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Comment by rTX5CMRXIfFG | Hacker News Reader

Of course you can’t always see direct causality in a complex system, but aren’t there already controlled experiments that showed that face masks reduce risk of transmission? Those were the basis for health experts to recommend the measure in the first place.

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Masks reduce the risk of transmission a lot that is pretty clear as far as I know but

* Are they used correctly by the majority?

* Are the situations where masks are/were used actually the main contributors to infections overall?

* How well do masks work in situations with long time of contact and wearing (public transport, on the job site, ...)?

* + Probably a lot of other questions

So it can very well be that the impact of masks overall and in comparison with other measures is lower than controlled experiments suggest. If that's the case it does not mean wearing a mask is a bad idea but knowing this could influence decisions on mandating doing it.

So there were no experiments that could definitely say whether masks help against flu or SARS but with Covid-19 the science is settled?

The fact that we've had prior "events" and didn't /don't understand the strengths and weaknesses of the public health tools (e.g., various types of masks) is worrisome.

Looking at what medical professional said during the beginning on the pandemic, the general understanding of the strengths and weaknesses of mask seemed to have been fairly good. Mask are classified and tested based on medical criteria, and hospital and other industries use them during high risk situations since it has been proven effective in such scenarios. The lack of understanding was primarily when mask got taken outside the context of high risk situations and into general use in outdoor and indoor environments, and for purposes which the masks classifications don't consider. Everything from an airplane with circulated air, to people outside on a beach in the fresh breeze. On top of that we have politicians making the decision rather than medical professionals.

There are however fairly low understanding of other public health tools that is outside the scope of what medical professionals can do. Shutting down mass transportation, restricting travel, shutting down social activities. Finland as an example fully closed down their capital during the start of the pandemic, preventing almost all movement in and out of the city. Looking at the graphs, that alone might have been what attribute the low case and death rates, and its not something that the medical profession has many studies on.

It wasn't until deep into the pandemic (18+ months) that, in the USA, the CDC emphasized the KN95 masks or better.

That doesn't say there was a clear understanding. So not only were many effectively not wearing masks, we now can't make reliable heads or tails of the "post match" data.

If that's not negligence, then it was intentional. Neither is a good explanation.

Maybe it was because of unavailability of that much masks of suitable properties (KN95/FFP2) for all people, and inertia to realize that situation?

And then, saying at least Duck&Cover! in case of a thermonuclear explosion, because SDI/Iron Dome/Someshinyshield failed. Better late than never? Or nothing at all?

At some point they had to say something.

So they knowingly "exaggerated" the effectiveness of the masks most ppl were using, and to cover their ass there has been - sans the CDC announcement - zero effort to update that narrative? And these are the same ppl and entities insisisting "trust us" and "trust the science"?

This ^^^ isn't a conspiracy theory. This is what happened and is still happening. How am I, or anyone, supposed to truth that architecture?

I’m not aware of any RCT that could control for the variables to measure transmission. That would be very hard. But two RCT studies have been done to measure infection on the individual wearing it and they show cloth and surgical masks as not significant. Of course there’s a lot of nuance to the results but it’s obvious the signal isn’t there unlike say the vaccine during its RCT.

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