I am a strong believer in the universal mask protocol for controlling COVID-19. I've created https://www.maskssavelives.org/ to help spread the message.
Let me paste the official advice here for educating readers: https://www.who.int/emergencies/diseases/novel-coronavirus-2...
> If you are healthy, you only need to wear a mask if you are taking care of a person with suspected 2019-nCoV infection. > Wear a mask if you are coughing or sneezing. > Masks are effective only when used in combination with frequent hand-cleaning with alcohol-based hand rub or soap and water. > If you wear a mask, then you must know how to use it and dispose of it properly.
The kind of misinforming you are doing is dangerous in these times, especially that the official WHO standpoint is that wearing masks in a wrong way (using it multiple times, touching or taking off in a wrong way) is worse than not wearing them at all during already decreased social encounters (i.e. already staying at home, and going out at most for groceries).
Or are you stating that the WHO is lying?
Those Asian cultures have a different epidemic curve not due to mask wearing, but because a totally different social structure, prior experience concerning epidemics, preparedness, attitude towards authority & emergency measures and other factors. So it's a fallacy of cherry picking to say that it's 'because they wear masks and all our authorities are wrong'.
The obvious answer to the “wearing masks in a wrong way” is to teach people to use and dispose of them correctly, just like we don’t dismiss hand washing because many people don’t know how to do it.
I think these statements by health authorities are simply because there has been no RCT of mask wearing among the general public and for them lack of evidence is equivalent to evidence of absence.
If truth was the only concern, I think that comparing the rough numbers between "masked countries" and "unmasked countries" should be more than enough to recommend masks. It's a planet-wide experiment and the control group is clearly seeing worse results. And it's not just SEA countries, there are also places in Europe that didn't play down masks, like the Czech Republic. And their metrics are looking quite good so far, with far more liberal measures than in neighboring Bavaria, except for the masks. With much of the intra-European spread being incubated in ski resorts one would expect them to be hit quite hard as well. And the Czech Republic doesn't have a magical stockpile either, from what I'm reading there's a lot of improvisation going on there regarding masks.
Speaking of improvised masks, would vacuum cleaner bags be a good MacGuyver material that's present in almost any household? It's surely better at filtering than random t-shirt cloth, but would there be a risk of ruining lungs with fibers from the bag material? The fact that they are apparently safe to force air through them in living quarters with a two kilowatts blower suggests that they don't shed anything harmful, but I'd be glad to hear any counterarguments from the wide variety of expertise present in hn readership.
https://smartairfilters.com/en/blog/best-materials-make-diy-...
This notes it is very hard to breathe through the vacuum cleaner bag in comparison to a surgical mask. It is more effective at filtration. I’m not sure about the possibility of it releasing fibers. The analysis on that link suggests to me that for a DIY, cotton is probably the right balance although it doesn’t provide nearly the same level of protection as an official surgical mask.
The end result is that in some places people are being denied the ability to purchase up more than a few days of supplies at once, forcing repeated trips out that increase everyone's risk.
Virtually no one simply concerned for their own safety is creating a big problem for anyone with their purchases (at least not above and beyond the background level of synchronized need)-- sure, a gouger wanna-be here or there is a problem-- but that is its own separate thing.
> better at filtering than random t-shirt cloth,
Cotton is pretty good at absorbing water, if we're in the land of pure speculation it wouldn't be unreasonable to guess that it's not bad for droplets.
A comment I've heard from someone at a grocery supplier is that stores haven't even called in to restock many out of stock items because they're simply overwhelmed. It's not clear to me what good public policy would be to address that, beyond patience.
Telling people to hold off a bit would probably be prudent but with low item limits already being implemented by some stores and even ordinances being discussed, ... makes holding off sound potentially unwise. :( exactly opposite the needed effect.
* The single most effective intervention we have right now is staying home and avoiding every unnecessary contact, as authorities recommend.
* Worn carefully, several kinds of masks probably have a range of marginal positive effects.
* BUT recommending them runs the risk of (a) people over-relying on them and not following isolation protocols (b) people wearing them incorrectly for a mix of less effective benefits and added risks (c) contributing to a run on masks which constrains supply for medical workers where the benefits are more critical.
If this is all true, it can simultaneously be the case that official guidelines against masks are reasonable recommendations and that it's also a reasonable recommendation to wear masks (on top of other more important precautions).
I'm sure that masks are not the sole factor in gentler curves in those countries. They do seem to be a common factor.
To me that above comment sounds like rationalizing to justify misleading the public and risking their lives, out of some paternalistic assumption which has not ever been even suggested by the applicable science.
In practice, what little I've seen of people wearing masks causes a change in behavior -- additional distance, etc. from people around them. It raises awareness, and looks like it should reduce risk.
Most of the concern that people might take on additional risky actions would be adequately addressed by making it clear that masks aren't a sure thing-- especially if not expertly fitted and coupled with additional PPE and procedures.
Plenty of people are in "essential" jobs or just need to get groceries. In the bay area, many people already have used masks due to the history of fires... and many of those people are failing to use them because they have been materially and intentionally mislead by people who have, or ought to have, a professional obligation to provide honest information to them.
The loss of trust from this, as the public realizes it was mislead, will have lasting negative effects.
Right now, the average person probably only has 1 or at most a few masks, they don't dispose of them after use and probably wear (put on/off) them in a wrong way.
I'm mostly arguing the other side here, but I should point out that well fitting an N95 mask is actually pretty tricky depending on the shape of your face.
I expect that even a lot of medical professionals don't manage it. You only really can tell that you've done it wrong if exposed to something you can smell or taste very strongly that the mask should stop.
A poorly fitted mask is almost certainly a big improvement over nothing, however.
We'll tell you how many errors you've made.
The fact is that in "the wild", so many different factors are at play that it's very hard to establish the impact of one particular factor on the numbers.
In a sense, establishing the exact impact of wearing or not wearing masks is as difficult as establishing the exact impact of the population pyramid on how things evolve. Combine both and things become even more obtuse.
Worst case is that one ends up confounding correlation with causation which leads to harmful conclusions. Such as over reliance.
What you are saying is the rational sensible middle ground in this discussion. Most domain experts are very careful in the type of recommendations they make.
I'm not a domain expert, and so I put my trust in domain experts. I haven't heard any micro biologist or health care expert urge wearing masks as a basic necessity. I do hear them urge to vigorously wash hands, practice physical distancing and generally stay at home as much as possible...
I used to be strongly anti mask, and I'm slowly changing that position, but I do struggle when I see 60,000 people turn up to horse racing in Cheltenham UK and some of them are wearing masks but doing dumb stuff -- pulling them off to cough or smoke or drink.
A few weeks ago official WHO guidance included:
- that there was "no clear evidence of human-to-human transmission" of the virus
- that international air travel should not be suspended "because of the social disruption they cause and the intensive use of resources required" (nothing about the efficacy of such a move).
Well look at us now. Maybe, just maybe, their guidance on this topic is also flawed.
The lack of critical thinking on the issue of masks is astonishing. There are study after study[0] showing that masks mitigate the transfer of virus particles. Then there's common sense which points in the same direction.
---
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3810906/
https://www.ijidonline.com/article/S1201-9712%2808%2901008-4...
https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6...
The numbers quickly went from dozens to hundreds, and they still tried saying there was no chance of human-to-human transmission (pretty unlikely that they all ate the same food and that a virus with the main symptom being coughing isn't transmitted by coughing) and that it'd all be contained and there was no need to worry.
In this crisis, the WHO has been bending over so far backwards that it's spinning donuts to serve as a political mouthpiece for certain governments. There was panic over people being under-supplied and under-prepared, and one of the main supplies in short supply was masks. Masks aren't perfect, but even if they're reducing transmission by 10% and keeping people from touching their mouth, that's a decent effect.
And you’re not cherry-picking because what exactly?
yes, the page does indeed state that. what do you think of the cited research, vs nitpicking the hero image?
The question is 'does wearing masks out in the public decrease virus spread, when social distancing measures are already in effect?'.
One linked (not cited...) research examines virus transmission and effects of mask use in a hospital setting - irrelevant for the question.
Another examines filtration properties of homemade masks, and concludes that they have little if any effect if not used with other measures, and doesn't (!!!) recommend their use.
A third one, a SCMP journalistic article refers to a Chinese scientific journal article that has been retracted.
I don't find these as very compelling arguments.
Thanks for sharing more detailed thoughts!
We all have to learn and try new things, so if WHO says "mask are not helping" while there are evidences (maybe just correlation, but we just don't know for now!) that in some countries masks seems to help we should ask WHO if they are really sure. BTW: the fact that WHO pretends that Taiwan does not exists does not help investigating masks/no masks question.
"Wear a mask if you are coughing or sneezing" - sure, the problem is that even if someone breaths normally, talks normally can spread the virus. The problem with the coronavirus is that it has long incubation time. Someone might spread virus without having any symptoms.
My masks protects someone else, not me (unless I am wearing some pro stuff), as I am not spreading virus 2 meters around me, but 50 cm - maybe this is not that much, but in case of something that spreads according to power laws it might be a visible factor.
Leave the medical advice to medical experts, just as you expect the medical experts to keep their mouths shut about the advantages of Rust over Go or whether Vue is the right choice in 2020.
Then there's stuff like "Going in public without a mask in a pandemic is like riding a motorcycle without a helmet." That's bad because it implies that surgical masks protect you, but all the information by actual experts seems to say that they generally don't, and that their primary purpose is to prevent the spread of the infection by people who don't know they have it.
I mean, the page even admits that "We only have anecdotal research at this point" on the efficacy of masks. Yet the headline claim, "Western countries are experiencing higher rates of COVID-19 infections compared to Asian countries because of the West's aversion to wearing masks", implies direct causation between mask wearing and infection rates. Why should anyone trust someone who makes such elementary mistakes?
We need the computer people (myself included, obviously) to keep doing the computer things and leave giving medical advice to the medical experts. The OP's website is bad and they should take it down.
I think common sense prevails. Wearing equipment that filters airborne particulates will expose a person less than going without.
Personally, I would prefer being overprotected versus becoming a statistic in a WHO researcher’s Excel spreadsheet.
Your comment fails to offer a counter-argument to the comment you are replying to; you are just repeating the position that the comment explicitly refutes.
> Or are you stating that the WHO is lying?
In fact, the site linked in the comment explicitly states that.
Let the epidemiologists guiding global responses to the pandemic provide guidance and everyone else should call out anyone trying to peddle their own made up conclusions.
Given the minimum 6 feet of social distancing, then there is no room for maneuvering around people here.
And all it takes is for one idiot to cough in your face without covering themselves, while you are walking past them, to get sick.
And now, you have a 14 day incubation window, to wait to see if you indeed got sick from this person.
The point of masks is that everyone must wear it, while in public. No exceptions are allowed.
This is a team effort. And all it takes is one person, to screw it up for everyone.
Huh? The earliest local news article I could find[0][1] that mentioned the importance of wearing glasses and goggles was back in January. But we didn't wait for the authorities to tell us -- we did our own research, and I purchased my pair of goggles in mid January.
[0]: https://news.rthk.hk/rthk/ch/component/k2/1504801-20200125.h...
[1]: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-china-health-hongkong/hon...
I don't know why you consider China to be a non-mask wearing culture. There is plenty of evidence China is a mask wearing culture. Below [1] are articles from before 2015 about mask wearing in China. Anecdotally I have plenty of Chinese national friends and colleagues who wear masks.
As far as your mask wearing group goes, South Korea's trajectory is much like Western countries, which will also level off eventually. Hong Kong and Singapore are city states and are not comparable with large countries.
Evidence China is a mask wearing culture before 2015 (an arbitrary date to ensure no COVID-19 related articles):
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2014/aug/10/pollutio...
https://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/04/world/asia/in-china-sun-p...
https://qz.com/299003/a-quick-history-of-why-asians-wear-sur...
https://www.webmd.com/cold-and-flu/news/20090916/best-swine-...
Edit: First 4 weeks after the 100th case actually. But the numbers are clearly delayed and reflect transmission that happened much earlier, and you can already see the curve leveling off in the graph.
I'm rather shocked at how much thoughtless agreement there is in this comment thread given the website makes only one incomplete argument in the case for masks.
Consider that in absence of real science, your site might do harm with such a bold claim.
I'm not saying that masks are not effective, but I would be very careful with certain affirmations, such as: "going in public without a mask in a pandemic is like riding a motorcycle without a helmet", it's more like: "going in public with a mask only covering your mouth and nose is like walking through a fire while wearing a fire proximity suit and sandals".
As for hand made mask npt protecting you enough - well, this is actually a secondary concern. The biggest problem are people being infected that do not know that yet & if everyone has a mask this is much less of a problem, as they will contaminante much smaller area & the chance of them infecting others go way down.
The Czech government made masks mandatory in public more than two weeks ago & Slovak government followed suit quickly afterward.
So far it seems to be helping, so hopefully more states will follow suit.
https://www.vox.com/covid-19-coronavirus-explainers/2020/3/2...
I'd much rather have people keep their distance and wash their hands regularly than wearing masks which may or may not have any effect depending on material/age/fit etc.
Luckily, people don’t generally sneeze out plumes of pure virus. They’re embedded in much larger particles, and even cotton has some benefit: https://smartairfilters.com/en/blog/coronavirus-pollution-ma...
What your cloth mask is doing is to effectively spread a giant fishing net to collect all the particles around you. The moisture in your breath will help keep the viruses inside intact. You'll be constantly breathing air through that, loosening some of those particles and inhaling them. The idea that the mask would protect you makes no sense.
If you're already infected, it's a different story. The mask will reduce the amount of virus you'll be spreading around.
A bedsheet would absolutely reduce viral load you spread, even at naïve assumption of the size - simply because it's an obstacle that inevitably catches some of particulate and reduces the airflow range.
But coronavirus is spread in suspended aerosol particles 3µm or so in size, which are filtered out even more efficiently by a wide range of materials.