even have to be particularly smart to sus this out, how do you prevent deaths? Prevent infections. How do you prevent infections? Don't fucking cough on people. How do you not cough on people reliably? Wear a mask.

 

[CriticalGaming]

Los Angeles County is reinstating the mask mandate because they are afraid of the new "delta Version" of Covid. They are making even vaccinated people to wear masks again as well. Which is more confusion that is going to only push people away from the vaccine.

The whole point of encouraging people to get vaccinated was that they would get their normalcy back. No masks, going out, etc. But by the city making people wear the masks no matter what, will only discourage all the fucking hippies out here who don't like modern medicine to not get the shot. After all, if getting the shot doesn't do anything for them, then they'll continue to argue against it.

This mandate return still goes against CDC guidelines who still say that the vaccine is also a deterrent from the "Delta" covid too. Even to this day the government can't get their fucking story straight and that is why this virus ever got as bad as it did. Nobody is on the same page.

None of which Americans want to do because they think they know better than doctors when funny beanie man tells them something.

People are so at war with their political party that they refused anything Trump said simply because it was Trump. Which just goes to show you how people don't have any judgement capability for themselves. Trump says and does a lot of stupid shit, obviously, but when it came down it issuing his people did try to get proper advice out that nobody wanted to hear. The same goes for anti-Biden people, who at the same token will ignore anything he says....though to be fair he doesn't say much so whatever I guess.

You don't even have to be particularly smart to sus this out, how do you prevent deaths? Prevent infections. How do you prevent infections? Don't fucking cough on people. How do you not cough on people reliably? Wear a mask.

Well yes, or you could just not be an asshole and wear a mask when you are sick....or even better, don't go out if you aren't feeling well. Pretty fucking simple, stay home if you are sick.

 

[Seanchaidh]

Pretty fucking simple, stay home if you are sick.

not so simple if staying home means not being able to make rent

also, it's not always clear when you're contagious.

 

[Gordon_4]

Nobody is on the same page.

Get everyone reading the same book first; then worry about what page their on.

 

[Phoenixmgs]

It doesn't, but it's going to be inherently difficult to make any mask study since a large part of wearing masks is wearing masks properly, in the first place. And in the second place masks are more about spreading an illness than preventing catching it yourself. Which is why whenever someone says that wearing a mask is pointless since it doesn't stop you from catching a disease is an idiot.

You fell victim to a poor headline. The article mentions one study that did poorly, and then several studies that show masks work in the settings we're talking about.

If only you read.

I have read it as I've used that source many times. There was 2 total studies in that article for a hospital setting and 1 study (the Canadian) found that masks (non respirator ones) were good, one that masks didn't do anything (the Chinese study who apparently are better at wearing masks than us according to you). The other one about mask use in the home showed that either masking or hand washing didn't help but both together did. I'm guessing that study probably didn't have the best methods though, and it is hard to conduct such a study in the first place. Ideally you'd to set up something like that tries to purposefully infect people with say the flu and you have one group masked and the other maskless and see what happens but you don't really do studies trying to purposefully infect people obviously.

Nobody except people in SE Asia which, you may notice, also has a much much lower incidence of seasonal flu infections, and thus deaths.

Huh? The US has less flu deaths per 100k according to this:

The US Flu Season Is Bad This Year, But Influenza Is Much More Deadly Around the World | Champion Traveler

championtraveler.com

Yes.

Oh gee, how can you do that? Well if you aren't blessed to be a small island nation with little inernational travel, like New Zealand, you better have people mask up so there isn't a ton of early infections. Literally, literally, LITERALLY, masking up is how you accomplish this goal. Masks, social distancing, and hygiene. None of which Americans want to do because they think they know better than doctors when funny beanie man tells them something. You don't even have to be particularly smart to sus this out, how do you prevent deaths? Prevent infections. How do you prevent infections? Don't fucking cough on people. How do you not cough on people reliably? Wear a mask.

Again, there's nothing showing masks help much, maybe they help like 1% or like 5% tops. If they helped at least 10% or better, I think you'd see consistent differences in infection curves between the masked and unmasked areas but you don't. The virus is airborne, it makes sense masks don't help too much. You can see in the Czech Republic masking back up during a spike hardly stopped the spike. If masks don't help stop infections, maybe they lower the viral load (which I was a big proponent of) and cause less severe cases overall leading to less deaths, but again, we haven't seen any data pointing to that either. There's more convincing data that taking vitamin d helps more IMO. You do realize that the Tim Pool video I posted had nothing to with whether masks work or not, right? He wasn't really for or against masks, he doesn't have a problem with masking or not masking really. He was only pointing out how people were only wearing them to virtue signal by their own admissions. I'm not gonna wear a mask just so people think I'm a democrat, I'm gonna decide to wear a mask or not wear a mask based on how much I think they actually help, I couldn't care less about any other reason besides that.

Also, you don't get covid from surface contacts so washing your hands doesn't really help (again, probably only very marginally if it does help). I knew that not even a month into the pandemic in the US because other countries already did studies on that, I never bought a single thing of sanitizer (or took some when offered for free) because it was rather pointless. Lastly, people already don't cough on people, I don't know anyone that coughs on people, how is a mask helping that when it doesn't happen to begin with? You know what's better than a mask in that situation? Having people stay home when they're sick, which should be a normal fucking thing to begin with.

 

[Phoenixmgs]

Los Angeles County is reinstating the mask mandate because they are afraid of the new "delta Version" of Covid. They are making even vaccinated people to wear masks again as well. Which is more confusion that is going to only push people away from the vaccine.

California is pretty fucking stupid. The CDC just re-announced that vaccinated people indeed don't need to mask.

not so simple if staying home means not being able to make rent

also, it's not always clear when you're contagious.

The whole limited sick time is pretty bullshit. You should be able to safely take off work when sick and still get paid, it should be a federal regulation. I'd bet doing that would lead to less sick days total and actually save companies more money in the long run. The main infection spreader in California seems to be migrant farmers that will for sure get fired if they don't work because they aren't citizens and they also live together in tight quarters too. Same thing with other jobs with tight working quarters like meat processing plants where the place will just fire you and get someone else from a staffing agency to replace you if you call off since the job is very easily trainable and worker experience doesn't really matter.

 

[crimson5pheonix]

I have read it as I've used that source many times. There was 2 total studies in that article for a hospital setting and 1 study (the Canadian) found that masks (non respirator ones) were good, one that masks didn't do anything (the Chinese study who apparently are better at wearing masks than us according to you). The other one about mask use in the home showed that either masking or hand washing didn't help but both together did. I'm guessing that study probably didn't have the best methods though, and it is hard to conduct such a study in the first place. Ideally you'd to set up something like that tries to purposefully infect people with say the flu and you have one group masked and the other maskless and see what happens but you don't really do studies trying to purposefully infect people obviously.

I agree with that trailing sentence, in that this is always going to be a difficult thing to sit down and do a hard clinical trial.

However that's plenty of evidence of masks working, and we know the mechanism by which they work, so I don't see any reason to doubt the efficacy of masks.

Huh? The US has less flu deaths per 100k according to this:

This I may drop. Your link wants to say they pulled the data from the WHO, but following the links I can't find the data myself (possibly because apparently the WHO is revamping their website). I use Statista,

Japan: number of flu deaths | Statista

In 2022, the number of deaths from influenza in Japan decreased to around 24, which marked a slight increase compared to the previous year.

www.statista.com

Taiwan: number of influenza cases 2022 | Statista

This statistic shows the number of confirmed cases of complicated influenza in Taiwan from 2012 to 2022.

www.statista.com

And so on, which show a much much lower rate of infection (and thus deaths), and they're normally good about their sourcing. So there might be some chicanery going on here and until I can figure it out I'll drop it as not enough data.

Again, there's nothing showing masks help much,

Apart from your sources you keep posting :V

maybe they help like 1% or like 5% tops. If they helped at least 10% or better, I think you'd see consistent differences in infection curves between the masked and unmasked areas but you don't.

Apart from whole ass countries V:

The virus is airborne, it makes sense masks don't help too much.

Literally the opposite.

You can see in the Czech Republic

That they did worse than countries that didn't waffle on mask use.

You do realize that the Tim Pool

Is not a reliable source of literally anything and I would question him if he told me the sky was blue. The last time I saw him was a couple days ago trying to say that if someone says "we", they're obviously excluding themselves from "we". And further, I already said I don't care what he thinks about people wearing masks.

Also, you don't get covid from [Redacted to post] so washing your hands doesn't really help (again, probably only very marginally if it does help). I knew that not even a month into the pandemic in the US because other countries already did studies on that, I never bought a single thing of sanitizer (or took some when offered for free) because it was rather pointless. Lastly, people already don't cough on people, I don't know anyone that coughs on people, how is a mask helping that when it doesn't happen to begin with? You know what's better than a mask in that situation? Having people stay home when they're sick, which should be a normal fucking thing to begin with.

People do cough on others, unfortunately. Obviously not craning their neck to cough on them specifically, but failing to cover their mouths and/or turn away when others are close enough to be coughed on. And what a day we live in when people can ignore germ theory.

 

[Phoenixmgs]

I agree with that trailing sentence, in that this is always going to be a difficult thing to sit down and do a hard clinical trial.

However that's plenty of evidence of masks working, and we know the mechanism by which they work, so I don't see any reason to doubt the efficacy of masks.

Where? I'm a data person but I've seen no good or consistent data showing masks do much of anything. I was 100% for masks early on because "better safe than sorry", it makes basic logical sense, and the whole viral load reduction thing also makes logical sense. But where's the consistent data that shows masked places did significantly better than non-masked places in infection and in fatality rates (from lowered initial viral loads). We should have real-world data on this, it's been over a year.

I watched this nearly a year back now and everything said, again, makes logical sense and masks in theory should work. But not everything that "in theory" works actually does end up working.

This I may drop. Your link wants to say they pulled the data from the WHO, but following the links I can't find the data myself (possibly because apparently the WHO is revamping their website). I use Statista,

Japan: number of flu deaths | Statista

In 2022, the number of deaths from influenza in Japan decreased to around 24, which marked a slight increase compared to the previous year.

www.statista.com

Taiwan: number of influenza cases 2022 | Statista

This statistic shows the number of confirmed cases of complicated influenza in Taiwan from 2012 to 2022.

www.statista.com

And so on, which show a much much lower rate of infection (and thus deaths), and they're normally good about their sourcing. So there might be some chicanery going on here and until I can figure it out I'll drop it as not enough data.

I can't see those charts because apparently that's for "premium" Statista users. I just googled "countries with high flu rate" and just looked on the first page of results as people think I cherry-pick everything or "lead" the results, nope. The mask study I found that compares all the US states I found just searching mask study I think and I just filtered by results in the past month since I wanted the newest studies. And on that 1st page is this article that uses this study that says "The highest mortality rates were estimated in sub-Saharan Africa (2·8–16·5 per 100 000 individuals), southeast Asia (3·5–9·2 per 100 000 individuals), and among people aged 75 years or older (51·3–99·4 per 100 000 individuals)."

Apart from your sources you keep posting :V



Apart from whole ass countries V:



Literally the opposite.



That they did worse than countries that didn't waffle on mask use.

There's no consistency in places that masked or didn't mask, there would be more consistency if masks work just like 10% as well you think they work. As linked below, Sweden didn't mask and did better than countries that did mask like the UK, France, Spain, US. In the article, the person left Sweden to go to Portugal because they didn't feel safe about Sweden not masking and Portugal did worse than Sweden.

No-lockdown Sweden broke with most of the world and didn't require face masks. Those who wear them say they're treated with suspicion and abuse.

Sweden never locked down or had a mask mandate. It only recommends people wear them during rush hour on public transport.

www.businessinsider.com

If masks did significantly work against even airborne diseases, then we'd never have trouble with viruses spreading like ever. Why do N95 masks exist if normal surgical/cloth masks work so well? I really don't get how you think masks would be better for an airborne disease than a droplet one. You're exhaling plenty of air that mask doesn't stop just when you breathing normally and you're still inhaling air from all around you as well. Rooms building up with virus for an hour+ of people being in the same room is mainly where the transmissions come from, masks may slow that process slightly but they aren't going to come close to stopping it.

People do cough on others, unfortunately. Obviously not craning their neck to cough on them specifically, but failing to cover their mouths and/or turn away when others are close enough to be coughed on. And what a day we live in when people can ignore germ theory.

I literally don't know anyone that even accidentally coughs on people, it would have to be a really unexpected cough for someone to just cough out in the open without turning their head at least, and that's far from an everyday occurrence. And the main time when people do cough is when they aren't wearing a mask because that's usually when they're eating, that's where like 90% of my coughs (when not sick) come from. I'm assuming the ignore germ theory bit comes from me not using hand sanitizer, yet I haven't been sick in over a year. Different diseases spread differently, covid only very rarely is spread through fomites, that doesn't mean that washing hands doesn't work for other diseases. The main cause of hospital deaths comes directly from doctors going room to room not washing their hands but that's from bacteria infections not airborne viruses.

 

[crimson5pheonix]

Where?

You keep posting evidence of masks working.

I can't see those charts because apparently that's for "premium" Statista users. I just googled "countries with high flu rate" and just looked on the first page of results as people think I cherry-pick everything or "lead" the results, nope. The mask study I found that compares all the US states I found just searching mask study I think and I just filtered by results in the past month since I wanted the newest studies. And on that 1st page is this that uses this that says "The highest mortality rates were estimated in sub-Saharan Africa (2·8–16·5 per 100 000 individuals), southeast Asia (3·5–9·2 per 100 000 individuals), and among people aged 75 years or older (51·3–99·4 per 100 000 individuals)."

Like I said, whenever I look up data I see the opposite, but I don't have big reasons to doubt these studies unlike a lot of the others you post. I see stuff like this though.

CDC reports 338 new severe cases of flu, 15 deaths - Taipei Times

Bringing Taiwan to the World and the World to Taiwan

www.taipeitimes.com

Where they have these much much smaller infection/death rates than when you look in the western world. Whenever I find numbers they're small, but these studies say the opposite, but I can't see their numbers because paywalls or their links are out of date. That's why I'm basically dropping it.

There's no consistency in places that masked or didn't mask, there would be more consistency if masks work just like 10% as well you think they work. As linked below, Sweden didn't mask and did better than countries that did mask like the UK, France, Spain, US. In the article, the person left Sweden to go to Portugal because they didn't feel safe about Sweden not masking and Portugal did worse than Sweden.

And it says not a damn thing about the cultures surrounding it, which is the main issue. I don't care which states had harsher mask mandates when about half the population in every state thinks they're the devil and don't mask up, rules or no. It stops mattering what the rules are when people don't follow them. It's the consistent problem with your whole ass line of reasoning, you've taken a correct statement (mask mandates do not predict coronavirus infection rates) and drawn the wrong conclusion from it (masks must not work).

If masks did significantly work against even airborne diseases, then we'd never have trouble with viruses spreading like ever. Why do N95 masks exist if normal surgical/cloth masks work so well? I really don't get how you think masks would be better for an airborne disease than a droplet one. You're exhaling plenty of air that mask doesn't stop just when you breathing normally and you're still inhaling air from all around you as well. Rooms building up with virus for an hour+ of people being in the same room is mainly where the transmissions come from, masks may slow that process slightly but they aren't going to come close to stopping it.

Because the two different masks do two different things and have different effects on how diseases transmit. Something you've been told endlessly but you refuse to acknowledge as you seem to be programmed to be as dense as possible about this stuff.

I literally don't know anyone that even accidentally coughs on people, it would have to be a really unexpected cough for someone to just cough out in the open without turning their head at least, and that's far from an everyday occurrence. And the main time when people do cough is when they aren't wearing a mask because that's usually when they're eating, that's where like 90% of my coughs (when not sick) come from. I'm assuming the ignore germ theory bit comes from me not using hand sanitizer, yet I haven't been sick in over a year. Different diseases spread differently, covid only very rarely is spread through fomites, that doesn't mean that washing hands doesn't work for other diseases. The main cause of hospital deaths comes directly from doctors going room to room not washing their hands but that's from bacteria infections not airborne viruses.

I wish I lived such a life, but being out in public I can say at least here, they do cough on others. Rude people. But that's why people are asked to wear masks.

 

[Kwak]

Where? I'm a data person but I've seen no good or consistent data showing masks do much of anything.

To mask or not to mask: Modeling the potential for face mask use by the general public to curtail the COVID-19 pandemic

Face mask use by the general public for limiting the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic is controversial, though increasingly recommended, and the potent…

www.sciencedirect.com

An evidence review of face masks against COVID-19

The science around the use of masks by the public to impede COVID-19 transmission is advancing rapidly. In this narrative review, we develop an analytical framework to examine mask usage, synthesizing the relevant literature to inform multiple areas: population impact, transmission...

www.pnas.org

Conclusion
Our review of the literature offers evidence in favor of widespread mask use as source control to reduce community transmission: Nonmedical masks use materials that obstruct particles of the necessary size; people are most infectious in the initial period postinfection, where it is common to have few or no symptoms (45, 46, 141); nonmedical masks have been effective in reducing transmission of respiratory viruses; and places and time periods where mask usage is required or widespread have shown substantially lower community transmission.

The available evidence suggests that near-universal adoption of nonmedical masks when out in public, in combination with complementary public health measures, could successfully reduce Re to below 1, thereby reducing community spread if such measures are sustained. Economic analysis suggests that mask wearing mandates could add 1 trillion dollars to the US GDP (32, 34).

 

[Phoenixmgs]

You keep posting evidence of masks working.

When and where?

Like I said, whenever I look up data I see the opposite, but I don't have big reasons to doubt these studies unlike a lot of the others you post. I see stuff like this though.

CDC reports 338 new severe cases of flu, 15 deaths - Taipei Times

Bringing Taiwan to the World and the World to Taiwan

www.taipeitimes.com

Where they have these much much smaller infection/death rates than when you look in the western world. Whenever I find numbers they're small, but these studies say the opposite, but I can't see their numbers because paywalls or their links are out of date. That's why I'm basically dropping it.

That article is constantly comparing apples and oranges like severe cases in Taiwan to flu cases in the US where people sought medical attention. That could be two completely different categorizations. Plus, Taiwan has less than a tenth the population of the US so US numbers will look way higher until you do per capita. I'm not seeing anything showing that any Asian countries have "solved" the flu basically.

And it says not a damn thing about the cultures surrounding it, which is the main issue. I don't care which states had harsher mask mandates when about half the population in every state thinks they're the devil and don't mask up, rules or no. It stops mattering what the rules are when people don't follow them. It's the consistent problem with your whole ass line of reasoning, you've taken a correct statement (mask mandates do not predict coronavirus infection rates) and drawn the wrong conclusion from it (masks must not work).

The study I linked to about all the states also used survey data and not just went based off mask mandates. I travel for work a lot (in Indiana at least) and everywhere including Lake County (probably the bluest county in Indiana as it's part of "Chicago-land"), Lafayette (college city, Purdue), and Indianapolis (another blue county) all wore masks with well over 90% of the population wearing them in public. The only place I saw people not wearing much masks, probably 50/50, was in Crawfordsville Indiana (a pretty small town in a red county) and that was in the middle of the fall/holiday spike too.

Here's the blue/red counties in Indiana

Live election results: 2020 Indiana results

Live 2020 Indiana election results and maps by country and district. POLITICO's coverage of 2020 races for President, Senate, House, Governors and Key Ballot Measures.

www.politico.com

Here's the covid positivity rate last November (fall spike)

Indiana reports highest number of COVID-19 cases in a day ever at 5,156

Indiana continues to shatter records as the COVID-19 pandemic rages on.

wpta21.com

Does the positivity rate look much different in the blue counties vs the red counties? And, like I said, everyone masked in public spaces in the blue counties (outside of restaurants because you can't eat/drink with a mask on) because I was in 3 of the 5 blue counties for work. If you wanna argue that the red places that people don't give a shit about masks are "ruining" the overall numbers, that's not the case.

Because the two different masks do two different things and have different effects on how diseases transmit. Something you've been told endlessly but you refuse to acknowledge as you seem to be programmed to be as dense as possible about this stuff.

Yeah, N95s are for airborne particles, that's what I alluded to by saying if normal masks help so much against infection, then why are there N95 masks? CDC says N95s are what you use for airborne disease. It's sadly the main reason why I think official agencies didn't want to say covid was airborne because that would mean healthcare workers needed N95s for the PPE requirement. I work at hospitals so I know what the precautions are because they're posted on all applicable patient rooms.

Transmission-Based Precautions | Basics | Infection Control | CDC”

Transmission-Based Precautions are the second tier of basic infection control and are to be used in addition to Standard Precautions for patients who may be infected or colonized with certain infectious agents for which additional precautions are needed to prevent infection transmission.

www.cdc.gov

 

[Phoenixmgs]

To mask or not to mask: Modeling the potential for face mask use by the general public to curtail the COVID-19 pandemic

Face mask use by the general public for limiting the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic is controversial, though increasingly recommended, and the potent…

www.sciencedirect.com

An evidence review of face masks against COVID-19

The science around the use of masks by the public to impede COVID-19 transmission is advancing rapidly. In this narrative review, we develop an analytical framework to examine mask usage, synthesizing the relevant literature to inform multiple areas: population impact, transmission...

www.pnas.org

Conclusion
Our review of the literature offers evidence in favor of widespread mask use as source control to reduce community transmission: Nonmedical masks use materials that obstruct particles of the necessary size; people are most infectious in the initial period postinfection, where it is common to have few or no symptoms (45, 46, 141); nonmedical masks have been effective in reducing transmission of respiratory viruses; and places and time periods where mask usage is required or widespread have shown substantially lower community transmission.

The available evidence suggests that near-universal adoption of nonmedical masks when out in public, in combination with complementary public health measures, could successfully reduce Re to below 1, thereby reducing community spread if such measures are sustained. Economic analysis suggests that mask wearing mandates could add 1 trillion dollars to the US GDP (32, 34).

The 1st article is just pie-in-the-sky numbers based on masks being 50% effective or 20% effective. Prove that effectiveness percentage, which the study isn't about doing because it was April of last year, we had like no numbers yet.

The 2nd article states this in its conclusion: The available evidence suggests that near-universal adoption of nonmedical masks when out in public, in combination with complementary public health measures, could successfully reduce Re to below 1, thereby reducing community spread if such measures are sustained.

What country was able to lower its RE below 1 where the virus was dug in and widespread? And this is with countries masking along with a host of other public health measures in place, how did the virus spike so much in the fall/winter if masking plus other measures can reduce the RE to under 1? I'm not in the UK but it seems to me from what I read, the UK was far more restrictive than the US and still had the same spike the US had.