[jtc331]

I believe that is what pre-COVID masking in hospital settings has shown, yes. Possibly COVID is different from the flu.

But the difficulty for proving masking helps is: 1. If it only takes ~20 virions to get infected, then masking has to have a basically perfect filtering rate and be worn perfectly 100% of the time, neither of which is obvious. 2. With an endemic virus even if masks slow down spread they aren't going to reduce your likelihood of being infected overall.

[timcederman]

https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/71/wr/mm7106e1.htm

> Consistent use of a face mask or respirator in indoor public settings was associated with lower odds of a positive SARS-CoV-2 test result (adjusted odds ratio = 0.44). Use of respirators with higher filtration capacity was associated with the most protection, compared with no mask use.

I'll take a reduced risk, even if it's not perfect. Would you prefer to get covid one time, or five times? It's like arguing "why bother wearing a seatbelt, when it doesn't prevent injuries in accidents?"

Also, are you suggesting masking does not help with preventing influenza infection?

[zo1]

How did they account for people "doing something different" when wearing a mask? I.e. did they do a double-blind experiment where people wore masks that had intentional holes in them? So we can know that wearing a mask is the thing to do vs whatever it is that wearing a mask caused that person to do. I guess I'm asking or saying that this might have been some sort of "correlation is not causation" kind of thing?

[timcederman]

I get that for whatever reason folks like yourself don't want to believe it, but trust me, masks work. Just ask anyone who works in asbestos abatement or BSL-2+ facilities.