[fragmede]

Here's a link to a real actual science study that used tuberculosis-sized particles and found filtration efficiencies of 99.5% or higher by N95 masks. Which isn't minor. It's been over a year. If you're not using an N95, you're doing yourself and those around you a disservice.

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/9487666/

[timr]

That's nice, but filtration efficiency =/= real-world efficiency. Unless you plan on super-glueing mask fabric to everyone's face holes, of course.

Also, last time I checked, most people aren't wearing N95 masks. Probably because they're annoying and difficult to wear.

> Which isn't minor. It's been over a year. If you're not using an N95, you're doing yourself and those around you a disservice.

I am vaccinated. Which brings up an important point: there is absolutely no evidence that a mask of any sort provides any benefit to those around me, a vaccinated person.

At some point, you have to put up evidence for your increasingly implausible claims -- you can't just keep leaning on lab studies of filtration efficiency. It's been two years now. Where is the real-world data backing your claims?

[Terretta]

Feels like you’re slinging a lot of assertions without substantive evidence, seemingly asking people to “Google that for you”.

Among other things, vaccinated persons can and do contract, carry, and spread, during which a decent* mask does do its thing.

And who doesn’t wear an N95 class mask? I see about 2/3rds N95, KN95, or KF94s, 1/3 useless masks, appearing to be mostly correlated along economic lines ($2/masks vs. $0.50/masks).

PS. This is bigger than “fractions of a percent”:

https://jdrampage.org/real-world-covid-mask-trial-proves-mas...

* This shows lame mask are lame:

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32512240/

Put those two concepts together, you get humdinger models suggesting:

“… if only around half of the population opted to wear respirator-type masks from the beginning of the pandemic, COVID-19 would have failed to establish in the United States.”

https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rsos.210699

(Would have needed closer to 2/3 with those sneeze guard ’surgical’ masks.)

[Wowfunhappy]

> And who doesn’t wear an N95 class mask? I see about 2/3rds N95, KN95, or KF94s, 1/3 useless masks, appearing to be mostly correlated along economic lines ($2/masks vs. $0.50/masks).

I can't comment on the rest of the science, but fwiw, I live in NYC and I'd estimate that maybe 1 / 20 people I see on the street are wearing N95/KN95/KF94 masks. Everyone else just wears cloth masks, or paper surgical masks.

[Terretta]

Sorry, yes, you’re right, it follows that there would be areas with 1/20 as you describe.

[Wowfunhappy]

I mean, I’m talking everywhere I go, throughout Manhattan and northern Brooklyn (haven’t been to the other burrows in a long time). Lots of very affluent areas.

[nradov]

None of that is relevant. The virus is now endemic so everyone will eventually be exposed regardless of whether they wear masks in some situations.

https://www.medpagetoday.com/opinion/vinay-prasad/94646

[Terretta]

It’s relevant to the point that was begin discussed.

TBC, I’d agree that your point, that of the article you shared, is valid. But it doesn’t pertain to the claims of inefficacy of masks outside a lab.

[timr]

> PS. This is bigger than “fractions of a percent”:

No, it isn't. If you'd bothered to read the content of the link I posted in the comment to which you're replying, you'd see that it's about the same paper.

That paper is mentioned numerous times in the thread you're commenting on, I've linked to it, as have others, and I've cited the absolute effect size: 0.09%.

The paper showed that there was an 11% drop on a baseline infection rate of 0.79%, in a fully unvaccinated population with very little natural immunity. It is the absolute best possible argument for masks, and it showed that cloth masks had no detectible effect, and that surgical masks had an effect size measured in tiny fractions of a percent.

[blagie]

1) There are a lot of comfortable masks which have high filtration. They're used widely in Asia. It's no >99%, but it is >90% when used reasonably. If both sides use them, that brings viral loads down by >99%, though.

2) You're right that Americans are idiots who mostly can't tell the difference between a piece of cloth, which reduces viral loads marginally, and a proper mask.

3) Vaccinations have minimal impact on spread for extended in-door socialization (~30% reduction in odds of spread at this point). They do pretty well for reducing risk to you (e.g. death or hospitalization), and they seem to do pretty well for avoiding casual spread (e.g. passing someone on the street).

[stjohnswarts]

You seem to be getting downvoted for no reason. Lot of angry people out there.

[nradov]

And so what are you suggesting? Everyone wear N95 masks all the time forever?

[NikolaNovak]

It's tricky.

- fwiw, I personally plan to wear n95 mask outside of home in enclosed public spaces for the foreseeable future, and for things like shopping etc (where I'm exposed to strangers) basically indefinitely / as long as social norms and laws will allow.

- I would like for strangers around me to wear masks. There's too much uncertainty and I don't know how to quantify and otherwise address risk from stranger e.g. In waiting / cashier line, or worse yet elevator (enforced enclosed proximity). I really see no good reason to be in an elevator with unmasked stranger.

- how long and where do we legally mandate masks? Whooeee, I'm glad I don't have to make that awful formal call! :-)

But yeah. If risk is forever, than at least some of us will use ways to mitigate the risk forever in turn. It's not binary, it's a sliding scale that's very individual. so... Yeah. Welcome to the new world! Cyberpunk dystopia future is here! :-)

[timr]

> There's too much uncertainty and I don't know how to quantify and otherwise address risk from stranger

You know what would help with this? A randomized controlled trial. This isn't tricky at all, except that we can't do the science because it has become political, because people insist that they know the answer already! And if the study shows what they don't want to see, then they censor it, bury it, downvote it into oblivion, or...write missives about how they're going to ignore it.

Also, are you vaccinated? Yes? Then the answer is almost certainly no risk at all. This much we know from ~all of the data regarding vaccines and serious illness, worldwide.

[NikolaNovak]

>>"Also, are you vaccinated? Yes? Then the answer is almost certainly no risk at all"

That is not my lay person interpretation of the currently best available data.

A vaccinated person can get infected, can get seriously ill, and can spread out to others more vulnerable. It helps, drastically, and I sure as heck got mine, but my understanding is that it does not confer individual invulnerability.

[timr]

> A vaccinated person can get infected, can get seriously ill, and can spread out to others more vulnerable.

I can get hit by a car when I walk down the street, but I've been doing it my entire life and I'm still here. I can die in a horrible plane crash when I fly, but I still do it. I can have a heart attack when I go to the gym, but it's still a net positive for my life.

Do you have a grasp on the actual risks involved here? You do realize that, even unvaccinated, unless you're elderly or obese or severely immunocompromised, the risk from this virus is measured in fractions of a percent, right? And if you've had even a single dose of an approved vaccine, you can take that number and divide it by 10?

At some point, you have to let the terror go.

> my understanding is that it does not confer individual invulnerability.

Who promised you invulnerability?

[NikolaNovak]

I think we agree on a base point of personal risk assessment. With that in mind, some people jaywalk, some take extra minute to get to a crossing. Some run across, some double check both sides. Some wear black pants and leather jacket at night, some have reflective strips. And it's all good. We share the old adage that "whoever drives faster than me is a maniac whoever drives slower is an idiot" - but most of us understand when pressed that different people have different risk acceptance in their life and that's ok.

The Thing that makes covid tricky is which actions am I making for myself vs others. Safety belt and helmet are largely for myself (but still enforced in many places due to agreed societal cost that goes beyond Individual). Mask, we don't have common universal agreement to yet. (this is not to say I don't have am opinion on it, but I understand looking around that while mainstream it's not universal).

So while I think we have agreement in framework, we may disagree on personal implementation. Mostly, I don't know that I agree with "at some point you have to let terror go". This ain't over yet, may never be over, so some mitigation steps may never be over, is the sobering world to raise offspring Into. Alberta took foot off the brake for just a little while and next thing they were begging other provinces for ICU spots. And there's a whole conplicated interlocked system of individual causes and effects rather than some simple binary rule that have rise to that reality.

[mrexroad]

When you cross a busy street, do you use crosswalks and obey the cross/don’t cross signal?

[NikolaNovak]

replying to "Gladinovax":

>>"I'm doing great without one. No need to worry about longterm risks from a rushed vaccine. 1 year does not equal 10. Ever."

There are categories of knowledge where I'm profoundly uninterested in any individual's experience (best friend or stranger on the internet alike:). Simply put - a person surviving Russian Roulette does not make playing Russian Roulette a good idea, no matter how convinced they are and loudly proclaimed that it worked out great for them :).

I do not know your situation - maybe you've gone hermit; maybe you're in an area of low risk; maybe you're being careful; maybe you're the one asshole around and everybody else is vaccinated/wearing mask/implementing lockdown while you're taking credit for not getting your sorry ass sick; or (most likely but I have no way of judging), you're just lucky - see the Russian roulette above.

But in risk evaluation of this sort, again, I'm far far more interested in verifiable statistics than individual's lived experience.Don't get me wrong - we can have a nice round of drinks and talk about how last year's been to us and approaches we've taken and it'll be interesting and we can share; but it's not a policy-guiding thing.

[PaulDavisThe1st]

> Also, are you vaccinated? Yes? Then the answer is almost certainly no risk at all.

As of the week before last, 28% of all hospitalizations in my state (NM) related to COVID19 involved fully vaccinated people.

[headmelted]

Isn’t this statistic in itself a little misleading though? Given that so many people are vaccinated now, the proportion of hospitalizations would be expected to trend higher in that group as the pool of unvaccinated people is shrinking at the same time.

Also, the eldest people (largely those most at risk of hospitalisation) are substantially more likely to have been vaccinated already, no?

[PaulDavisThe1st]

In the context of the claim that, once vaccinated, you are in "no risk at all" for symptomatic COVID19, I don't think it's misleading: significant numbers of fully vaccinated individuals can and do become sick with the disease. Ergo, even when fully vaccinated, you still face some risk.

None of this is an argument against vaccination, of course.

[vishho]

We cannot do the science, because such a randomized test would be deeply unethical. Compare to having pregnant women smoke cigarettes to study effect on the fetus. You do this only afterwards with observational data.

Next to politization there is also public health, which is more of a management science than an emperical science. And economic concerns.

From all the data worldwide, you only reduce risk of hospitalization and death, not for spreading to your grandmother or catching it from a bypasser sneezing in your face. To act like there is no risk for the leaky vaccinated, is to actually increase your risk. Data shows that asymptomatic breakthrough infections are able to cause long-COVID. Now you did not even feel sick and gave your body and immune system rest to clear the virus. Very risky!

[timr]

> We cannot do the science, because such a randomized test would be deeply unethical.

Thank you for perfectly illustrating the problem. I was actually sort of worried that people wouldn't take me seriously when I said that science has become so political that we actually can't do any. It sounds conspiratorial, doesn't it? But, alas:

1) I post results of RCTs showing that masks do little, if anything.

2) Someone replies that the evidence is insufficient for reasons X, Y, Z.

3) I say "great, let's gather more evidence to resolve those uncertainties".

4) Someone replies "we can't, it's unethical".

Quite a fine castle you've built on that cloud, good sir. Very safe indeed.

[Terretta]

And yet, it’s been done:

In a First, Randomized Study Shows That Masks Reduce COVID-19 Infections

A large study co-authored by Yale SOM’s Jason Abaluck and Mushfiq Mobarak tested the effectiveness of a mask-promotion program in Bangladesh in increasing mask use and preventing symptomatic infections. The study found that masks significantly lower symptomatic infections, especially among older people and when surgical masks [instead of cloth] are used.

https://insights.som.yale.edu/insights/in-first-randomized-s...

[cthalupa]

It isn't a political issue to not do studies that require doing things that actively and intentionally put people at things we know are highly likely to put them at risk of physical harm. The world decided this was unethical long before the current political climate.

[cedilla]

It is unethical. All your accusations of narrow-mindedness, but you can't see the obvious, glaring ethical problems with such a trial.

Not the least because it would be completely infeasible. You may pretend that we can "simply" do a "controlled experiment" but you ignore how impossible it is to tell any sizeable group of people to behave in a certain way and report honestly about it.

"Randomised control trials" are the platonic ideal but in the real world, you can't endanger people for your curiosity, and you will have greatest problems to actually enforce your test protocol. It's more than "tricky". Unless you have access to some spherical people in a vacuum.

[collaborative]

You actually want to be exposed to the virus (after vaccination) during the summer and if possible as often as possible after a successful exposure. It's the only way forward. You can't lock it out forever, and you need to play catch up with it as it evolves or by the time you get it your immune system won't know what to do with it

[feanaro]

Forever? Why would we need to do it forever when we don't do it for any other virus?

[codezero]

Probably because we should have been, and now some of us have learned. It’s been a pleasure going two years without any upper respiratory illnesses for me. I look forward to being steadfast in that since it’s really not that hard to wear a mask, and it’s not hurting anyone else when I do so.

[feanaro]

It's nice not to have upper respiratory illnesses, but I'm not going to be wearing masks forever because of that, especially since it's not clear cut that not ever getting illnesses is a good idea. (Especially since you're bound to get infected at some point. Might as well exercise the immune system a bit.)

Now, I look forward to it being more socially acceptable to wear masks when you have an infection.

[ktkoffroth]

What happens when you eventually do catch an upper respiratory disease, and your immune system is no longer used to the challenges it presents?

[codezero]

Are you suggesting that one’s immune system becomes stronger after year over year infection? If so, to what end? Every year? Even when I’m 80? When does my system break down. Isolation seems to solve all of these issues and I hate people so isolation is easy.

[feanaro]

> Isolation seems to solve all of these issues and I hate people so isolation is easy.

Ah, so this is the real reason. That's fine, but it's also not really applicable to the wider population and hence isn't about what I originally asked -- which is why we would universally continuing wearing masks forever.

The answer is we wouldn't, because that makes no sense.

[codezero]

I take advantage of every medical technology available to me. Duh.

[spookthesunset]

There is no end game to masking. It will be in perpetuity in some places.

[bavell]

I've never seen anyone in public with an N95 mask since the pandemic started but I've seen plenty of cloth masks, bandanas and those cheap hospital masks.

[Aulig]

Interesting, in Germany, especially Bavaria, the restrictions have switched to require FFP2 (equivalent to N95 afaik) since quite a while.

[stjohnswarts]

America loves its theater. We have a whole department of government dedicated to security theater, the TSA

[Robotbeat]

How can you not have seen any? I see the KN95 type masks all over the place in public and it’s the only kind I use any more, even for my kids.

I live in Virginia, FWIW.

[planetsprite]

I don't disagree with you on the effectiveness of masks but tuberculosis bacterial cells are far larger than coronavirons.

[tenuousemphasis]

Coronavirus itself isn't airborne, it travels in aerosolized water droplets, which are significantly larger than coronavirus itself.

[wrycoder]

But which are in the airbourne size range.