Comment by xkbarkar | Hacker News Reader

Comment by xkbarkar | Hacker News Reader

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According research (just google is and look at the actual papers and the data set in them and how it was calculated), with the exception of properly worn high grade medical PPE, neither does masking. Universal masking is little more than pointless hysterical hype. Flimsy reused surgical masks, bandanas and home made cloth masks only look f-good in mathematical projections, never in the actual real world results. No I am not posting research, look at it yourself, the ones posting any benefit come from mannequin head studies and mathematical results based on mathematical models from various lab projections.

Universal masking is actually embarrassingly ineffective.

Properly worn PPE ( like done in hospitals, takes 10 minutes to put on and will leave a mark on your face ) and Hazmats work pretty well though.

The shitty disposable surgical mask from slave labourers in india that you have kept in your pocket for 6 months does fuck all.

> No I am not posting research, look at it yourself,

What a surprise. You might be right, but the onus is on you to provide evidence if you are challenging the status quo.

Notably the status quo for decades of research pre-covid was that masks don't work ...

Then in 2020 hysteria broke out, most scientists got scared shtless and you could only publish papers that indicate that masks work even though all the empirical evidence around us show that they don't.

If anything shows how short term scientific consensus is trivially falsifiable as it depends on few influential people.

Good luck trying to get a NIH grant with the hypothesis that masks might no be effective ... It is a no-go hypothesis from the start.

Same with zoonotic vs lab origin.

This again? The masks are to prevent _you_ from spewing infections agents all over the place. The masks are not to protect you. The masks are intended to protect other people from you.

I could believe this if it was mostly spread by coughing and sneezing and other such large droplets, but we knew by mid/late-2020 that this virus was almost entirely aerosol spread - something cloth masks don't stop at all.

That was the early messaging when only low quality masks were available and we didn’t know it was an aerosol virus.

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