How widespread is widespread? Japan, South Korea, China, Hong Kong, Taiwan… these are countries in which people wear masks in large numbers on a normal day.
They all still have an R0 above 1.
They all still have an R0 above 1.
I didn't but I also didn't make the claim that they would help so I suggest we start by getting claimants to back up their claims before we get anyone checking claims to prove negatives.
https://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/singapore/covid19-coron...
https://www.wsj.com/articles/asian-countries-wield-fines-jai...
And you can't just claim social distancing. Unless they have shut down their trains, where people are literally packed in, that just doesn't fly. (So, have they?)
The virus has been in Italy for a lot longer than they think, and they get close to each other/have actual contact a lot (I don't know if that's actually true, I've never been to Italy)
Maybe they mostly have a particular mutation that is more deadly/infectious
In short, I trust the figures here about one step more than ones coming out of China.
[0] https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2015/06/kodokushi-in-agi...
So, possible, but seems not as likely to be the explanation.
Edit for reference: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=E7kor5nHtZQ
The New Yorker article we are supposedly discussing literally says the coronavirus is not very efficient even in hospital settings.
I am familiar with crowded trains in East Asia. Your video does not have time marker so I assume it is not taken recently.
I posted that as evidence masks have not always been worn by everyone.
I'm confused on your 80% compliance number. Are you saying Japanese get 80% compliance on things, and by extension don't have flu outbreaks?
How would an entire country obtain N95 masks and training and proper fitting (it's done by trained fitters) and dispose of them properly, and do that daily? (if not more often)
Every time I go out I see the cheapo ones left in the street because there's a vague notion they should be disposed of "properly" so I don't see this idea working at all.
I can't do it.
> read the article
Okay, maybe they can square it:
> Luckily, methods were found that protected all the new health-care workers: none—zero—were infected.
> But those methods were Draconian. As the city was locked down and cut off from outside visitors, health-care workers seeing at-risk patients were housed away from their families. They wore full-body protective gear, including goggles, complete head coverings, N95 particle-filtering masks, and hazmat-style suits.
They failed, it was probably the use of "Draconian" that let them down.
I also read the paper you provided, not just the abstract, and it spends a lot of its time talking about N95 masks. Here is from a part it spends on facemasks:
> whereas for the facemasks the efficiency can vary from 10% to 90% (Guha et al., 2017)
Have you read Guha's paper? I've got it here. I have so many problems with someone relying on that paper beyond its narrow applicable scope. I wonder if they've ever worn a mask. I digress.
Additionally (we're back to the paper you shared), you should count how many times "except the low-filtration adult surgical mask" or some combination of those words following except comes up in that paper.
It's also a model and not a study. Let me know when there's a study that shows masks work (the Guha paper mentioned is a study, in a lab, not using people or even a model of a face), in use by the general public, in the kind of settings they wear them, and it's the kind of masks they usually wear.
Second explanation that comes to mind is that they tend to be just healthier than other countries. They have low obesity, exercise correctly and routinely, walk and ride bikes to get where they go, and do all of this even when elderly. The counterpoint to this is that they have a really high smoking population.
Source: I lived there for two years.
Second is also tougher to square. The risk pool is supposedly older people, per reports from Italy. But, that doesn't seem to square with age profiles of Japanese. So??
Still, there's a long way to go for this thing.
Social distancing isn't happening much at all, and unless the population is magically becoming immune then there's no way R0 is less than 1. The real questions are whether that will translate into symptomatic and serious cases, and when.