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Comment by ergocoder | Hacker News Reader

"Masks don't work or aren't needed" propaganda is so absurd.

According to physics and common sense, anything you put between you and the cough-er is going to reduce the number of cough particles to reach you.

Anything will work with different effectiveness.

N95 > Surgical > Handkerchief > Covering your mouth with your hand.

CDC, US, and WHO are just so incompetent around this matter. If they didn't want N95 shortage, they could've told people to wear cotton washable masks. It was such a simple and effective solution that they couldn't think of.

Source: https://twitter.com/CMichaelGibson/status/123971835157384397... Scarf is ~50% effective relative to surgical masks. Though this is tested against influenza, it's still applicable to COVID

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Anecdote: I talked with a doctor with regards to this subject and mentioned that there were no gloves or masks available in the market. Without blinking he immediately suggested I just wrap a scarf around my mouth and nose.

It boggles the mind how some people prefer to suggest to just not use anything at all.

A few days ago I saw 2 women in a shop covering their nose and mouth with a scarf.

No problem you would say, except for the fact that they constantly had to keep their hand in front of their mouth to keep the scarf up.

I don't know about you, but in a shop where everybody touches everything, I keep my hands as far away from my face as possible, especially when some people like to breath in their hand and then touch everything.

So no, scarfs are really bad and counter productive.

Ok, so, you think there is no way that we can cover our mouth with scarf and not touch it for, say, 1 hour?

Are you saying nobody can do that?

If you can't do that with scarf, then get a washable cotton mask.

Also, we should all stop touching our face, mask or not. It shouldn't be too hard to learn that.

Being Scottish I learned at a young age how to tightly tie a football[1] scarf around my face to brace against the cold winter wind.

There's also products such as the buff scarf. Which are ideally suited to use as an impromptu mask[2].

It's not the scarf that is bad and counter productive, it's the haphazard application of it ;)

1: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Association_football

2: https://youtu.be/IYNIzI3Hztk

> No problem you would say, except for the fact that they constantly had to keep their hand in front of their mouth to keep the scarf up.

Given the choice, I pretty much prefer that over the scenario where they carry the virus and freely spread it into the environment by having zero filters between their airways and the world.

Scarves over the mouth and nose are not a panacea. They are a way to mitigate the problem.

Counterpoint: I've seen policemen wearing masks on their chin instead of their mouth and nose.

The WHO rationale on masks includes not emboldening people to go out in less than effective masks. Isolation is better at stopping the spread than slightly slowing the spread with masks.

It’s also worth noting that there isn’t a straightforward way to map particle blocking ratio of a mask to probability of becoming infected.

The message should be that simple, non-N95/FFP3 masks only have minor protective effect for the wearer, but can significantly reduce the spread of droplets by the wearer and protect others around them. Furthermore, wearing masks in populated public places should not be a recommendation, it should be enforced.

There is also reason to believe that enforcing wearing of masks in public spaces INCREASES social distancing, because people are less likely to slip into an illusion of normality in certain places.

The article makes a good point about wearing masks being a reminder to people that "things are not normal". So I would say that saying "masks are not necessary" actually serves the reverse purpose of emboldening people to go out because it's not quite that serious yet.

This whole "rationale" of feeding people noble lies so that some fleeting, temporary gain can be had for the next few days or weeks, comes at the expense of destroying their credibility in the public's eye and thereby making any expert advice they might offer in the future far less convincing and effective.

Yeah, when you say any kind of masks works, you will get someone comes in and say:

WHO says masks are not effective. Also, do you have source that says masks work?

I actually don't know how to reply to that.

Fortunately, Cambridge published a research about DIY mask against influenza.

Then, that person will say that's not covid. They aren't the same thing.

Science wins, I guess.

We cant say masks work without scientific research backing it up.

> The WHO rationale on masks includes not emboldening people to go out in less than effective masks.

That logic is deeply flawed in my opinion. Sure, any sort of protective gear might give a false sense of security. However, people still need to get out, and odds are some of them already carry the virus. Getting a filter between them and the world is an effective way to contain the spread. After all, some efficiency is far better than completely unobstructed access, right?

Is there science behind that WHO rationale? Trying to use mass psychological tricks instead of direct communication also has a big cost because it reduces people's trust in authorities which can lead to more deaths.

Scott Alexander thinks it's because the WHO uses the phrase "not effective" to say masks haven't been scientifically proven to protect against COVID-19 specifically and beyond any reasonable doubt, while the media interprets this to mean that they're "not effective" as in there's evidence against the effectiveness of masks.

https://slatestarcodex.com/2020/03/23/face-masks-much-more-t...

This WHO rationale is bizarre.

I have to go out to buy stuff periodically. What do I do?

Should I wear any kind of mask or not?

According to WHO guideline, I should not wear masks....

> CDC, US, and WHO are just so incompetent around this matter. If they didn't want N95 shortage, they could've told people to wear cotton washable masks. It was such a simple and effective solution that they couldn't think of.

The behavior of the CDC, WHO, and FDA during this crisis has long since passed incompetence and entered the territory of active malevolence. They're institutions at their most corrupted, driven more by the bureaucratic impulse towards self-sustenance than any connection to their ostensible mission. I hope we burn them to ground after this is over (I mean that metaphorically: more literally, we should dramatically reform them).

There’s and old Chinese proverb stating a fish rots from the head down. I think that applies quite well to this situation.

It's not clear that a scarf's effectiveness at blocking tiny particles makes it good at protecting the wearer from those particles.

Consider the case where you're on a flight with someone who's got COVID-19 and is coughing. The scarf blocks 50% of the particles a surgical mask would block. You then spend the rest of the flight breathing in and out through the scarf that blocked those particles. Does wearing the scarf lower your risk, leave it unchanged, or actually raise it?

I co-authored an evidence-based call to action for promoting simple DIY masks some time ago [1] and it got some good resonance from politicians.

Still, we don't see adoption of DIY masks in most countries so far, and I start to wonder what is holding back officials from promoting it. Maybe the variability in quality of DIY masks made by individuals might be too large, and officials just have too strong of a resilience against such DIY solutions as to ever promote them? Perhaps a standardized design for cotton masks, not made by individuals but local businesses would be more acceptable for officials?

[1] https://link.medium.com/LY7RRNr2X4 "Promoting simple do-it-yourself masks: an urgent intervention for COVID-19 mitigation", Svara et al. 2020

You could seal your mouth with duct tape -- it won't change the fact that you are more likely to aquire SARS-CoV-2 through your eyes than through your mouth. Are you covering your eyes?

>you are more likely to aquire SARS-CoV-2 through your eyes than through your mouth

What is the evidence supporting that claim?

Wouldn't get less particles of virus better than getting more?

Let's say I cough at you. 33% go to your eyes, 33% go to your nose, and 33% go to your mouth.

Are you saying that getting 33% is the same as getting 100%?

I'm fairly certain that your immune system works better if you are exposed to less amount of virus. This is true for bacteria and toxin as well.

Every measure reduces risk/amount. Nothing can guarantee 100% that you won't get covid.

But you do want to keep reducing risk.

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