… of moronity?
Yeah, that does pretty much sum up how people think. It probably will be considered socially acceptable at some point to hit women if they don’t cover their noses. Like … you know, certain backward theocracies we could mention, where science takes a backseat to superstition.
Somewhere between “masks are the reason Taiwan is COVID free” and “masks are a conspiracy arranged by the Illuminati” lies the boring scientific truth, ie., they work a little bit, but not very much. But that’s just not thrilling enough, so we have to have Mask Wars.
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How about it works well enough to have similar effects of herd immunity if everyone wears them.
But people in Taiwan have become too complaisant and no more than 50% of the people have been wearing them in crowded places.
Because it doesn’t?
If that were true then there would be no COVID anywhere. A lot of places have mask mandates. Taiwan is not the only country in the world where masks have been used, and as you said they don’t even wear them religiously here. It clearly isn’t the explanation, and in fact it’s a very dangerous idea. Assuming that you’ve got everything right and that the lack of COVID in Taiwan is down to the government’s cleverness is precisely why Taiwan is now having repeated panics about “escaped” cases.
The government should acknowledge that masks are only marginally effective, and plan for the worst case. Anything else is complacency.
Like where? Having mask mandates is not the same as having affordable masks for everyone, and thus force many to break the mandate to go about daily lives.
A lack of surgical masks in these places also means they are ok with people wearing cloth or masks that offers no protection against airborne viruses.
Places that really stepped up to having the mask mandate and providing accessible surgical masks for the masses are the one that’s doing well.
The Philippines had a mask mandate for almost the whole of 2020, from (IIRC) March. And people complied. Masks were readily available and there were goons with guns making sure people complied. Aboute halfway through 2020 there was also a “face shield” mandate, ie., you had to wear both a mask and a faceshield in public places.
It doesn’t work. People are seeing patterns that they want to see.
Cloth masks do not work at all. Surgical masks (the blue disposable ones) have some small effect. N95 masks are reasonably effective but almost nobody uses them (because you can’t breathe).
In a two people scenario, only one person wearing the surgical mask is less than 50% effective, but if both are wearing surgical masks then it’s over 70% effective.
Joseph Allen, associate professor of exposure assessment science and director of the Healthy Buildings program at Harvard, recommends “universal masking in schools, noting that teachers and adults at higher risk should use a three-layer surgical mask, or, if they’re not available, a surgical mask with a cloth mask on top of it, which can provide over 91% efficiency for particle removal.”
So even surgical masks aren’t all created equal. There’s no way of knowing if when other places talk about surgical masks if they mean 3-layer ones like what we have in Taiwan. The 3-layer surgical masks are the ones that can trap airborne particle in between the layers by static electricity.
During the height of last years outbreak, it was common practice for most Taiwanese to wear another cloth layer over their 3-layer surgical masks. It is far less common this year, and most people stopped wearing masks all together, only to fish one out of their pocket when they are about to get on public transportation or enter a shopping mall.
By the way, the Philippines only started supplying enough “surgical masks” when they were able to import them from China, and I have absolutely no faith in Chinese made surgical masks that they are willing to export en masse.
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Once again, masks primarily reduce the probability that the wearer will spread the virus to other people. This has been the message from the start, and the ongoing confusion about the matter is frustrating.
Masks are not very effective at protecting the wearer from others; still, the protective effect is greater than zero, and greater-than-zero protection is better than zero protection.
Masks, when properly worn, have the added benefit of preventing the wearer from touching the mucous membranes of their nose and mouth. When you adjust your mask, you’re doing it from the edges, far from your nostrils and lips.
Given that mask wearing causes the wearer no harm, then mathematically speaking, wearing a mask is better than not wearing a mask.
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That’s a reasonable summary.
However, you guys have merely succeeded in proving that reality is wrong. COVID spread like wildfire, despite masks. You might argue the toss about why that happened (my view is that it’s because masks cannot be worn at all times) but the fact is that that much-touted “70% effectiveness” (which is probably about right as a ballpark guess) doesn’t actually stop the spread of COVID out in the messy real world.
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The 70% effectiveness number is obtained from reproducible experiments.
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/02786826.2020.1862409
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Yes, I know that. I’m not debating the figure.
I’m simply pointing out that what happens in the real world is not always what happens in the lab. And even if it is (a) realistic and (b) translates well into meatspace, it will not achieve an effect equivalent to “herd immunity”. At best it’ll will slow the virus down. Which, if you remember, was the original intent. But then the goalposts moved.
Since the latest outbreak in Taiwan, all I see from the “masks are useless” camp in this thread is that “we don’t care if more than half of the people stopped wearing masks in Taiwan, Taiwan has a mask mandate, there’s an outbreak, ergo masks are useless.”
Nobody is saying they are “useless”, not least because “useless” doesn’t have a clear definition.
Personally, I’m saying they will not achieve what you believe they will achieve. Herd immunity and slowed transmission are completely different phenomena. They are not in any sense comparable.
If you think that religiously wearing masks is highly effective, well, you’ve just demonstrated that COVID doesn’t exist and that there was no need to develop vaccines.
And it’s no good insisting that people weren’t wearing masks religiously enough - if the entire planet found it impossible, then clearly there is a reason. Therefore, they do not work in practice.
Your position here is rather similar to the nutritionist’s belief that if only we would all eat less, nobody would be fat. Since everyone is familiar with the idea, yet we also have a lot of fat people, then clearly there’s a problem. It doesn’t matter how clever or “obvious” it is. For whatever reason, it doesn’t work.
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Herd immunity is assuming everyone wears the mask, and even at 70% herd immunity it doesn’t mean there won’t be any new cases, it just means it an especially slow transmission. The point is to have a slow enough transmission so that total cases shrinks instead of grows.
If your belief is correct, then we don’t need to worry about these new pockets of cases; and indeed there is little point scrambling for vaccines. All we need to do is wear a mask at all times and the virus will be beaten.
Good luck with that, I say.
Herd immunity is not the same thing at all. Although reduced transmission is involved, the underlying mechanism is dramatically different.
If people start wearing masks, then yes.
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