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Comment by TheProbes | Hacker News Reader

I live in Japan and everyone here wears a mask, but more importantly, wears them properly. Many Japanese people are already attuned to wearing them during flu season, and everyone wears them if they think they are getting a cold so it's no big deal for everyone to wear them the whole time, kids included. I'm not Japanese, but I get with the program and after a while, you don't notice it.

Masks are, of course, effective. Again, if you wear them properly and constantly, and everyone wears them.

The people who DON'T want to wear them and who wish to make it a political act will dredge up all sorts of B.S studies and data showing that "mandates" don't work and therefore extrapolate from that that masks themselves don't work, when any examination of the scene will show 60% of people wearing them 60% of the time, noses hanging out, lifting them up to talk, only putting them on when they've taken a few steps into the shop etc etc.

Masks work. If you wish to be honest about it, you'd say "They work, but we can't get our citizens to wear them."

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> I live in Japan and everyone here wears a mask, but more importantly, wears them properly

I lived in Japan, and have many friends in Japan. This is true only if you redefine "properly" to exclude all indoor environments. People in Japan routinely gather inside without masks, then put them on when they go outside. You can watch the TV news and see people gathered in bars and restaurants with masks off, but then they wear them religiously while walking around the city. Absolutely pointless behavior. I see this behavior amongst my own friends regularly on Instagram and Facebook.

Moreover, it's fairly common to see things like "chin masks", like this:

https://zqxkk1h5ljq1vh5rd1kit5ok-wpengine.netdna-ssl.com/wp-...

I'm not sure what these are supposed to be doing, exactly, but sure, I guess people are "wearing masks".

> Many Japanese people are already attuned to wearing them during flu season, and everyone wears them if they think they are getting a cold

This wasn't even close to true, pre-pandemic. I was regularly sandwiched between people on trains with obvious head colds, sniffing their snot every 5 seconds. Sure, some people wore masks, but it wasn't "everyone". Not by a long shot.

> Masks are, of course, effective.

This is an assertion. The best available data from randomized controlled trials shows a minimal effect:

https://vinayprasadmdmph.substack.com/p/do-masks-reduce-risk...

> Masks work.

Repeating this phrase, without evidence, does not make it true. Even ignoring the top-line RCT evidence, you have to define what you mean by "masks" to get close to a meaningful statement -- a chin shield is obviously nothing like a cloth mask, is nothing like a full-face respirator.

Yeah, this is an example of what I'm talking about. I'll get on the train this morning and ride to work and probably see 100,000 people, none of whom are unmasked or wearing "chin masks". I'll work all day and not see a single one of my co-workers faces. Same thing on the way home. Then, because it's Friday, I'll go out for drinks with my wife or maybe the same friends I usually see because we aren't in lockdown, and spend a couple of hours in a bar unmasked. Maybe I'll post a photo of myself having a beer?

Yet you have some friends on Instagram who post when they're out, and have seen some news reports (probably of the variety of "Japan's COVID mystery, why are their numbers so low?") where they hunt out some drongos in some dodgy tachinomya who aren't wearing masks for their story about how Japanese people aren't wearing masks either, and because it fits into your worldview, you'll glom onto that and post some non-peer reviewed rubbish that confirms your fervent wish that you shouldn't be in any way inconvenienced.

Oh look at that, I just saw the morning news. 115 new cases of COVID today in a country of 120 million during the Delta wave. It's a mystery I tell you. A complete mystery.

Don't listen to this guy, wear a mask, get vaccinated.

> Don't listen to this guy, wear a mask, get vaccinated.

What are you talking about? Did I say anything about vaccines? Check your biases.

> I'll get on the train this morning and ride to work and probably see 100,000 people

Oh stop. You don't see 100,000 people a day. You could stand in the middle of Shinagawa station all day long, and I doubt you'd see that many people pass by you. And you certainly aren't confirming if they're wearing masks.

> I'll work all day and not see a single one of my co-workers faces. Same thing on the way home. Then, because it's Friday, I'll go out for drinks with my wife or maybe the same friends I usually see because we aren't in lockdown, and spend a couple of hours in a bar unmasked. Maybe I'll post a photo of myself having a beer?

Well, yes. This is exactly the behavior I am describing. You're doing it, too. You think the virus somehow knows that you're out for a drink and stops being infectious?

Your contention is that masks don't work, and Japanese people don't wear them? I travel the loop line to and from work during rush hour each day, and yeah, while I don't canvas every single person, to my mind, I don't see anyone not masked up and wearing it correctly.

On my way today actually, remembering your goofy statements, I kept a special eye out, just for you. Carriages stuffed full of people, lines and lines on the platforms, train doors opening and waves of people pouring out to change trains, little groups of elementary schoolkids walking together to school....I didn't see a single person today (bar a couple of dudes with their masks down while they smoked outside Lawsons) not masked. You just don't see people not fully masked up. Day in, day out. Sorry if I don't keep a little tally counter on me.

"You're doing it too." What does this even mean? I drink within a closed circle of friends or family in a bar with separated tables and screens up. The staff all wear masks. Life goes on, but because of the masks and distancing measures, the transmission rates remain low.

You have an incoherent world-view and grasp of logic. Are you incapable of understanding that there is a sliding scale of masking behaviour? With Japan at one end, and the dolts screaming about mandates in street protests at the other?

Again, I say, don't listen to this guy. Wear a mask (properly). Get vaccinated. (Is that punctuation more to your liking?)

> Your contention is that masks don't work, and Japanese people don't wear them?

No. My evidence-backed argument is that masks don't have much of an effect, and secondarily, my personal observation is that Japanese people don't wear them as much as you claim, particularly inside, while eating and drinking and socializing. They definitely wear them outside, where it doesn't matter much at all.

Arguing that you rode a train today and saw lots of people wearing masks on your commute is unsurprising. Completely consistent with what I'm saying.

> I drink within a closed circle of friends or family in a bar with separated tables and screens up. The staff all wear masks. Life goes on, but because of the masks and distancing measures, the transmission rates remain low.

Right. So you've now twice admitted that you do exactly what I am describing: you go out to eat and drink and socialize and take off your mask, inside, with groups of other people who are also not wearing masks. But it doesn't count when you do it, because reasons. Shields. Treating the staff as Others who have to wear masks around you, in a room full of unmasked people. It's all the same performative logic: you're OK because you're a person who wears a mask (except when you don't).

Invent all the rationalizations you like; I don't particularly care. I am not a member of the church. I'm just stating what I see, and you're...well, you're agreeing with me.

I live in Tokyo, Japan. Nearly Everybody wears masks here (correctly). Several people even wear 2. Don't listen to him, he claimed there were spikes in Japan this winter when somebody pointed out the mask wearing ... Fundamental anti-masker :) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29294849

Yeah, he's on some kind of messed up head trip, that's for sure. Osaka here.

> 115 new cases of COVID today in a country of 120 million during the Delta wave. It's a mystery I tell you. A complete mystery.

In case anyone is curious, Japan has done far fewer Covid tests per capita than somewhere like Namibia, a country with one-tenth the GDP per capita.

(Of note: some sources like https://items.ssrc.org/covid-19-and-the-social-sciences/covi... claim Japan's intentional testing restrictions causally decreases the number of cases, by avoiding nosocomial infections.)

This article was from almost two years ago when the pandemic wasn't even going properly.

The data I mentioned about testing per capita is through today. In concrete numbers, Japan has performed ~25 million tests and has a population of ~125 million.

There are THREE articles, and I chose them so that they spanned the past two years. The second article is from June 28, 2021 and the headline is "Testing at elderly care facilities expands, but at a snail’s pace".

I mean, there has to be a literal _wealth_ of data on mask efficiency by now, considering the _wildly_ different mask mandates between countries? If they are effective it should be somehow visible in transmission rates or whatever after and before masks became mandated.

Sweden where I live has never had any kind of wide mask mandate in public. There has been rules for public transport where I live, and in the office where I work but we worked at home so. Also recommendations for wearing a mask in shops if you are unable to keep a 2m distance. But I have never seen a majority of people anywhere here wear masks.

There is. The OP even talks about a study done during one of the worst outbreaks of delta and the significant effect it had in Missouri. The same type of change in multiple cities where the treatment (mandate) was in effect occurring while also not happening in the other places where it wasn't in effect? That's not a coincidence anymore.

For Missouri's study to be valid, statistically and empirically, you'd have to measure the actual wearing of masks in areas with mandates, and control for other factors. Did the Missouri study measure actual mask use, and control for other factors?

There are no legal mandates to wear mask in Japan, but many shops order to wear mask.

> This is an assertion. The best available data from randomized controlled trials shows a minimal effect:

> https://vinayprasadmdmph.substack.com/p/do-masks-reduce-risk...

From your link

> Scientists have lost any consistent standards for evidence appraisal.

Just... wow.

The underlying paper was published, not on a peer reviewed scientific site, but Cato, which is a libertarian institute.

> > Scientists have lost any consistent standards for evidence appraisal.

> Just... wow.

Solid rebuttal.

> The underlying paper was published, not on a peer reviewed scientific site, but Cato, which is a libertarian institute.

So what? Have you read it, or are you just disparaging it because you don't like the server where it is hosted? The authors are doctors from UCSF, and experts in medical evidence.

Reading the paper was the first thing I did, unfortunately.

I read it, until I realized it had no data, and that it was completely biased towards a single narrative.

Only then did I look to see who published it.

> The best available data from randomized controlled trials shows a minimal effect.

Be careful what you are arguing that these trials show: whether masks, when worn properly, work, or whether mask mandates work.

Because a randomized study that shows that mask mandates work, which has been shown (the best example I am aware of is the study from India), would necessarily mean that properly worn masks would need to be much more effective than the effect size from a mask mandate study, because of course tons of people under a mask mandate still don't wear masks, or wear them as chin warmers, or never wash them, etc.

So I'm always curious that when a mask mandate study shows minimal, but significant, effectiveness, that the response isn't "See, masks work, even when a ton of people still don't wear them or wear them haphazardly" as opposed to "masks hardly work".

> Be careful what you are arguing that these trials show: whether masks, when worn properly, work, or whether mask mandates work.

The RCTs have been for masks themselves, not for mandates (this gets a little complicated because of compliance and intention-to-treat analysis, but it's basically true; the researchers were testing masks themselves, not rules surrounding masks). If the masks don't have strong evidence, I don't expect mandates to make the situation better.

Where are you getting this idea that they don't have strong evidence? We have several studies now, in schools, cities, states, and other places, that have shown that, while not perfect, masks have a very noticeable positive effect on reducing transmission and spread.

I don't think you're operating in good faith, but since you asked, other people might find this useful. You'll also note that none of the links I am providing here are from Vinay Prasad, since you are convinced he is some kind of astroturfing organization...

There have been exactly two RCTs for masks and Covid during the pandemic, neither of which has shown a large effect [1][2]. The DANMASK study showed no significant PPE effect, and the Bangladesh RCT showed a total effect size of around 0.09% (or a difference of 20 infections on base of thousands). Prior to the pandemic, RCTs for masks and respiratory disease showed weak effects, at best. Cochrane did a review of the literature [3], and found:

> Seven studies took place in the community, and two studies in healthcare workers. Compared with wearing no [surgical] mask, wearing a [surgical] mask may make little to no difference in how many people caught a flu-like illness (9 studies; 3507 people); and probably makes no difference in how many people have flu confirmed by a laboratory test (6 studies; 3005 people).

> We are uncertain whether wearing masks or N95/P2 respirators helps to slow the spread of respiratory viruses.

There have been many uncontrolled studies published. These are useless. Uncontrolled studies are not science (the Missouri study discussed in the OP is not a controlled study, btw).

There have been many laboratory studies published. These are suggestive, but just like a lab study for a drug, not meaningful in the real world without real-world evidence.

[1] https://www.acpjournals.org/doi/10.7326/m20-6817

[2] https://www.poverty-action.org/sites/default/files/publicati...

[3] https://www.cochrane.org/CD006207/ARI_do-physical-measures-s...

The Danish study is self reported with no policing of wearing a mask correctly at appropriate times and always using clean masks (not reusing masks from day to day).

> Inconclusive results, missing data, variable adherence, patient-reported findings on home tests, no blinding, and no assessment of whether masks could decrease disease transmission from mask wearers to others.

The Bangladesh study found masks were effective.

The third is a literature review with no indication of quality control, so basically as reliable as the Danish study (no policing of actual mask wearing, no policing of proper mask wearing, no policing of mask hygiene).

> The Danish study is self reported with no policing of wearing a mask correctly at appropriate times and always using clean masks (not reusing masks from day to day).

So was the Bangladesh study. They did some surveys to estimate the rate of compliance, but it's not like there was a mask policeman following the participants around.

If only you folks would spend half as much effort reading the studies you prefer as you do the ones you dislike, you might be more credible.

> The Bangladesh study found masks were effective.

The Bangledesh study found a grand total of 20 infections separating the two arms of the surgical mask study. Out of thousands. A total effect size of 0.09%. It found that cloth masks had no significant effect.

Also, my favorite: It found that one color of cloth mask was significantly different than the other one. We all know that viruses have a strong red/blue preference, right?

Maybe we should be a little circumspect about what "significance" means here.

I am not sure why you are attributing motive to me when I am simply pointing out the flaws in an anti-masker’s supposed supporting evidence.

Particulates are bad, so while a mask outdoors may not matter for pandemic, it may be more than absolutely pointless.

After almost two years of pandemic, there have been essentially no examples of documented spread of the virus outside (there have been a handful of examples in weird situations involving outdoor structures, crowds, etc., but these are the exception, not the norm).

You don't need to wear a mask outside. Not for a virus, anyway.

This thread looks like it's being astro-turfed by supporters of Vinay Prasad and the nonsense he keeps peddling. There are plenty of studies showing that masks work and that they reduce transmission and spread and there are even studies that show that mask mandates have a drastic positive effect in limiting community transmission and spread.

Breaking the site guidelines like this will get you banned here, regardless of how wrong someone else is or you feel they are.

Between this comment, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29419551, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29423080, and https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29419708, you went way over the line and well into bannable offense. You've also been posting flamewar comments elsewhere too. That's not gooo.

If you'd please review https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and stick to the rules when posting here, we'd appreciate it.

"Astroturfed"...that's hilarious. I'm a real person. I've been on the site for years. I think for myself and read and interpret data. Big Vinay Prasad is not paying me to come here and spread the gospel of randomized controlled trials and rigorous science.

If you disagree with the data, you're more than welcome to bring rigorous arguments to the debate, and not merely propaganda.

> There are plenty of studies showing that masks work and that they reduce transmission and spread and there are even studies that show that mask mandates have a drastic positive effect in limiting community transmission and spread.

And, as noted, the vast majority of those "studies" are terrible, and the good studies show the opposite.

This is not a game of collecting "papers", and the side with the most papers wins. They're not monopoly money or science points. You have to read them and understand the details. A paper that uses biased or flawed methodology (i.e. most mask studies) is useless for drawing conclusions.

I don't know who that is, the reason I'm skeptical is the sheer amount of cofounders in most observational studies. My pre-pandemic prior was slightly positive towards masking, strongly negative towards government mask mandates.

My personal totally subjective risk estimates after reading a ton of studies and metanalyses is that n95 masks probably reduce transmission at least somewhat (90% confidence), surgical masks probably have a weak or negligible effect (50% confidence), and cloth masks probably don't work at all (50% confidence).

I personally still wear a surgical mask while at work, at the hospital/doctor's office, and in crowded spaces I expect to be in for a long time such as the DMV, airplanes, trains. I don't wear a mask outdoors, in grocery stores and convenience stores, or when visiting family members. I am moderately against government-imposed mask mandates (both for science-based reasons and ideological reasons) though I do comply with them when they are imposed.

I wear masks when my country mandates that I should. But I think the issue is this...

Covid is here to stay, many countries have very high vaccination rates at this point, so effectively if we continue to wear masks even in very high vaccination countries we're essentially saying we have to wear them forever, because what's going to change? Unless some new vaccine comes out that actually prevents transmission covid is a permanent thing.

And to put it simply, while I understood the need to wear one when we had no vaccines because anything that helped was a good idea, I'm not sure I'm prepared to wear one indefinitely.

I think the point you and the sibling comment makes are good ones: health authorities, at least in the US, have never been clear on the exit criteria for ending interventions, and the goal posts have continually been moved. Remember when "flatten the curve" was the original goal early in the pandemic? That almost seems like a quaint notion now.

But that said, with an endemic disease I think the idea behind flatten the curve is the only one that makes sense - that is, masks should only be required if health care facilities are at risk of being overloaded. I'm fully vaccinated, so the only time I'll wear a mask are if transmission rates in my area are currently high (or if I'm entering a place that has a specific mask mandate - I don't enjoy wearing a mask but I also don't think it's a very big deal so I don't understand why so many choose it as their hill to die on).

> health authorities, at least in the US, have never been clear on the exit criteria for ending interventions

"When we are confident we are not hours away from a nationwide medical emergency" is not easy to communicate. I'm sure if they literally said that, all the people complaining they have no clear exit criteria would loudly complain it is not clear; what, of course it isn't. If people knew all the details about how the pandemic will behave, they would have told you.

> When we are confident we are not hours away from a nationwide medical emergency

Huh? We've basically never been "hours away" from any sort of national emergency at any time during this pandemic, and that sort of unwarranted catastrophizing is what frustrates so many people.

Heck, my city, like many, does have easily understood, rational criteria for additional recommended interventions based on hospital intake rates. My only objection is that our local authorities have ignored their own criteria frequently by raising a stage level prematurely or by keeping at a high stage weeks and months after hospitalization rates have gone down.

Masks may "work" to a limited extent to reduce the risk of transmission in any single interaction, but in the long run that won't save anyone. The virus is now endemic and almost everyone will eventually be exposed regardless of public health measures. You can't seriously expect asymptomatic people to wear masks in public forever.

https://www.medpagetoday.com/opinion/vinay-prasad/94646

So what are the exit criteria?

> You can't seriously expect asymptomatic people to wear masks in public forever.

Before we catastrophise, how about we start with the pragmatic - ask people to wear masks while infection rates are high. Which is unlikely to be forever

There's a big difference between 'Covid is going to be with us forever' and 'Covid infection rates will threaten to overwhelm health services forever'.

FWIW, case rates in Japan are near nil (~15 people daily in Tokyo), the vaccination rate is closing in on 80%, and everyone still wears a mask.

I don't know about "forever", but people in Japan have no problem wearing masks in public while asymptomatic with low case rates because we know it's a public health issue, and it's working. That's why we keep wearing them.

I wasn't used to masking up pre-pandemic. I got used to it within the first month. Now I can't leave the house without a mask on. It feels wrong. (This doesn't mean I'm deathly afraid to remove/lower it, e.g. while eating at restaurants or when I'm outside with nobody around and I feel like a bit of a break).

You clearly then do not suffer from poor eye-sight that requires you to where a mechanical device on your face (i.e glasses) to correct for this

How every abelist of you.

My experience with masks, and glasses is very poor, specifically the more common cloth masks that go over the ears. Something like a Gaiter mask is slightly better but many say these are less effective

I too wear glasses. It depends on the kind of mask.

Disposable surgical masks with the "metal-bendy-bit" for the bridge of your nose has worked great for me.

I also use cloth masks all the time due to the ease of keeping one on me, and washing it with the whites and bleach at the end of the date. Cloth masks definitely fog up my glasses more, but I find that adjusting them and not breathing through my mask help me.

I'm the exaxt opposite. Before wearing a mask I would routinely have trouble keeping my glasses on. When I wear a mask it's actually easier to wear glasses because I can hook the sides into the ear loops and they won't fall off when I look down.

Japan has plenty of people with poor eyesight who wear glasses, including several friends of mine, and nobody has a problem with masks.

I agree with this, but in many places in the US health authorities have kept mask mandates indefinitely, regardless of current hospital capacity.

> in the long run that won't save anyone

> eventually

I don't know exactly about the US but in NL that is precisely the sticking point. It doesn't matter that everyone will get it, it matters when everybody gets it because we don't have the ICU capacity to treat everyone at the same time (+ regular ICU patients and overhead for scheduled surgeries)

In Germany, a country with among the highest rate of ICU beds per capita, we reached a point where scheduled surgeries for cancer patient are delayed because of this. Yet alone to speak about emergencies, in some regions it really is a bad time to have a heart attack or a stroke. Or a serious accident.

Which is why I am so frustrated with people refusing to be vaccinated and with our politicians that ignored all warning over a calm summer, again after they did the same ting in 2020. Because reasonable, innocent people are suffering now. Sometimes I wished voluntarily unvaccinated people would be consequent enough to refuse treatment.

Very good point. Slow the spread. If you slow it to near zero we are well off.

This reminds me of someone telling me "If even vaccinated people can get Covid what's the point of me getting vaccinated?"

The answer is simple but perhaps subtle and may be hard for some people to understand and accept: To lower the risk.

You can't fully eliminate the risk but you can and should lower the risk as much as is easily possible.

There are 777k Covid deaths in the US now and I wonder why media doesn't tell us that number every day. I guess many people don't want to hear it.

https://www.google.com/search?q=how+many+people+have+died+fr...

Don't forget that the vaccine also lower the risk of severe form of Covid.

> So what are the exit criteria?

Vaccination. Which is one of the reasons it’s especially infuriating when anti-maskers are also anti-vaccine. By far and away the easiest way to do away with masks is for everyone to just get the vaccine.

For myself, I have two small children that are currently not eligible to be vaccinated. So I will be continuing to wear a mask indoors until they can be.

> You can't seriously expect asymptomatic people to wear masks in public forever.

Another shame this has become such a culture war topic because there’s nothing wrong with the idea of wearing masks when appropriate, indefinitely. As the OP said, in Japan people wear them during flu season and when they feel themselves coming down with a cold. There’s nothing wrong with that, nor is it a particular burden on the vast majority of the population.

I live in NYC and might continue to wear a mask when I’m on the subway during flu season, it feels like common sense. But I know if I try to do that in other cities in the country I’ll be looked upon as if I’m a leper.

It's a bit counter-intuitive that it is precisely in the presence of people who don't wear a mask that YOU should be wearing one.

Our intuitive understanding, inclination is "do as others do". "Oh, nobody's wearing a mask, must mean there is no virus around here". No. Not. If people are not wearing masks it is more likely that there's a lot of virus going on.

People who don't wear a mask in your presence are likely to be careless about protecting them against the virus in other ways, and therefore are more likely to have it already.

Vaccinations has to a degree the same issue as masks. The question isn't if they work, but rather how effective they are in different contexts. It seems we are now at three vaccinations for just 2021, and multiple different mutations of the virus. I hope strongly this third dose will be it and this latest mutation will be the final one, however listening to researchers that discuss the subject makes me less hopeful.

The exit criteria is that the general population get enough protection that covid outcomes behave similar to other seasonal flu viruses. The hope is that this will be achieved through a combination of vaccinations and time, but we won't know until the data is in. What is known in many countries is that transmission of covid by vaccinated people has surpassed greatly those of unvaccinated (by simple quantity of people who are vaccinated), which is why masks in high risk areas is still recommended for tipple vaccinated people. I would recommend a mask in NYC subway to combat Covid regardless of how much vaccine you have taken.

It seems to me that it’s become a culture war topic because people are advocating for something stronger than that. I also plan to wear a mask on public transit for the long term (I kinda wanted to before), but I don’t want to have to wear a mask grocery shopping, or do the thing where you wear it for five seconds while walking from a restaurant door to your table.

The CDC disagree with you as they now say everyone should wear a mask regardless of vaccination status because we now know that even vaccinated people spread the virus you just do not get as sick

>infuriating when anti-maskers are also anti-vaccine

I am anti-mandates, so would you count me as an anti-masker and anti-vaxer?

>>and when they feel themselves coming down with a cold

This is the key point that betrays your statement, They wear them to prevent spreading sickness to others, your statement imply you will wear them prevent getting sick. Non-n95 masks are not effective at preventing you from becoming sick, and infact in some ways should concentrate a flu virus and make you sick where you would not have otherwise gotten ill.

Masks are good for already sick people to use to prevent further spread that is the correct use for normal non-n95 masks

> This is the key point that betrays your statement

Why do these conversations always devolve into people trying to make “gotcha” points?

I was pointing out reasons why wearing a mask could be sensible. Those reasons aren’t necessarily anything to do with COVID. But there’s now such a cultural issue around it that the reasons won’t even matter. You’re a “masker” or an “anti-masker”.

Do you not pay attention? Have you not seen case numbers in Gibraltar? Fully vaxed Lebron James caught it. In what world do you live in such that you can ignore the vaccines are obviously not preventing transmission?

Vaccines dramatically reduce the danger of the virus. I have friends who caught COVID pre-vaccine and it was horrendous. Some are still dealing with the effects today. I have other friends that caught it while vaccinated. They felt rough for a few days.

The public health argument is very clear: vaccines reduce transmission. No, they don’t stop it. But they also reduce the strain on ICUs and other healthcare facilities needed to treat people with extreme cases.

In what world do you live in such that you can ignore that?

> Vaccines dramatically reduce the danger of the virus

Obviously, if you take the same COVID-naive person and subject this person to a virus both in vaccinated and unvaccinated state (repeatedly), you can derive a conclusion. This is a simple and easy to understand impossible experiment.

How your conclusion was derived? (I'm not arguing with it, I just don't understand the method.)

Reminds me of the vaccine for the flu - where time and time again, I'm told by anti-vaxers that the flu vaccine doesn't work, they got the flu, and were fine.

Lest we forget that the flu killed millions of people a century ago, the vaccine likely reduced the chance you caught it, but still managed to catch the disease, and the reduction in severe symptoms when you get it.

I remember reading every year about someone who refused to vaccinate their kids, and one of the kids died from the flu.

Vaccines don't 100% prevent catching any virus. Especially fast mutating viruses.

Have you not seen the case-numbers in USA: 777,000 people dead from Covid. https://www.google.com/search?q=how+many+people+have+died+fr...

I wonder, how many of those people didn't have easy regular access to medical services.

I live in NYC and can't imagine not wearing a mask in the subway ever again... it smells rank enough to begin with.

There is nothing wrong with wearing a mask however long you want. There is however something very wrong with being forced to wear a mask against your will however long someone else wants.

> You can't seriously expect asymptomatic people to wear masks in public forever.

why not? I enjoy foiling facial recognition efforts, and those efforts are everywhere. I probably won't ever stop wearing a mask in public.

For social reasons. There's so much information you get from one person face that keep using the mask forever would have very negative social effects that are probably almost impossible to measure.

This visage, no mere veneer of vanity, is a vestige of the “vox populi” now vacant, vanished.

Voilà! In view, a humble vaudevillian veteran, cast vicariously as both victim and villain by the vicissitudes of fate.

Gait recognition doesn't care about masks. I don't know how far the technology got, but as a human I find recognising humans by their gait trivial enough.

I once recognized a former football teammate from the stands years later when he was in full pads and helmet just from how he ran onto the field. No doubt an AI could be even more accurate, which is why I recommend wearing a mask and riding a hoverboard everywhere.

Thanks for reminding us that there are A LOT of different ways to recognize people! I had never considered looking at their gait, that sounds like cool research

that is a non-statement somehow; you aren't responding to anything I actually said, but what you imagined that I said, and then you came up with a counter argument to the imaginary statement...

the things people do really confuse me, sometimes. I .. I am just not capable of understanding why people do most of what they do.

I didn't say I wanted to defeat gait recognition, did I? No, I did not.

my turn to imagine something you'll say: "oh well you can also be recognized by your voice"

I didn't say I wanted to defeat voice recognition, either.

etc

Actually there's a simple reason. If I have to wear a mask and social distance, I see no value in a vaccine. The point behind the "political" position isn't that masking is bad, the main position is that a mandate requiring it is bad. In a country where "My body, my choice" this is clearly a contradiction.

Significantly reducing my risk of dying intubated and in agony is a fairly compelling vaccine use case for me.

My body my choice is about to be ruled illegal by the conservative court.

because there are a lot of people that feel the exact opposite of you - i dont ever want to wear one again!

> i dont ever want to wear one again!

Why do you feel so strongly about this? Masks of a few kinds are standard PPE in many fields, it's not like they're particularly restrictive or anything.

I have a family member who is a surgeon who is obviously accustomed to wearing a mask frequently in her job, but now that she has to wear it 100% of the time at work she finds it particularly exhausting and rips it off as soon as she is done.

Nobody should have to justify why they don't want to wear a mask, the same way nobody should have to justify why they do. Justification is needed when you want to force your opinion on others.

>Nobody should have to justify why they don't want to wear a mask, the same way nobody should have to justify why they do.

Consider you are doing UX design. You wrote some software that helps your customer, but they won't use it. Why won't they use it? How can you improve it? What alternatives can you implement to keep the benefits that you are trying to give to your customers while also making the product "acceptable"?

Short questions like "why won't you use masks?" Can come off as antagonistic (e.g. shame on you! Just use the Fing mask), but they may also be inquisitive (e.g. what concerns do YOU have with masks). This being HN, I prefer to assume the intent is the latter.

You are correct, of course. And if the parent I replied to was simply being inquisitive, I apologize for my tone. But in the current climate, it's hard for me to read it that way without it being specifically pointed out.

when their refusal to do so in the public sphere endangers others. indeed they do need to justify it.

Those fields people choose to join, they made the decision to accept that requirement. Plus as others have said in the grand scheme it's not the most effective Solution. Remote work, contactless services and other similar initiatives would yield a higher success and would reduce other things like crime and environmental impacts, why not pursue that or a contactless society instead if the goal is to prevent transmission

Why not both?

I live in a warm/hot climate and they are very uncomfortable when it's 90F+ outside. Vaccines are available to everyone in the US, and I'm double vaxxed, everyone I know is double vaxxed, and I'm not afraid of getting COVID -- why should I wear one?

If people want to wear one for the rest of their lives (I doubt they will), have at it. If it is to avoid facial recognition, I guess I get that but have to understand that in that situation you are in a tiny minority of people willing to cover your face in defense of your digital privacy. (Look around you, 90% of the people are uploading themselves to TikToc without a care in the world)

At this point, the masking mandates in the US makes absolutely no sense either. If you fly on a plane, you are allowed to take your mask off to eat or drink but then have to put it back on when your not doing either, as if COVID disappears when you're eating. You can cross state boarders without being tested, etc.

We need to start learning how to live with COVID, because zero COVID is no longer an option. That ship has sailed.

> as if COVID disappears when you're eating

No, but you can't really eat with a mask on so keeping it on for the entire rest of the time minimizes the risk of spreading and transmitting it. Even if it's not 100% perfect, it still has a significant positive benefit.

> it still has a significant positive benefit.

can you provide some links to the evidence of this?

I disagree.

you disagree with how statistics work?

taking off your mask to eat does not negate the rest of the time you wore the mask.

how the hell do people not understand why masks work? I do not understand this.

an analogy:

let's say I am at work, and I fart, but oops, it's poo instead, and now it's all over this side of the conference room floor, even in places you can't see with the naked eye. should I have worn clothes? clothes are so intrusive and restrict my ability to move and express myself, and it's immoral that you create a rule that keeps me caged when I only crap in the conference room three times a year.

the poo in that analogy represents the aerosol saliva and mucus of someone that is contagious with anything, which is stuff that is regularly produced when people talk or breathe. the clothes are a facemask.

how do people not understand why facemasks are effective? I don't want to step in anyone's crap that they left behind wherever they coughed or sneezed or touched the break room chair. wash your damned hands and wear a facemask if you're sick, dammit.

Show me the statistics or studies that show that the mask policy on airplanes in the US as of today (aka hundreds of people in a small, closed environment with no fresh air, where mask are taken off for long periods of time and then put back on again) reduce spread of COVID compared to if there was 100% masking (presumably would reduce the spread) or no masking at all (basically the currently policy)

I understand statistics, you have no statistics to back up your claim. Just so we are clear, I think masks do work if they are used properly - they are not used properly on airplanes in the US, so they are pointless.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7543400/

It's not a study from the US but it includes enough flights where there were confirmed index cases and there were 4 levels of masking rigidity. The case we're describing, where people only unmask to eat, there were no transmissions.

> On flights N–R with the rigid masking policies (meals served) of Emirates Airlines, no secondary cases were identified on Day 14 screening despite 58 passengers who were PCR+ on a total of 5 flights of 8 hours each with ~1500–2000 passengers.

thanks!

That's fine. Disagreement, in and of itself, isn't a refutation of my point, though.

>Why do you feel so strongly about this?

From a practical point of view I think that the plastic ones are probably going to be horrible from an environmental perspective - especially to the marine environment which is where a lot of plastic litter ultimately ends up. I'll admit there's also an element of iconoclasm involved in why I'll be keen to see the back of them when their times comes. From a purely symbolic point of view (ie regardless of their effectiveness) they're quite a dystopian thing in my opinion, it's a signal of "be afraid of disease" or worse still "my fellow human beings are disgusting plague vectors". I can't help that feel that making hiding our faces a permanent social norm would lead to society becoming even more atomised than it already is which is also fairly dystopian.

On a purely personal note, I also don't like that they give every moral authoritarian and insufferable busybody yet another thing to harass strangers about, especially when legal penalties for non-compliance exist.

>why not?

I don't think even the most vocal opponents of masks saying we should ban them, if you want to wear a mask forever that's your business. I'd be monumentally miffed if mandates were in force forever though, especially in the half-arsed way we have them in the UK which is so arbitrary it makes a mockery of the whole concept.

LMAO, you're not foiling anything. They've moved to gait analysis years ago... which you probably can't fake.

Nobody claims masks need to be worn forever. That is your statement.

We still need to slow down the spread though, as several operations otherwise can't handle the load.

In NL, our undertakers have employed external cooling cells again, just like last winter, to be able to 'service' the dead.

The top comment uses Japan as the example. They do wear masks forever. So maybe the top comment shouldn't used Japan as the example.

Japan doesn't, and hasn't, had an indefinite mask mandate, like SF has had.

If wearing "forever" means individuals wear masks when they're feeling ill, or when they're in a place with current high transmission of respiratory illness, then I'm all for wearing masks "forever".

> You can't seriously expect asymptomatic people to wear masks in public forever.

Why not? Many societies expect that you wear clothes in public, and most people willingly comply every day. In many places it's actually mandated by law! Where are the anti-clothers protesting in state capitals? Oh yeah, they're nudists and most people don't take them seriously.

Why is being required to wear a mask in public any different than being required to wear pants?

> Where are the anti-clothers protesting in state capitals?

> Why is being required to wear a mask in public any different than being required to wear pants?

I was one of the people defending the mitigations early on, speaking out against the "conspiracy theorists" - those who said the new controls by those in power would never be given up and that this would be the new normal.

I slowly came to see that they were right. Sentiments like this prove it.

Perspectives like this baffle me. Why would those in power never give up the power to… make people wear masks? It’s a pretty shitty power. It also makes ubiquitous surveillance more difficult because you can’t scan people’s faces reliably.

I also don’t understand why sentiments like this prove anything. Is the OP a person in power? Nothing suggests that. They’re just a person that’s being (overly) cautious. FWIW I don’t agree with them but I also don’t think they’re a lizard person.

Because it's an incremental step along the path to reducing or eliminating the right to self-ownership.

If you can normalize something like mask wearing, there's a strong psychological effect. There's a sort of built-in obedience that's a clear signal to those around you. Arm bands also come mind.

Is it then such a leap to grant the power of forced vaccination? I mean, it's all for the public good right?

Flu is a deadly killer. We should probably go ahead and mandate that vaccine too, while we're at it.

Traffic accidents are a leading cause of death in the U.S. - why are we allowing private car ownership? We could save tens of thousands of lives per year if we centralized control of transportation.

Guns? They're right out.

While we're at it, there's no good reason to allow fast food restaurants to continue to exist. Obesity is an epidemic and costs the U.S. billions, if not trillions and is a leading cause of heart disease. Let's get rid of all fast food restaurants.

Since we're doing that, we should also probably mandate that every restaurant remove the deep fried. They can make something more healthy.

And on. And on.

This never ends.

You say that the perspective baffles you. I'm trying to illustrate the perspective that those of us who believe in maximizing personal liberty hold.

Incrementalism is a real thing. An affront to liberty must be stopped at the beginning, if it is to be stopped at all.

Many people reading through what I just wrote actually believe doing all of those things would be a good idea, and they may be right.

I think a better idea is to allow people to live their lives the way they chose.

And yet that very liberty that you take for granted today is the result of a continuous slippery slope from hereditary monarchies to a world where you're even allowed to choose who leads you or have a right to be free at all. Incrementalism is what gave us the liberty we have. It wasn't that long ago that women were incrementally given the right to vote. What's next? Allowing dogs and cats to vote too?

> I think a better idea is to allow people to live their lives the way they chose.

I'm not allowed to recklessly speed down any road I please. I'm not allowed to fire guns wherever I please. I'm not allowed to build my house in any way I please. I'm not allowed live in any house I please. I'm not allowed to build bombs in my garage. I'm not allowed to dump waste in the local water system. If I walk around downtown without any clothes I'll almost certainly be arrested. There are countless things we're all forbidden from doing by society. We are not free to live as we please with no regard for anyone else. That is the price of participating in a society.

Liberty is an artificial construct that we, as a society, have agreed upon and set the boundaries for. There is no natural state of liberty that exists, it must be explicitly defined and agreed upon. It's OK to disagree on the boundaries of liberty. We can arbitrarily choose where to draw the line as we please. So we can choose to mandate masks and yet allow fast food to exist.

These "I'm not allowed" assertions are all over the map.

You can't "recklessly speed" down a road, but are you not generally allowed to drive along any public road for any reason - or no reason - so long as you're not "reckless"? Should you be made to justify your need to be on the road, or your choice to drive rather than ride a bus? After all, these things impact public safety and the climate.

You're not allowed to fire guns wherever you please, but you're also not allowed to even HAVE a lawfully obtained gun in many settings simply because those in power have deemed it so. Try getting a concealed carry permit in NYC. Should it be that way everywhere?

You can't live in "any house you please" perhaps, but you're certainly allowed to live in any house that you can afford. Are you trying to justify bringing back things like redlining or neighborhood exclusionary rules?

I won't go over every single "I'm not allowed" item. But I'll finish by saying that "recklessly speed" and "drive where I please when I please" are different things. Almost every rule in existence finds SOME degree of justification in necessity, which is why "necessity" has always been the go-to justification for any authoritarian regime or ruler throughout history. And it never stops until people push back.

> These "I'm not allowed" assertions are all over the map.

So what? Is that a bad thing or something? Opinions on what is an acceptable amount of laws and regulations is all over the map. Some think we should have no laws. Some think everything should be regulated. Many are somewhere in between. Mask mandates are not a slippery slope towards authoritarianism, it's a step on the spectrum toward some equilibrium on the spectrum of anarchy and total authoritarianism that society, on average, finds acceptable.

Some reductions in liberty are beneficial: speed limits, private property rights, bans on exclusionary lending practices. The question is always, "is it worth it?" Many people believe that mandating the wearing of a mask in public is part of an acceptable definition of "liberty." There is no natural state of liberty (other than complete anarchy) that is violated by a mask mandate, there is only the degree of liberty we choose to grant ourselves. Even the right to life is a man-made right, granted only by mutual assent.

> Incrementalism is a real thing

And so is the slippery slope fallacy.

If you can normalize something like seatbelt wearing, there's a strong psychological effect. There's a sort of built-in obedience that's a clear signal to those around you. Life jackets also come to mind.

Measles, mumps and rubella are deadly killers. We should probably go ahead and mandate that vaccine too, while we're at it. Oh wait, we already do with school kids. Have done for decades.

And on. And on.

Human beings love to see patterns. In reality A does not necessarily lead to B, and to C. You can evaluate individual decisions according to how beneficial they are and say yes or no.

Take a look at the number of comments on HN and elsewhere that use the Jacobson [1] decision in 1918 to justify the current vaccine mandates, even though it was completely different.

Take a look at all of the federal powers that have been seized based on Wickard [2] interpretation of the ICC.

These are just a couple obvious cases of incrementalism.

The entropic state of humanity is to allow power to accumulate and centralize.

It takes active energy to resist this.

[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacobson_v._Massachusetts

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wickard_v._Filburn

In England it was optional to wear masks during the summer, I would estimate about 75% of people I saw in places like supermarkets chose not to wear them.

So society, in England at least has already decided that if it's their choice, they'd rather not wear them.

Being able to see each others’ faces is pretty central to communication.

Remember when this started, and we wanted to reduce 'R0' to slow the spread so hospitals could manage? Masks help with that, whatever absolutist arguments folks come up with. Sure they're not 100%, won't guarantee anything. But they DO slow transmission. So lets quit with the indignation and blamethrowing, and wear the damn mask, do your part.

When this started it was "2 Week to flatten the curve", and that 2 Weeks was not masking, it was stay at home, do not travel, do not interact, and DO NOT wear a mask. We were told to NOT wear masks, so much so the government was confiscating masks from businesses.

That's apocryphal. For instance it didn't happen around here. Sure some folks over-reacted in some places. But in the interest of not spreading more indignation and outrage, it's pointless to go on about that.

> Masks may "work" to a limited extent to reduce the risk of transmission in any single interaction, but in the long run that won't save anyone.

Could you elaborate on the statement at the end - "but in the long run that won't save anyone.". Anyone, as in nobody? How come?

He's saying (approximately correctly) that everyone will get COVID eventually.

Though I'd like to add that you could get a vaccine instead.

Not commenting on the nature of your comment but just wanted to point out that the author of that article was one of the authors of the Great Barrington Declaration that attempted to convince the Trump administration that "herd immunity" was the best solution in dealing with COVID-19 because the people that signed it were losing money.

Worst case: what if there isn't exit criteria?

Are you that weak of a human to not wear a mask when you're sick, or during a pandemic? Or is this just a "Lets Go Brandon" (aka: fuck joe biden) dogwhistle?

Cause your "question" isnt certainly about anything scientific.

Your comment perfectly illustrates the concerns that those of us who resisted mask mandates from the beginning hold.

From your comment I can infer that when you observe a person not wearing a mask, you make an immediate assumption about their political ideology.

I believe that this was the main purpose of mask mandates, not public health.

There might be effective drug treatment in the near future. It would be nice to not get COVID to then.

We already have effective drug treatments. How much more effective do you want?

https://www.covid19treatmentguidelines.nih.gov/about-the-gui...

And remember that while the vaccines don't reliably prevent infection, they're pretty good at preventing severe symptoms.

Exactly this. We have to live with the virus same as with the flu.

And I agree that having healthy people wear masks just to be safe is unacceptable.

Is having drunk driving laws just to be safe unacceptable?

I don't think that's entirely the same thing, but let's say it is just for arguments sake.

Without the vaccines you might have a point, except that Corona and the large flu seasons are not that different for most countries if you measure hospitalizations and deaths.

With the vaccine it's two wholly different things as the vaccine is your way to protect yourself.

A SUV driven by a drunk driver can kill a dozen people, that have no way of avoiding that.

Driving a car is not a right. It is privilege.

Since when breathing open air become a privilege?

Why isn’t it a right?

I kind of like them so I just might. I haven’t had a single cold for 2 years.

The Bay Area has been under a mask mandate for 17 months now. I’m not sure what the criteria of “working” is, but I would define it as returning to pre-pandemic norms. Yet, we are still far from that.

If however your definition of “working” is “prevent hospitals from being overwhelmed” or some other less ambitious criteria, then sure, it can be claimed that mask mandates work.

>I would define it as returning to pre-pandemic norms.

Magically fixing everything is a completely unreasonable threshold to define whether a health measure "works".

Also the pre-pandemic norm was not to wear a mask, so according to you mask mandates definitionally cannot "work".

> Also the pre-pandemic norm was not to wear a mask, so according to you mask mandates definitionally cannot "work".

The idea is we wear a mask for a temporary amount of time, eliminate community spread, and eliminate masks. Countries outside of North America have done this. For example, the UK is just now requiring theater goers to wear a mask again.

Well, again, it's just unreasonable to expect masks - alone - to completely eliminate community spread. You've got to think in terms of the reproduction rate R. If it's above 1 you're losing, if it's below 1 you're winning. Each measure, like mask wearing, knocks a little fraction off R. The goal is to knock as many little fractions off as possible. It's totally possible for masks to "work" in the sense of knocking a worthwhile chunk off R, and yet have the public health strategy as a whole fail to bring it below 1.

The trouble is, managing R is an ongoing challenge. If you manage to get it below 1 and the rate of new infections decays to nearly nothing, great! But unless you completely shut the borders to prevent new seed infections, you have to keep doing whatever you were doing. If you relax, then R goes above 1, and exponential growth does its thing again and you're back where you started. There's a natural ceiling to the exponential growth - nobody quite knows why, though it's presumably something to do with acquired immunity - but it's a grim place to be.

I wouldn't look to the UK as an example of how to manage a pandemic. It has been bouncing along its infection ceiling ever since all measures were relaxed in July. I predict that the new mask mandates will have no detectable effect on infection rates; their modest effect on R will fail to bring it below 1, and rates will continue to "bounce along the top".

> ... and eliminate masks. Countries outside of North America have done this. For example, the UK is just now requiring theater goers to wear a mask again.

If the act of eliminating masks needs to be followed by imposing another mask mandate, this is not a solid argument that mask mandates can be successfully rolled back when some threshold has been crossed. (I'm reporting from Indiana, where there is no mask mandate, unless you're unvaccinated, and there is no system in place to tell vaccinated from non folks except for what amounts to basically, say so on your honor! :upside_down_smile:)

The reasonable definition of "working" is "reduces rate of transmission relative to comparable areas with no mask mandate, by an amount that is statistically significant", and it certainly meets that definition. When people argue that mask mandates "don't work", what they really should be saying is that the effect size is too small to justify the inconvenience. At least that's an actual argument, though I think the people who make it are whiny babies.

I keep repeating this to mask-skeptics (which in my country is nearly everyone): Asia had their Sars-scare early, and they've basically been wearing masks ever since. They're doing pretty OK, not just because some countries (e.g. China) can and will _really_ lock a city down. Masks, hygiene, sickness discipline... they work. But even now nearly nobody objects when a colleague is obviously ill and still bring their snotty nose to work, COVID-free or not. I wish people would regard this like we regard washing our hands. But no, somehow people seem to think we've always washed our hands, and we have never changed our ways, and we shan't right now either because of freedumb. Uggghhh.

We have no idea of knowing how China is actually doing, since they haven't reported a single death since April *2020*. And even the numbers they have reported are highly unlikely to be accurate.

> We have no idea of knowing how China is actually doing, since they haven't reported [...]

That assumes that the only way we could get information is by whatever China reports.

In reality there are a large number of people from Western countries who spend a large amount of time in China and regularly interact with the population. There are business people there to deal with Chinese factories that make their good. Many Western companies have offices in China. There are diplomatic offices [1].

That puts a limit on how much China can successfully downplay mass events like a pandemic that affect the population at large because there are too many independent observers interacting with the population with means of communication to outside of China that China cannot block or censure.

[1] The US has an embassy in Beijing as do 172 other countries, and consulates in Guangzhou, Shanghai, Shenyang, and Wuhan. Most of the biggest EU countries and Japan and South Korea also have several consulates there.

You say that like people doing business in China never self-censor.

I was specifically not talking about China, it seems I wasn't clear enough. Taiwan, Japan, masks are common in either.

Sorry, you specifically called them out ("e.g. China") so I thought you were focusing on them.

Nonsense. Have you ever actually been to Asia? The vast majority of people haven't been wearing masks since the last SARS scare.

East Asia seems to be pretty good at wearing them, but youre right: Asia is a big place.

When March 2020 hit, I was really hoping that Asian mask culture would finally hit North America and people would choose to wear a mask when they have a cold or other illness, even post-COVID.

Unfortunately it seems to have completely gone the other way in many parts of the USA and Canada thanks to politicization.

Can we please give this China hard lockdown success story up?

There are no hard lock-downs in a face-dictatorship. There is a hard lockd-down show. Some doors are welded shut for tv-cameras. Covid Quotas are handed out to doctors and the rest becomes pneumonia.

Similar: Before the iron-curtain fell, sovjet propaganda claimed they were economically the more successful side. This did not hold up - at all.

State propaganda produces the illusion of working measures, while the normal citizen just bribes or work otherwise around the restrictions. What you see publicized by the state media to youtube or face-book is not real or reality.

Its a "strong" government fantasia, produced by the people who run it. There are no "free" opinions by mainland citizens on the web.

I wasn't clear. I meant to exclude China from the discussion for precisely the reason you mention.

I don't wear them because they fog up my glasses, and I can't talk for more than a few seconds without gasping for air. Fitting them properly makes both annoyances much worse. I'm not saying they're not effective, but the trade-off for such a small amount of efficacy is just not worth it for me.

One thing I've noticed is that, when I try to explain this to pro-mask people, they're the ones that try to make it political. Most just cannot accept that there are non-political reasons for someone to not want to wear a mask.

How much of a mask's effectiveness is due to the physical barrier? and how much is due to it's role as a uniform, promoting conformity with other anti-covid behaviors in the group?

Mask effectiveness is to help prevent you spreading things. When you exhale, water droplets are still quite large and some will get caught on the fibers in even a t-shirt mask. After that has dissipated in the air, it will be smaller and will be breathed in through all but the best masks. There were lots of videos online when this became an issue where people showed how when it is really cold, you can "see" your breath (this is solely caused my warm moist air condensing into a "cloud" in the cold air). Put on even a crappy mask and you can't "see" it anymore. Sure it isn't 100% blocking but clearly is blocking moisture. Also, if you wear a heavy mask for a while, you will notice that it feels damp inside.

In Japan, how long can you keep a minimum distance of 1,5 meter or greater to any other human being while outside your home? Japan is not exactly known for its low population density, nor having a young population.

I think most would agree that if they weren't effective in any situation then hospitals wouldn't had used them before the pandemic. The question has thus never been about if mask works, as obvious they do, but rather at what level of risk that they start being more effective than background noise.

If I traveled to Japan I would distinctly wear a n95 mask both on the plane (a small tube of recycled air with minimal distance to each other for a long period of time), and inside Japan when near people. I wouldn't however go out to work/school if I felt like I was getting a cold, even if culturally people would look down on me for missing work. I can imagine that the social pressure would increase the general risk and thus masks would be a useful mitigation tactic.

Masks work. I don't dispute that. I just don't want to wear one for the rest of my life. I don't want my government telling me what to wear.

I got vaccinated months ago because I thought that would be the end of masks. That was the entire point of vaccinating: not needing a mask because the virus could do nothing to you. The vaccination rate in my country is almost 80% and we still have a mask mandate. I will not even consider taking a booster until they do away with the mask.

While I agree with your general sentiment, saying "I will not even consider taking a booster until they do away with the mask" seems like cutting off your nose to spite your face. Wouldn't you want to get a booster just to lower your risk of getting a potentially severe illness?

That is not necessary because I'm forced to wear a mask. If we are forced to wear masks, it's because masks work. Right?

On the other hand, I fell ill for an entire day after taking the second dose, and I refuse to go through that again.

I don't think it's binary like that(I'm willing to be proven wrong).

Vaccines are effective at preventing infection and particularly severe infections.

Masks are only effective at preventing you spreading your own infection. If you wear an n95 it will prevent you from getting infected but there is user error involved in tightness/compliance/etc....

My understanding has been that vaccines are more effective at preventing infection than masks so if you're picking between the two for your own safety, it would seem that the vaccine is the better choice for yourself.

I will agree with you that the side effects from the vaccine are certainly a counter-argument for getting a booster every 6 months(or whenever a variant comes out that needs a different vaccine). I got mine last month and was asking myself, "I am pretty fit, in my 30's, I work from home, and my leisure activities are all outdoors(running/hiking/climbing)... Am I just going to get knocked out for 1-2 days every 6 months when my perceived risk level of catching covid is so low?"

My hope is that we're spending time working on better vaccines with fewer side-effects. If the side-effects are like the flu shot i'll gladly get a booster whenever needed without thinking twice.

Aww look, a coward.

Obviously they work. Washing your hands works. Not having face to face contact with other humans works. The issue I think most people have is whether the data supports various health mandates and whether in the long run they'll actually have any impact.

Even if the data is supports the claim that masks reduce spread, the data is less clear on if it's an effective means to combat a pandemic. Specifically, will masks limit the total number COVID cases given enough time, or just slow the time it takes for everyone in the population to be infected? An argument could be made that slowing spread gives time for vaccines and antivirals to be developed, in turn limiting cases and deaths, but this argument would then also depend on data and safety in regards to current / future vaccines and antivirals.

> The people who DON'T want to wear them and who wish to make it a political act will dredge up all sorts of B.S studies

I do get your annoyance here. I know a couple of people who don't just disagree with the concept of mask mandates, but also seem to be basing their opinion on some of the "B.S studies" you're referring to. I don't think this is the majority though. Most people just don't like being told what to do, especially when the benefits of mask mandates is probably quite negligible given they don't offer full protection, won't stop the pandemic, and the fact a lot (the majority?) of people will wear masks simply because they're recommended.

I guess I sort of see it as similar to drinking alcohol or eating doughnuts. The data is pretty clear these things are bad and causing people to die in huge numbers, but the bar at which the government should step in and say you must or can't do something should probably be quite high. And in the case of mask mandates their effectiveness depends massively on the mask itself and how the wearer is wearing and using it. I've been at the store and had people cough right next to me in thin fabric masks while mandates were in place. I'm not even sure an effective mask mandate is possible, they certainly haven't given me much more comfort. Were I more concerned about COVID I'd personally be avoiding social contact as much as possible regardless of mask mandates.

So yeah, masks work. People should wear them. I usually wear one in public. But the risk of COVID and their effectiveness doesn't justify mandating them imo.

>Specifically, will masks limit the total number COVID cases given enough time, or just slow the time it takes for everyone in the population to be infected?

Slowing the spread in order to not overburden hospitals (which causes death & mayhem and affects not just COVID patients) was always _the_ reason why we wear masks and have lockdowns. It's about slowing the pandemic, not ending the pandemic (that's maybe what the vaccines can do).

So yes, masks have an impact, they saved countless lives already. And yes, people will continue to break the law, but that's not a good reason to abolish the law and accept many many deaths.

> Most people just don't like being told what to do

Bingo. I live in a "blue part" of red Indiana and this is the conclusion I've come to as well. It's extremely frustrating knowing that masks work when everyone wears them, but you are basically powerless to make a change when 90% of the people around you don't wear a mask at all, and 9 of 10 remaining folks that do wear one aren't wearing it correctly. I imagine that most of my neighbors are good folks that want to do something to help, but you can't control the people around you.

If we could simply grant that "we don't like being told what to do" at the outset of the argument, I think we'd get a lot further in the national conversation. But "you can't tell me what to do" isn't a winning legal argument, so we get religious objections, and bogus "harm of the vaccine" studies with even more outrageous arguments, simply because those people who didn't like the idea of a mandate are smart enough to know they actually stand a chance in court with those arguments.

It is a shame that someone turned a health crisis into a political issue.

When people don't have the crayons and pencils they need to express themselves, they will reach for what is available.

Is this a jab at a particular political group? It sounds really deep

Of course the most scared conformist is at the top. You have no idea what you're talking about. I'm sus that you've even lived in Japan for any amount of time. Also masks don't work, living in another country isn't proof, it just means that Japanese are super conformist. Duh.

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