Researchers propose that humidity from masks may lessen severity of Covid-19

SNIP

" Our review of the literature offers evidence in favor of widespread mask use as source control to reduce community transmission: Nonmedical masks use materials that obstruct particles of the necessary size; people are most infectious in the initial period postinfection, where it is common to have few or no symptoms (45, 46, 141); nonmedical masks have been effective in reducing transmission of respiratory viruses; and places and time periods where mask usage is required or widespread have shown substantially lower community transmission.

The available evidence suggests that near-universal adoption of nonmedical masks when out in public, in combination with complementary public health measures, could successfully reduce Re

to below 1, thereby reducing community spread if such measures are sustained. Economic analysis suggests that mask wearing mandates could add 1 trillion dollars to the US GDP (32, 34).

Models suggest that public mask wearing is most effective at reducing spread of the virus when compliance is high (39). "

FROM

An evidence review of face masks against COVID-19 by Jeremy Howard, Austin Huang, et al.

https://www.pnas.org/content/118/4/e2014564118

>And so does the US:

This is not my actual experience in the United States. It's practically impossible to find a laundromat in Rhode Island that isn't constantly full of maskless noses, and we're a blue state.

EDIT:

>More than nine in 10 U.S. adults (93%) said they sometimes, often or always wear a mask or face covering when they leave their home and are unable to socially distance, including more than seven in 10 (72%) who said they always do so, the poll revealed.

That's not 93% compliance, it's 72% compliance. In other words, the noncompliance rate is five times higher!

Both your links claim less than 95% compliance, and both suggest a recent, marked improvement in mask wearing from earlier dates (but still well after the start of the pandemic).

How would those same places be doing without masks?

A bit more than 20% of the people in France are over 65.

For Brazil, it's a bit more than 9%.

We know very well that age is a significant factor.

It may be a factor, but it's a pretty big leap to say that's what is behind countries' successes and failures. I mean, I've even seen people claiming it's due to "Asians eating a lot of fish".

The most obvious explanation is (even literally) right in front of our noses: politics, culture and age distribution.

Your hypothesis does not square with the unfolding tragedy.

https://www.doctorswithoutborders.org/what-we-do/news-storie...

I don't think you can conclude anything from those numbers. On the one hand Brazil is very likely underreporting and has a much younger population, but on the other hand their medical care is not as good.

Yes, pure sarcasm. Quite a catastrophe there. And a cautionary tale for what happens when denialists get their way.

Oof, that's a good point. And lots of people in the inland west (we're it's extremely dry) have whole home humidifiers...

Try tucking the mask slightly under your glasses. And make sure the nose strip has metal and can bend to the shape of your face.

You can almost 100% solve the issue by taping the top edge of the mask to your face with surgical tape. Just a 6 inch strip of tape along your nose and under each eye and glasses fogging was 98% gone for me. It's probably not the most comfortable for some people, but not so different from wearing a band-aid. Very cheap and works with almost any mask.

My brothers work supplies masks with an internal nose flap to prevent steaming up their safety glasses.

It seems to be very effective. I can't find a picture, unfortunately my description leaves a lot to be desired.

But it's a common problem and there are a variety of products that try to address it.

Oh, I sympathise even though I don’t wear prescriptions. I do like to wear sunglasses quite often, and even thought it’d help reduce a vector of infection. But I can’t get a mask and sunglasses combo that works for more than 10 seconds!

I mitigate it by simply not covering my nose. Before I started doing that, condensation on my glasses was so bad on certain days, that I had to have my partner lead me by the hand across pedestrian crossings, because I could see neither the lights nor cars.

Mask laws were instituted to get people to cover both nose and mouth, but it is interesting to see different levels of observance across Europe. In small-town Poland, for example, I see a lot of people not covering their nose, while in Romania I saw that people were very diligent about covering their whole face, and I have laughed to watch Albanian news and see that a lot of people in the street just have the mask over their chin with neither mouth nor nose covered.

Masks are a part of fashion in Asia already - habitual mask wearing in public has been a thing at least since SARS.

First comment says:

> CO2 tended to cause poor sleep, headache, and hand tremor before it caused cognitive issues.

Using terms like "Freedomland" expose your biases fairly clearly and make it easy for me to safely ignore you.

But you might be surprised to learn that even as recently as 2016 the use of masks in surgical settings wasn't understood to be backed by very strong science: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4480558/

Masks cover one's facial expressions. Showing one's own facial expression and being able to see others’ is an important part of social interaction in many cultures. Indeed, whether one person feels he or she can instinctively trust another is often based on getting a view of the other person’s face.

This behavior can be suspended temporarily on a short-term basis when a population perceives an urgent state of pandemic or (as in Japan) when an individual says he has a cold, but it may not be sustainable at a society-wide scale beyond that. Seatbelts faced cultural resistance before adoption, sure, but much less than masks would once the acute COVID risk has passed.

This is a silly false equivalence but I'll engage with it because it seems annoyingly popular. The evidence of efficacy of seatbelt usage in crash scenarios is abundantly clear. The same isn't true for wearing a cloth/surgical mask in public during a pandemic featuring an airborne virus. I'm aware there are hand-wavy meta-studies and extrapolated surveys on the issue (but 1 RCT from Denmark which showed no statistical significance between control and experimental groups. See https://www.acpjournals.org/doi/10.7326/m20-6817) but common sense and being able to evaluate statistics of mask mandated regions vs. not indicates to me their findings are dubious at best. Even n95s are not likely useful against an airborne virus if not properly fitted and regularly replaced.

What wearing the mask does show me is that a person is extremely susceptible to propaganda and likely has conformist tendencies. This isn't necessarily true in all cases but I think it will be for the majority of them. This sort of person is dangerous to bring in to your social circle because they can easily be manipulated into being an instrument of the state. I don't want to have to police my own thoughts and opinions in front of my friends and in an increasing totalitarian "cancel culture" environment this risk becomes increasingly more substantial and existential.

From a strictly rational perspective, avoiding any and all infection is not the correct decision because that way you don’t build up an immune system and remain massively vulnerable to the mildest of diseases.

>you are statistically less likely to contract airbourne diseases with a mask on.

What are you basing this assessment on? Are all masks equal? Does training in mask application matter? For what duration are different types of masks effective?

> The mouth is one of the dirtiest places on the body, which is why human bites are so dangerous.

To others, with broken skin.

We're inhaling air that passes through our own dirty mouths pretty regularly without getting infected by it already.