Airborne simulation experiments conducted under controled lab conditions showed that cotton masks, surgical masks, and N95 masks provide some protection from the transmission of infective
SARS-CoV-2 aerosols. To my knowledge, these experiments were conducted as early as June 2020 in Tokyo, but probably other labs did it too. However, masks could not *completely* block the transmission of virus droplets/aerosols even when sealed.
Nevertheless, like almost everything in a pandemic, we are talking probabilities here. If you wear a mask properly, the probability of transmission decreases - makes sense, and has been lab confirmed. That translates into millions of transmission opportunities missed. At a point, the goal was not to stop virus transmission anymore, but rather delay it enough to avoid flooding medical units.
I agree with you that masks probably reduce the probability of coming in contact with a virus. It's very hard to give this probability a number, but I assume it's very low since the best designef studies show little to no illness reduction. Everything is a risk benefit calculation. Any tiny benefit of masking needs to be weighed against its risks; masks interfere with O2 CO2 balance, they interfere with what the immune system is attempting to get rid of via exhaling, they interfere with social contact, and they may increase a community's perceived threat that is above actual threat.
If there ever been any signs that masks reduce communicable disease, healthcare workers would have been wearing them since they are around the most vulnerable people. Healthcare workers have never worn masks routinely, and they should not start now.
It was clear from the beginning that a vast majority of healthy immune systems handle this illness easily without severe symptoms. There were no signs that a vast majority of hospitals were overwhelmed at any time.
It is very difficult indeed to quantify such probabilities, but mostly because of human behaviour, not masks themselves. We all know how undisciplined is the way people wear masks. If it can be lab-verified that an N95 blocks 95%, that should settle the non-human component as a very high blocking probability, prompting us to recommend appropriate use of masks. From an individual point of view, a self-aware mask user should lower his/her probability of contagion by a great deal.
There’s another key point. Getting infected and symptomatic depends on many factors, an important one being dose inhaled. As someone once put it, ‘there are no poisons, there are only doses’. If dose is very high, I doubt that we can avoid viremia and mild symptoms at best, no matter how good our humoral defences are. Masks should help lower the dose.
So in spite of how plagued with uncertainty is the risk-benefit calculation, I think it is clearly balanced in favour of intelligent mask wearing, by intelligent meaning to wear it when in hill-aired crowded environments.
Regarding healthcare workers, mask wearing has long been recommended or mandatory in selected contexts, like infectious diseases wards, around premature newborns, and of course when surgery procedures are taking place.
There were too many instances when hospitals were overcrowded in western Europe. Recall northern Italy and the region of Madrid in 2020, and Portugal in January 2021. Ventilators were just not enough to cope, and doctors were to pick whose lives were to save. The most eerie situations one can imagine. Hospital beds were pilling along the corridors and people were left dying inside ambulances for lack of room inside the hospital. It really bothers me revisionism of those sinister days.
I disagree that the weight is in favor of "intelligent mask wearing". The weight is not in favor because the vast majority of mask studies show little to no benefit that masks reduce symptomatic illness. It's a nice theory that reducing the probability of contacting a virus is the most important variable to reducing illness, but it has simply not shown to be true in the vast majority of masking studies.
Biological systems don't work like a computer model, and your argument treats our biological systems (the human body and the biological Earth) like a hard science. They are not, these are complex biological systems that we actually know little about. The strength of our immune system relies on our contact with the biological environment around us,, as well as our overall physical and psychological health and our nutritional intake. So "intelligently" reducing our contact with the biological material we breathe, inhaling the synthetic material of the masks, microbial buildup on the mask that we can re inhale, interference with our oxygen level, the psychological effects of masking, the strength of our immune system and our overall physical and psychological health all play a role in our ability to manage the biological material in our environment that could make us ill.. Masking studies have shown no short-term benefit, and we don't know the long-term repercussions of wearing masks for years, and how that could degrade the immune system and a person's overall health.
People's behavior is also not robotic or computer like. Masking has rightly been studied amidst normal human behavior. I worked as a physical therapist in all kinds of healthcare settings and 99.9% of healthcare workers have never worn masks. Not even on the AIDS wards that I worked on in San Francisco amongst immunocompromised patients.
If you look on the insert of any true and 95, it will tell you that you need a medical evaluation before wearing it because of the strain on the cardiopulmonary system. Correctly wearing an n95 for an extended period of time is not a small thing. I worked in healthcare and I filled out a medical questionnaire and was fit tested under a hood to get the appropriate n95 for me. For a person with any kind of heart problems they would need a doctor's clearance to wear in n95.
Indeed there were places around the world that were hit really hard, and it's very sad how people suffered. We don't know what happened in those cities. A biological weapon could have been released, we just don't know. Thankfully the rest of the world did not experience that, and covid symptoms were changed to the same symptoms of flus, colds and pneumonias. Covid was different for me, I lost my sense of smell and it was very strange. But the truth is for the vast majority of the world it was not like those cities that were hit so hard.
When we pronounce CBS, the sounds tell us about the bulk of what we see from the old media.
Airborne simulation experiments conducted under controled lab conditions showed that cotton masks, surgical masks, and N95 masks provide some protection from the transmission of infective
SARS-CoV-2 aerosols. To my knowledge, these experiments were conducted as early as June 2020 in Tokyo, but probably other labs did it too. However, masks could not *completely* block the transmission of virus droplets/aerosols even when sealed.
Nevertheless, like almost everything in a pandemic, we are talking probabilities here. If you wear a mask properly, the probability of transmission decreases - makes sense, and has been lab confirmed. That translates into millions of transmission opportunities missed. At a point, the goal was not to stop virus transmission anymore, but rather delay it enough to avoid flooding medical units.
I agree with you that masks probably reduce the probability of coming in contact with a virus. It's very hard to give this probability a number, but I assume it's very low since the best designef studies show little to no illness reduction. Everything is a risk benefit calculation. Any tiny benefit of masking needs to be weighed against its risks; masks interfere with O2 CO2 balance, they interfere with what the immune system is attempting to get rid of via exhaling, they interfere with social contact, and they may increase a community's perceived threat that is above actual threat.
If there ever been any signs that masks reduce communicable disease, healthcare workers would have been wearing them since they are around the most vulnerable people. Healthcare workers have never worn masks routinely, and they should not start now.
It was clear from the beginning that a vast majority of healthy immune systems handle this illness easily without severe symptoms. There were no signs that a vast majority of hospitals were overwhelmed at any time.
It is very difficult indeed to quantify such probabilities, but mostly because of human behaviour, not masks themselves. We all know how undisciplined is the way people wear masks. If it can be lab-verified that an N95 blocks 95%, that should settle the non-human component as a very high blocking probability, prompting us to recommend appropriate use of masks. From an individual point of view, a self-aware mask user should lower his/her probability of contagion by a great deal.
There’s another key point. Getting infected and symptomatic depends on many factors, an important one being dose inhaled. As someone once put it, ‘there are no poisons, there are only doses’. If dose is very high, I doubt that we can avoid viremia and mild symptoms at best, no matter how good our humoral defences are. Masks should help lower the dose.
So in spite of how plagued with uncertainty is the risk-benefit calculation, I think it is clearly balanced in favour of intelligent mask wearing, by intelligent meaning to wear it when in hill-aired crowded environments.
Regarding healthcare workers, mask wearing has long been recommended or mandatory in selected contexts, like infectious diseases wards, around premature newborns, and of course when surgery procedures are taking place.
There were too many instances when hospitals were overcrowded in western Europe. Recall northern Italy and the region of Madrid in 2020, and Portugal in January 2021. Ventilators were just not enough to cope, and doctors were to pick whose lives were to save. The most eerie situations one can imagine. Hospital beds were pilling along the corridors and people were left dying inside ambulances for lack of room inside the hospital. It really bothers me revisionism of those sinister days.
I disagree that the weight is in favor of "intelligent mask wearing". The weight is not in favor because the vast majority of mask studies show little to no benefit that masks reduce symptomatic illness. It's a nice theory that reducing the probability of contacting a virus is the most important variable to reducing illness, but it has simply not shown to be true in the vast majority of masking studies.
Biological systems don't work like a computer model, and your argument treats our biological systems (the human body and the biological Earth) like a hard science. They are not, these are complex biological systems that we actually know little about. The strength of our immune system relies on our contact with the biological environment around us,, as well as our overall physical and psychological health and our nutritional intake. So "intelligently" reducing our contact with the biological material we breathe, inhaling the synthetic material of the masks, microbial buildup on the mask that we can re inhale, interference with our oxygen level, the psychological effects of masking, the strength of our immune system and our overall physical and psychological health all play a role in our ability to manage the biological material in our environment that could make us ill.. Masking studies have shown no short-term benefit, and we don't know the long-term repercussions of wearing masks for years, and how that could degrade the immune system and a person's overall health.
People's behavior is also not robotic or computer like. Masking has rightly been studied amidst normal human behavior. I worked as a physical therapist in all kinds of healthcare settings and 99.9% of healthcare workers have never worn masks. Not even on the AIDS wards that I worked on in San Francisco amongst immunocompromised patients.
If you look on the insert of any true and 95, it will tell you that you need a medical evaluation before wearing it because of the strain on the cardiopulmonary system. Correctly wearing an n95 for an extended period of time is not a small thing. I worked in healthcare and I filled out a medical questionnaire and was fit tested under a hood to get the appropriate n95 for me. For a person with any kind of heart problems they would need a doctor's clearance to wear in n95.
Indeed there were places around the world that were hit really hard, and it's very sad how people suffered. We don't know what happened in those cities. A biological weapon could have been released, we just don't know. Thankfully the rest of the world did not experience that, and covid symptoms were changed to the same symptoms of flus, colds and pneumonias. Covid was different for me, I lost my sense of smell and it was very strange. But the truth is for the vast majority of the world it was not like those cities that were hit so hard.
DR HILARY The virus can drive a bus through the gaps of a mask
https://rumble.com/v3hm94i-dr-hilary-the-virus-can-drive-a-bus-through-the-gaps-of-a-mask.html