Hacker News Reader

Comment by AlexandrB | Hacker News Reader

That interview is from March. Understanding of COVID has moved on. Are you still running software from March on all your devices or just your brain?

View on HN

People already knew in March that the virus spreads via droplets (as all respiratory viruses do) and that widespread mask usage would slow the spread. They had implemented this protocol in China and the rest of Asia for at least a month by then.

How about you use your brain?

Scientific studies have not proven that masks are effective in limiting the spread of the virus. Quite a lot EU countries suggest they can do more harm than good if used sloppily. Masks and covid in the US have become political issue riddled with pseudo science from all sides.

There’s more studies than controlled ones.

Sociological studies strongly suggest that masks do work.

For example, there was a recent study that compared COVID hospitalization rates of districts in Tennessee that had mask mandates vs those which didn’t and the areas with mask mandates had significantly lower disease spread.

To be clear: you're saying that we don't see any benefit with rigorous science. We only see the benefit when we drop our standards of evidence.

How are sociological studies any less scientifical? Is the human behavior something not worth studying?

It is but with 70% being non-reproducible we should be careful what we conclude. Humans are not robots. Lots and lots of factors in play.

I have worn mask since march and have no problem with doing so, I believe they help curve some, but scientific rigor not clickbaity politicized headlines on NYT is what is needed here.

Because it's not science. Spain has been wearing masks for months now, 99% of people comply and it gets only worse and worse. Both of our statements are anecdotes.

It literally is science in any possible definition you can come up for the word. Your anecdotes don't really matter.

They are science, but they're not good evidence. A well run meta analysis of well run RCTs would be best, followed by well run RCTs.

Anything else is science but weak evidence.

Statistical analysis from the South Carolina Department of Health.

https://scdhec.gov/news-releases/dhecs-third-data-analysis-m...

https://scdhec.gov/news-releases/update-mask-requirement-dat...

Virus is too small to be contained by masks that were never meant to be used for this purpose.

They have no virus filter.

Biohazard suit will help you with virus. This masks wont.

masks alone have no significant effect in interrupting the spread of ILI or influenza in the general population, nor in healthcare workers: https://www.cebm.net/covid-19/masking-lack-of-evidence-with-...

The virus spreads with water droplets exhaled and coughed by the body. Those droplets are big enough to be contained by the masks.

Your pants do not protect your from someone else urinating on you but they definitely make it harder for you to do it to someone else, especially by accident. Sorry to be crude.

The problem with this argument is that it relies on people to be altruistic, which I suspect is already negatively correlated with mask wearing.

masks alone have no significant effect in interrupting the spread of ILI or influenza in the general population, nor in healthcare workers:

Clearly you aren't reading your source well.

Masking lack of evidence with politics

Lack of evidence does not imply evidence to the contrary.

Two were done in healthcare workers and four in family or student clusters.

The problem with these clusters is that there are other ways a virus can infect close contacts. If someone in your dorm, house has the virus, mask alone cannot help because there is shared contact with surfaces. So it does not imply masks do not work.

The face mask trials for influenza-like illness (ILI) reported poor compliance,

Well..

and showed that masks alone have no significant effect in interrupting the spread of ILI or influenza in the general population, nor in healthcare workers.

This is what everyone is saying, masks alone don't help. But masks do help along with other precautions. If you are in a crowd, masks do help if someone standing next to you has the virus. If your coworker or spouse gets infected, masks alone might not help because the risk of surface contact related infection is higher.

It is debatable whether any of these results could be applied to the transmission of SARs-CoV-2.

Different disease with different IR.

However, recent reviews using lower quality evidence found masks to be effective.

This reduces the confidence of your source.

Regardless, even if it's possible masks have a minute reduction on transmission, there is no harm in wearing one. Why not wear it until there are more confident studies which show masks don't help. If that does happen we could even allow doctors to stop wearing masks during surgeries!

Reply on news.ycombinator.com