[timr]

> what is the risk of wearing a mask? that you look silly?

Fortunately, "lack of silliness" is not the standard of evidence for a medical intervention.

There are a great many things that we might impose on others that might have some impact. There are, in fact, an infinite number of these things.

Your desire to do these things "just in case" does not justify their imposition on other people. But more importantly: we've had a long time to study this intervention now. Perhaps it's time to gather some actual evidence that it works?

After all, it's not just the question of whether or not I want to do it -- it's the question of whether or not huge number of people are convinced that they're protecting themselves, and somehow behaving differently out of a misguided sense of protection. That matters quite a bit.

> It's rational compassion for me.

No, without evidence, it's just a guess.

[kgarten]

Wearing a mask is a medical intervention for you??

wearing a mask is not about protecting you, it's protecting other people. If you don't value other people's lives, don't wear one it won't help you personally.

Ok ... so where is the evidence that they don't work?

Current scientific consensus is on my side of the debate:

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41591-020-0843-2 https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-02801-8

If you know better, do the experiments and the analysis, get it peer-reviewed and we can talk again.

If you are ok with the consequences that you might kill people, don't wear a mask. Fine with me. Just don't tell anybody afterwards that you didn't know and that it was just a guess.

i feel this discussion as tedious as the discussion about vaccinations: https://twitter.com/nathanTbernard/status/142511666690879488...

People are no mannequins ... people die.

[timr]

> Ok ... so where is the evidence that they don't work?

I provided you with the link to the WHO meta-analysis of all research literature surrounding masks prior to the pandemic. Here it is again:

https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6...

This covers 172 publications on masks and disease leading up to the pandemic. It is far more comprehensive than any particular paper or editorial you cherry-pick to support your arguments.

The best you can possibly say is that there is poor evidence supporting a small marginal effect. And that's if you combine all of the data in an illogical way and ignore that cloth masks and respirators are not the same, and that n95 masks in hospitals are not at all the same as bandanas in the subway. If you limit the argument to the question of non-respirator masks outside hospitals, there's no supporting evidence at all.

Spamming the comments with links to the same two papers from 2020 -- neither of which are good (see my other response) -- is not a rebuttal. The only high-quality paper on masks in 2020 was the Danish mask study, which was a well-controlled, high-quality RCT, and failed to find evidence for a protective effect:

https://www.acpjournals.org/doi/10.7326/M20-6817

Despite exasperating claims to the contrary, it is unlikely to be true that masks are magical one-way valves, with protective effect in one direction but not the other -- particularly if the virus is spread by aerosols, which are not blocked by poorly fitting masks.

[kgarten]

Your lancet study with 172 publications comes to this conclusion:

"These data also suggest that wearing face masks protects people (both health-care workers and the general public) against infection by these coronaviruses."

Again, were is evidence that they don't work?

For example if cloth masks would not block around 40% in contorlled experiments: https://journals.asm.org/doi/10.1128/mSphere.00637-20

Masks are not the magic one thing. Yet, it's one of the measures that helps. Don't put too much trust in masks, add social distancing and other preventive measures.

Yet, I don't see what the rational behind "they don't work" is. They lower the risk of getting infected and more important to infect others (anything in front of your mouth will do as it stops droplets ... basic physics. how much it does it that's debatable.

If I have a very wet speaking language, and am infected with COVID. You tell me I'm infecting the same amount of people if I wear a mask as if I would not wear one? (given the rest is the same??). Sorry, my understanding of physics does not agree with you. Not even going for virology or other topics.

Do you have a novel particle model we can use that explains your assumptions? You should test it in a lab.

[kgarten]

here's a newer paper:

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-021-24115-7

(no evidence ... just guesses ... just nature level publication guesses ... probably all wrong)

[kgarten]

"So don't understand why actual reality contradicts this paper."

This is similar as saying ... It had the biggest blizzard last winter in Texas, that's why Global Warming is a hoax.

Where is this paper wrong? Maybe you spotted something that the peer reviewers didn't.

Also you should submit your "scientific" observations of Texas ... because it's real reality (not science ... who needs the scientific method, when we have your observations).

[nickthemagicman]

Hundreds of labs recording tests across the state and reporting the data to the CDC.

Vs

Telephone call in reporting from the paper you linked.

Which one is more scientifically reliable I wonder?

[kgarten]

Didn't know the labs recorded if a person was wearing masks .. If they didn't the second is more reliable :)

Basic science if you dont measure something (e.g. how many people wear masks) you don't know anything. Fairly simple isn't it?

lol ... scientists are all wrong, because my gut tells me I'm right. That's not how it works. If you have studies that masks don't work (or are harmful) similar to the 3 linked on top .. There's also the lancet study and another nature study showing that masks reduce infection risks. Then please show me ... Yet don't come with anecdotes ( I know what happened in Texas .. Lol I know what happens in Hong Kong and Taiwan .. People just laugh about the US here :))

[nickthemagicman]

To address several of your points:

> Basic science if you don't measure something (e.g. how many people wear masks) you don't know anything. Fairly simple isn't it?

So phone call in's are measuring...phone call ins, it measures neither covid tests nor mask usage? Seems like it's measuring even less?

> scientists are all wrong, because my gut tells me I'm right

I think the pro-mask people are listening to their gut more than anyone. I've never seen a more fanatical group who don't question their assumptions.

Here's just a few studies that contradict the narrative that masks are effective.

The effectiveness of masks in a community setting is not a settled fact.

Especially the CDC's policy of 'wear a dirty rag on your face until the waiter brings the breadsticks'.

https://swprs.org/face-masks-evidence/

https://bmjopen.bmj.com/content/5/4/e006577

[kgarten]

now we are getting somewhere... away from personal insults (and ad hominem attacks).

Honestly, if you show me proof about your position, I easily flip. that's the point of science, I'm happy to be proven wrong. That's what I like about HackerNews as well.

Yet, what you showed so far makes me rather worry.

I used nature papers from medicine (these are super hard to publish ... I have friends who tried. You need to be rigorous and on the top of your field in research. don't get me wrong there are issues with peer-review and publishing but they are nothing compared to the sources you currently shared).

Ok let's look at your papers. The first is not a paper, not even peer reviewed. It's a blog that is known to post factually wrong articles: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swiss_Policy_Research There is not even an author on the website. Wikipedia lists founders and authors unkown. The focus is also politics not medicine (seems no medical expert has ever looked at this). The wikipedia article has even lists were they debunk the claims of the article you posted.

Moving on to the bmjopen article. Yes, this is peer reviewed, in an open access journal. Compared to nature, I think I could be able to write an article that is published there ( Impact factor 3 compared to nature with over 14).

Still it's peer-reviewed and not blog propaganda from some unknown author. First of all, the paper does not say anything about the overall effectivness of masks.

They compare cloth masks with medical masks in healthcare workers. That matters. Also of course, here (and in Hong Kong) everybody wears surgical masks (and a lot of people wear cloth mask on top), so 2 masks. Makes sense doesn't it.

Again where is some scientific evidence that masks don't work? There is no evidence. The Texas example you bring up is an anecdote. I can bring an anecdote on how better HK, Taiwan and China dealt with the issue all of the people wearing masks and then where are we? We have no clue who is right. Then take in the advice of the majority of medical healthcare professionals (they advice to wear masks).

The expert in COVID-19, who made a test detecting it recommends wearing masks. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_Drosten

The people who are against masks just don't have that standing, they usually are not experts in virology (have never published scientifically), and don't seem to understand the difference between anecdotes and the scientific methods. You might find some that are not in there and I'm careful to listen and check their claims ... because I want to be proven wrong (This is how I learn, this is why I engage in discussion ... I want to see where I am wrong.). Your argumentation is unfortunately completely lagging.

[DrJones1098]

The entire state of Texas lifted all Covid restrictions around March? Had only 16% vaccination rates and had record low levels of Covid infections for 6 months up until recently with apparently the Delta variant.

So don't understand why actual reality contradicts this paper.

If you tell me that millions of Texans followed social distancing rules on their own without a citation, it will be humorous.

[kgarten]

About Texas: https://www.texastribune.org/2021/08/12/texas-coronavirus-gr...

Check the graph about mask mandates ... Hoping the best for Texas, yet this looks bad.