[gibba999]

No... early social distancing would have dramatically reduced R0. It's exponential growth. Fewer infections => fewer mutations.

Proper masks (electrostatic or nano layer) are widely available, and they all but stop the original COVID. They cost a buck. The nano ones can be reused several times. Providing those prior to vaccines would have been cheap and effective.

Masks + vaccines + modest social distancing would have stopped it then. They would have been to rush to get vaccines to everyone, and to prioritize by exposures (e.g. service workers before WFH employees).

Plus, look at China. If we all did what China did, we'd be done.

[hackflip]

You can only do what China does with an authoritarian government. And I'll take a virus over that any day of the week.

[shock-value]

> and they all but stop the original COVID

Would love a citation on that. I think masks definitely help reduce transmission but they are hardly a magic bullet.

Anyway we can reduce R0 to zero in the short term and it wouldn't matter to my thesis. COVID circulates in animals so as soon as we would take our foot off of the brakes it would again start spreading in an unbounded fashion. And the world can't undergo a complete global lockdown while we wait years for vaccine availability. It's just impossible from any point of view: political, economic, social, etc.

[gibba999]

The best source I've seen are the tracing studies in China. Police state meant China could follow exact paths -- from camera footage -- of who caught COVID from whom. If both sides wore surgical masks (imperfect fit, but electrostatic layer), there was almost never any spread.

Singapore hospitals were good case studies too. Hundreds of COVID19 exposures early in the pandemic, with virtually no spread.

You can do web searches for both.

Million dollar question is how this impacts delta. Delta has higher viral loads, and it's perfectly possible filtering 95% of delta will still result in more virus than the original, unmasked. Things also get more complex with both sides filtering; naive math would place filtration at 99.75% effective, but I don't believe naive math in this case beyond saying "a lot more effective."

[Exmoor]

I wish I could find the study, but back in December there was a study indicating that frontline medical workers working directly with COVID patients every day and wearing N95 masks were more likely to have been infected by social contact outside of work then at work. I remember the day because it's when I went and bought KN95 masks.

[cameldrv]

The simple fact is that unmasked, the mean amount of time you can spend face to face with an infected person (with pre-Delta COVID) before you get infected yourself is maybe an hour or two.

Many, many doctors and nurses were caring for COVID patients every day for 9 months before they were able to be vaccinated. Many spent hundreds-thousands of hours in contact with COVID patients and didn't get sick.

This is extremely strong evidence that N95s work.