[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.