Masks really work to reduce the spread of Covid-19
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Taiwan, Japan, Singapore, Hong Kong ... they all wear masks to some extent, normally in non-pandemic periods. They now do it at scale. They're at the bottom of the barrel in cases today (Russia is too and I don't really understand why unless they're lying). So, perhaps we should just start wearing masks. It costs nothing, assuming it's possible to get them, though for whatever reason our smartest people - both in the actual elite and here on HN - exclaimed that wearing a mask "does nothing". And one of the results of everyone telling us back in January and February that "masks do nothing" is that we're now 2 months behind procuring a cheap item that could actually do a lot of good. What a damn shame.
I'm fairly convinced that the messaging behind the "masks don't do anything" rhetoric is to prevent a shortage to people who need them. Yeah, everyone wearing masks would probably effectively slow the virus but if there's known supply chain issues and everyone stocking up would cause availability issues for doctors & nurses, then we have to take the lesser evil.
Media has to act as the Catholic Church did in ancient times. It has to make up some stories to control people's behavior.
Toilet paper is an example of this: you talk about a shortage, and people will buy more. They don't believe it's really necessary, but since they know other people are buying and the media is talking about it, even smart people understand demand will increase and stocks will fall, so they buy more.
Same with masks: if you tell people "they work, but don't buy them" it will have the exact opposite effect.
In China and other Eastern countries, this is dealt with by causing fear in people: "if I buy a lot of masks and the state finds out, I'll be in trouble".
We don't have that tool in free Western countries. So media manipulation becomes the only effective tool for behavior control.
Lying to people doesn't help public health or fix the problems of the federal government failing to act. The AARC told HHS to get their act together about the SNS on ventilators, but the govt didn't.
May reduce panic/stress?
Cons
You need to touch your face more often which increases the risk
Mask becomes humid after a while which is great eniviroment for the virus.
False sense of security - people engaging in risky behavoiur
Not enough masks for hospitals
Its very likely they benefits outweigh the costs
Cons: Every single one of these is false, especially the face touching part.
Folks, this is what I'm talking about so let's do this by the numbers.
>You need to touch your face more often which increases the risk
You touch your face less (read: zero) when in environments in which you're wearing the mask. And if you're wearing it in public places that's enormously important, since that is where you will get the virus.
>Mask becomes humid after a while which is great eniviroment for the virus.
The micro-environment of "your mouth and nose" is not going to breed any more virus than the environment around you that wants to inject the virus into your mouth and nose.
>False sense of security - people engaging in risky behavoiur
[citation needed]
>Not enough masks for hospitals
And if we'd stopped lying about masks being effective back in early February perhaps we'd have enough of them by now. So let's stop lying about it now to make sure we have enough by May.
>You touch your face less (read: zero) when in environments in which you're wearing the mask.
That is factually incorrect. Im in Japan right now where vast majority wear masks. People touch face when they want to smoke - because of the mask. When you talk for a bit you have to adjust the mask. Ive seen people scraching there face through the mask. Take it off to talk on the phone. Not a single person takes it off correctly - they just grab by the centre. Why? Maybe they dont know any better or they think its ok because they have a mask.
>The micro-environment of "your mouth and nose" is not going to breed any more virus than the environment
Thats not the risk model. Virus stays longer in humid enviroment, which meas that masks becomes a more potent vector. Yoxu touch it, leave it on the desk. People reuse their masks, since there is a shortage.
False sense of security - people engaging in risky behavoiur. Highest number of deaths on roads happen when conditions are perfect. People drive faster because the road is dry and visibility is good.
Japan is doing better than every single country who has had more than 10 deaths this far into Japan’s outbreak.
In fact, when you look at all nations with at least 10 deaths, regardless of when their outbreak started, only Canada has fewer deaths than Japan. And Canada’s death count is on track to surpass Japan’s in just a few days. So frankly whatever the Japanese are doing, they’re doing it better than anyone else with an outbreak, and that includes the GROSS sum of all of the behaviors you have described.
Of course I must list the countries who have had coronavirus in their country for a while now but still have fewer than 10 deaths: Taiwan, Singapore, Hong Kong
One thing these countries have in common with Japan? Face masks.
I've spent plenty of time in Japan and East Asia. I've seen that behavior, sure, but I'm not going to use the exception of some people not using proper mask protocol 100% of the time to argue that masks are useless or no help (to be clear I don't think you're doing this, but without context it comes across this way to the casual reader which is the problem).
It may also signal to other people to keep their distance from me.
> False sense of security - people engaging in risky behavoiur
I dont see people with masks being closer to each other then people without masks.
"Its ok to sit next to my mate on the train because we had masks"
It is like software development, preventing the cause is much less impacting to our lives than debugging the cause.
yep, hospitals are packed completely already.
We should be open to the possibility that these are not our smartest people. Plus we should admit that there are smarter people outside of our bubble.
Closed borders with China since January. Same as Mongolia.
There is no coronavirus in Russia, just a bad spell of mass Pneumonia. In other news Putin just announced nationwide full pay week of 'holidays' https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/03/25/putin-refuses-im... nothing to see here folks, definitely no emergency
Wearing a mask of any sort reduces the risk of infection. That’s why hospitals need PPE and are even resorting to using lower-grade protection (e.g surgical masks instead of n95) due to lack of supplies. CDC is even recommending scarves as a last resort. They’re also reusing masks and wearing them for longer than they should. These are all signs that _any_ mask can provide some benefit.
Furthermore, it’s been well cited that wearing masks does more to protect others from the wearer than vice versa. Given that its possible to be an asymptomatic carrier, you should wear a mask to avoid spreading the virus unknowingly.
Obviously, full PPE should go to healthcare and other critical needs right now due to shortage. That doesn’t mean the rest of us shouldn’t wear masks, just that we shouldn’t selfishly hoard a bunch of n95s. I’ll bet lots of Californians have leftover masks from the wildfires that they could use.
My take is that reserving proper PPE for health workers until the crisis peaks is critical. But westerners don’t have a mask-wearing culture like Asian countries, and are more likely to have an all or nothing approach to wearing one (n95 or bust!). So the safest public health messaging is to discourage all mask wearing. Not sure that’s worked.
Masks for everyone in public is a necessary but not sufficient condition. Check out Taiwan's Covid-19 Response Plan published in JAMA for details:
https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2762689?gu...
What is the cost of an automated mask making machine? < $100,000/set (based on Alibaba data). Each set can make ~100 pieces/min * 60 min * 17 hours > 100,000 / day.
To make a mask daily for everyone in the US would take 3,300 such machines * $0.1 million = $330 million.
Along with all other costs, total capital investment is likely less than a few billion dollars. Costs of capital, materials, operations, and distribution all together would be negligible relative to savings in healthcare, not to mention less misery all around.
It shouldn't matter where you fall on the political spectrum, or if it's going to cost too much for the labor, or the fact that the whole thing has to be powered by reverse carbon collection or whatever the hell, it just HAS to be done.
Here's the study https://m.box.com/shared_item/https%3A%2F%2Fstanfordmedicine...
Can't find anything about the rice cooker though.
That said, that doesn't mean that masks aren't helping in Czechia--they're a potent reminder to everyone to keep their distance, and that their friends and neighbors have bought into the seriousness of the threat. That alone is worth something.
1. https://thewirecutter.com/blog/your-coronavirus-questions-an...
By catching droplets from (asymptomatic) infected wearers, it reduces the virus on surfaces and in the air. That's the benefit.
The general recommendation is to put them into boiling water after each use for 30 minutes.
Those who have only scarf probably dont do this, but they are still less likely to infect others if they are asymptomatic carriers.
It's true the virus may linger and infect later, but it might also be destroyed in the meantime. The odds depend on various factors, such as exposure to sunlight, antiviral chemicals, or high temperatures.
No they are not [1].
Maybe the message should be: healthcare workers get the real masks, but the public still needs a covering (bandana or whatever)?
"Face Masks: Much More Than You Wanted To Know"
https://slatestarcodex.com/2020/03/23/face-masks-much-more-t...
If you plop on an N95 mask, it’s not going to work as intended. Sure, it might block some stuff and discourage you from touching your face, but it’s certainly not going to make you invincible. Even when fitted correctly, it’s still letting stuff through. If you have to choose between staying home vs. gathering in a group while wearing a mask, one is obviously lower risk than the other.
N95 masks are uncomfortable. When used correctly, you feel like you’re breathing hot, humid air that you just exhaled. They clamp down pretty tightly on your nose.
People don’t like this, so they adjust the mask until it’s comfortable (or just don’t fit it in the first place)—and in this case, comfort = leak. Or they get a mask with an exhaust vent—which might protect the wearer reasonably well, but now everything they exhale exits the mask unfiltered. Or—and this is my favorite one—they put the mask on over sunglasses to keep it from sitting on the bridge of their nose, then wonder why their glasses fog up.
Or perhaps they have facial hair that they don’t want to shave. For the seal to work, the part making contact with your face needs to be clean-shaven.
And you can’t make your own N95 mask from scratch. They’re not simple cloth; that’s why they’re expensive and hard to produce.
Again, none of this would be terrible if people didn’t risk compensate. Wearing any mask—even incorrectly—is probably better than no mask, as long as you didn’t cut up a fiberglass HEPA filter in the process. Wearing a mask to get some groceries or pick up a prescription? Great! At the very least, it’ll keep you from touching your face. But wearing a mask so you can throw a party is a terrible idea.
I’m mostly targeting N95 masks here since they’re not as easy to use as surgical masks, but the same general rule applies to everything: masks are an extra tool in your arsenal; another layer of protection. They don’t make you invincible.
https://edition.cnn.com/2020/03/30/world/coronavirus-who-mas...
These sources acknowledge that masks are a contentious point and that some experts disagree with the part of the articles I am quoting below. Even the CDC recommends against members of the public using respirators without specific risk factors (having Covid, or treating someone with Covid). The CDC wants to prevent hoarding, as they should.
But many sources claim that a homemade mask from a spare vacuum bag or dish rag makes you a bit safer (2-5x safer than nothing), and I'm going to make one for myself and use it when going out. From the overall body of evidence, I believe that masks are substantially better than nothing, and a social norm of everyone wearing masks would lower Covid transmission. If you disagree provide sources and reasons.
>Wearing a face mask is certainly not an iron-clad guarantee that you won’t get sick – viruses can also transmit through the eyes and tiny viral particles, known as aerosols, can penetrate masks. However, masks are effective at capturing droplets, which is a main transmission route of coronavirus, and some studies have estimated a roughly fivefold protection versus no barrier alone (although others have found lower levels of effectiveness).[0]
>The public doesn't need to wear heavy-duty respirators, but it's a smart idea to don a face mask or wrap a clean scarf around your nose and mouth if you're going into a crowded place during the COVID-19 outbreak, an infectious disease doctor told Live Science.[1]
Even the CDC agrees that "The role of facemasks is for patient source control, to prevent contamination of the surrounding area when a person coughs or sneezes. Patients with confirmed or suspected COVID-19 should wear a facemask until they are isolated in a hospital or at home. The patient does not need to wear a facemask while isolated." [2]
Other articles agree that sick people wearing face masks helps prevent them spreading to others, e.g., [3]
I have read sources that Covid19 can be transmitted even if you have no symptoms. So if everyone wears face masks, then everyone who is infected with no symptoms will have a reduced chance of transmitting the virus. Unlike social distancing and lockdowns, masks have almost no downside. Why are we not heavily promoting masks for anyone going out of the home!?
HN generally loves the NYTimes, great article: [4]. Homemade masks aren't perfect, but the article explains that "of course masks work — maybe not perfectly and not all to the same degree, but they provide some protection. Their use has always been advised as part of the standard response to being around infected people, especially for people who may be vulnerable."
I encourage everyone reading this to consider making a mask out of an item you already own and wearing it when leaving the house.
[0] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/23/can-a-face-mas...
[1]https://www.livescience.com/coronavirus-do-face-masks-work.h...
[2]https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/hcp/respirator-use...
[3]https://www.cedars-sinai.org/newsroom/covid-19-for-most-mask...
[4]https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/17/opinion/coronavirus-face-...
Not to mention the whole scams around it these days and ridiculous high price tags. I'm not surprised if all of these are coming from people that are making money out of it right now.
I do however see one way masks would work. They act as a constant visual reminder to keep distance and not touching stuff. That works.
Compare it to a different kind of mask in a different kind of war - the kind that one would use to protect against chemical-warfare agents. Or doses of antidote. Sure, everyone would be safer if they had these things, but if there are fewer of them than there are people then by what reasoning should they not go first to those on the front lines? It's a simple effect-maximization problem, with a solution that benefits even those who don't get the gear.