Comment by thepasswordis | Hacker News Reader

Comment by thepasswordis | Hacker News Reader

The mask thing is actually frustrating to me in the opposite direction.

The theory/intent behind cloth masks is that they might capture respiratory droplets, which might decrease mixing in a congregate setting.

The cost is low, the risk is low, and the benefit (if it works) would be high. It's a no brainer: wear a mask if you are in a congregate setting until we have better data.

But that isn't what MANY lay-people understand the masks to do. In the height of the fear period of the pandemic, I would see very high risk people (age >80) saying things like that they "feel much safer going out with their mask on".

The misinformation about masks (that they protect the wearer) actually caused people to engage in riskier behavior than they would have otherwise.

edit: and as a side point: what do you think this does to people who are already fans of rand paul? It's going to just push them further towards the fringes as a "trusted" place to get information. "Well you know $the_cathedral banned Rand Paul for speaking the truth! We can't trust $the_cathedral anymore! Where should we get data? How about $the_bazaar! (chan sites, gettr, gab, OAN, RSBN, etc.)"

It’s like the bike helmet paradox.

Historically medical professionals used cloth masks which where repeatedly shown to reduce transmission risk of many airborne infections though minimal usefulness vs influenza.

Modern masks may be significantly more effective, but nothing suggests cloth masks are useless when it comes to COVID, just less effective.

To what degree does a cloth mask protect the wearer? Enough that high risk people should feel safe going out with one on?

Because that's the messaging that a lot of people got. "Masks work" [if enough people are wearing them in congregate settings] might make sense to some tiny subset of people who obsessively follow the current understanding of various covid mitigation strategies. For people who don't, that reads as "masks protect you from covid", which I don't think is a claim that anybody serious is even making.

"Masks work", without the additional context and nuance is itself misinformation.

It’s a sliding scale. Basically if you have a 90+% chance of infection such as extended close contact with a sick spouse cloth masks are not particularly useful. However, when used properly they can be quite effective for people at low risk for transmission potentially blocking more than 1/2 of infections.

For example, surgical masks with ties provided 71.5 percent filtration, while surgical masks with ear loops only provided 38.1 percent. …

a three-layer knitted cotton mask blocked an average of 26.5 percent of particles in the chamber, while a washed, two-layer woven nylon mask with a filter insert and metal nose bridge blocked 79 percent of particles on average. Other masks scored somewhere in between.

They also tested a variety of modifications to improve the fit of commercially available medical procedure masks, like tightening ear loops, placing rubber bands over the top and bottom of the mask to reduce gaps, and placing a cut-out piece of nylon stocking over the mask to seal the gaps. The filtration ability improved by 60.3 to 80.2 percent depending on the modification made. As the fit of the medical procedure masks improved, so did their filtration efficiency. https://www.epa.gov/sciencematters/epa-researchers-test-effe...

IMO, saying masks work is perfectly reasonable even if they don’t provide 100% protection.

Most of the people spouting off about "dont trust the experts" seemingly their process is to watch whatever youtube videos that confirm their preset opinion and then slam dunk their confirmation bias as if they are world class researchers.

As to the validity of masking and social distancing: https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2021/03/02/children-fl... "The flu killed nearly 200 children last season. This time, 1 has died."

The notion that masks "might capture [exhaled] droplets" has a ton of circumstantial evidence behind it, and also as you note is a low cost low risk intervention. Which is why for those who are willing to wear masks, the use or lack of use of masks becomes a kind of proxy answer to the question "sooo... do you care about other people?" because as you note, they protect other people primarily.

Also, to categorize 'masks protect the wearer' as "misinformation", is a bit of a category stretch I think. "Vaccines are more harmful than covid" is misinformation, whereas "masks reduce the risk of spreading and catching covid" is.... not really in the same category as the former statement.

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