Comment by ghoward | Hacker News Reader

Comment by ghoward | Hacker News Reader

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> For some reason, anti-maskers try to move the goal post by pretending that a basic protective measure is either full-proof or is not worth doing at all, which boggles anyone's mind.

I don't know about other "anti-maskers," but for me, it's about the precautionary principle [1]. If a "basic protective measure" is not foolproof, then maybe the downsides of such a measure outweighs the benefits, and before we decide, collectively, to change our habits, maybe we should think hard about those downsides.

Yes, there are downsides to masks: reduced oxygen, keeping captured bacteria close to your face for long periods, etc., made worse by the fact that people, by and large, do not rotate or clean their masks properly. In other words, experiments in a lab that study the effectiveness of masks when used properly do not match the reality of how people actually use masks.

In other words, in science, all factors matter. [2] And pretending otherwise is disingenuous.

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Precautionary_principle [2]: https://gavinhoward.com/2020/08/in-science-all-factors-matte...

> If a "basic protective measure" is not foolproof, then maybe the downsides of such a measure outweighs the benefits

Pray tell, what are those collosal downsides that render such an effortless thing like wearing a mask in public such a prohibitively costly endeavor?

We don't know. That's why the Precautionary Principle is so important. It is built on the assumption of "We don't know, and we don't know what we don't know, so we had better be cautious."

> We don't know.

Bullshit. People have been wearing protective equipment such as masks for decades, and the negative effects are none.

The anti-maskers' irrational tirade about even low-effort/high-reward protective measures that are demonstrably safe and terribly trivial to pull off is the key factor in this pandemic taking so long to just die off, and you should be ashamed of yourself for contributing to this state of affairs.

> People have been wearing protective equipment such as masks for decades, and the negative effects are none.

Have you yourself seen studies that say the negative effects are none? If so, point me to them; I've only found a few, and they all seemed flawed.

> you should be ashamed of yourself for contributing to this state of affairs.

I have no shame in defending true science against propaganda.

[1] is a blog post I wrote about masks and carbon dioxide, where I wrote a model and ran it on various parameters. The net result was always the same: there was half oxygen and half carbon dioxide behind the mask.

Dr. Anthony Fauci knew that masks were ineffective. [2]

The CDC did a study that failed to show that masks were effective. [3]

Another study showed that masks did not work. [4]

There is a review of older papers concerning masks [5] as well as a follow-up. [6] (Though I do not know the political bent of that website; the review may be cherry picked.)

In other words, there is evidence that masks don't work and that there are downsides. If masks reduce oxygen, which makes us more vulnerable to disease, and they don't work, it's possible that the masks actually made things worse, by making us more vulnerable while doing nothing.

That is why I will never feel shame for my "irrational tirade" because it's not a tirade, and it's not irrational.

[1]: https://gavinhoward.com/2020/08/masks-and-carbon-dioxide/

[2]: https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/fauci-said-masks-were-not-...

[3]: https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/69/wr/pdfs/mm6936a5-H.pdf

[4]: https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.05.18.21257385v...

[5]: https://www.rcreader.com/commentary/masks-dont-work-covid-a-...

[6]: https://www.rcreader.com/commentary/still-no-conclusive-evid...

> The net result was always the same: there was half oxygen and half carbon dioxide behind the mask.

Fascinating. Oxygen normally only makes up 21% of breathable air - it would seem that masks are increasing oxygen levels. In addition, where is your null hypothesis test?

The model only tests how oxygen and carbon dioxide replace each other, not nitrogen. So 50% of the 21% is oxygen, the other 50% is carbon dioxide.

Of course, it could be even worse, that carbon dioxide starts replacing the nitrogen behind the mask. More testing needed.

10% CO2 (> 40000ppm) is lethal. Have I been brainwashed to ignore the people dropping dead on the streets?

The carbon dioxide is only replaced in the volume behind the mask. If that is not a big volume compared to a full breath (and it isn't), then the carbon dioxide you're breathing in isn't 10%. It's (v_mask * 0.21 * 0.5)/V, where v_mask is the volume behind the mask, and V is the full volume of a breath.

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