The Mask Mandates Did Nothing. Will Any Lessons Be Learned? | Hacker News Reader

The Mask Mandates Did Nothing. Will Any Lessons Be Learned?

nytimes.com

13 pointsibobev13 comments

I don't understand the (for want of a better name) anti-vaxxer logic here.

If masks don't work, then future lockdowns will be stricter. If things work a little, but most people ignore the advice, then future lockdowns will be stricter.

They seem to be claiming some kind of moral victory, that they knew that masks weren't going to be effective, while at the same time refusing to wear them in a self fulfilling prophecy but I don't recall that ever being the core argument.

I also don't understand the lead author of the study's position. He seems really annoyed, but I'm not sure what by. What specifically did he think should have been done differently? People on twitter shouldn't have said masks work as a broad population intervention because there wasn't sufficient evidence of that? That doesn't seem worth being that angry about.

Is he doing the bioscience equivalent of people who get angry when a journalist calls some bit of military equipment a "tank" which doesn't meet their personal definition of the term.

> If masks don't work, then future lockdowns will be stricter

This only follows by granting certain huge assumptions which have never been well defended, first and foremost that lockdowns are effective over the long term in preventing eventual infection by respiratory viruses (the total failure of China's Zero COVID policies should have caused some reevaluations here, but alas).

> He seems really annoyed, but I'm not sure what by. What specifically did he think should have been done differently?

I personally know more than a few people who probably owe some apologies for calling anti-maskers "idiots," "selfish," "anti-social," and other grossly misinformed terms. Not making my young children wear useless scraps of cloth over their faces to attend preschool would have been good, too. And we should immediately end the ongoing mandates for masks in "healthcare settings" like doctors'/dentists' offices, hospitals, and the like.

Masks absolutely worked in Seattle. The number of diseases right before masks mandates were lifted and right after was immediately obvious to everyone.

Even antimaskers admitted it was true they just spun it as kids not getting exposed to the diseases they should be exposed to.

As always, reading the NYT is worthless. Perhaps start with this part of the actual linked article.

> What are the limitations of the evidence?

> Our confidence in these results is generally low to moderate for the subjective outcomes related to respiratory illness, but moderate for the more precisely defined laboratory‐confirmed respiratory virus infection, related to masks and N95/P2 respirators. The results might change when further evidence becomes available. Relatively low numbers of people followed the guidance about wearing masks or about hand hygiene, which may have affected the results of the studies.

https://www.cochranelibrary.com/cdsr/doi/10.1002/14651858.CD...

The US is one case, I wonder what about Europe or China? It seems part of the problem was that the mandates were loosely followed at a societal level — masks clearly do reduce the spread of diseases when used reliably (see: doctors). It seems likely that in societies who followed the guidance strictly, there must have been _some_ reduction in infections. I suppose the question then is: are there any places where we can compare a community loose on masking, and one strict on it – all other things being equal?

> It seems likely that in societies who followed the guidance strictly, there must have been _some_ reduction in infections.

There are lots of Asian countries where mask mandate compliance has been well over 95%. Still, you cannot point to a single instance there or anywhere else where the imposition of a mask mandate can be seen to have had any effect on case curves. The Bangladesh RCT which even mandate advocates like to refer to showed a 10% reduction in community transmission, with a 95% CI which overlapped "no effect".

https://archive.is/eShDu

I look forward to people telling surgeons not to bother masking up when they go for surgery in the future. I. Sure that will work out great /s

The article does cover this point. It's likely that the right kind of masks are effective if used properly – which is something you can reasonably expected in the context of surgery. The question is whether it was ever realistic to think that a mask mandate, in the US, would be complied with sufficiently to make a difference. That is, how many people can one reasonably legally require to wear the right kind of masks correctly most of the time?

Anecdotally, in London, I saw lots of people wearing masks in an obviously ineffective way on the Tube (e.g. not covering their nose), and lots of people wearing basic cloth masks. So what are you going to do? Arrest all these people? There are limits to what you can realistically do in a non-authoritarian society.

What I increasingly wonder, is what can the government reasonably legally require anyone to do anymore? Wearing a mask over your nose seems pretty simple to me. Increasingly the law just seems like a collective fiction that is evaporating.

It's a reasonable thing to require someone to do, but it's not a realistic thing to enforce. It's like, say, throwing trash in the trash can. It's not unreasonable to require people not to throw trash all over the street. But it is unrealistic to try to enforce that requirement by authoritarian means. At least, unrealistic in certain social contexts and given a certain level of tolerance for authority (I know there are countries where you will be more or less hanged for dropping a plastic bottle).

Yes, I wonder if it has become more unrealistic to enforce requirements via authoritarian means in the US. Like for instance it seems that vagrancy and shoplifting are not exactly tolerated in more cities in the US now, but I suppose seen as simple background noise that one deals with living in a large city. I've found myself increasingly skeptical of the medical system and find it much simpler to simply order drugs and medical supplies on my own through one source or another. I'm not even sure if this is legal or not, but frankly I doubt any authority cares enough to bother with me. And they shouldn't have to.

The point of masks during surgery is to prevent large droplets of spittle from making their way into open wounds on the operating table. It's a completely ridiculous comparison to jump from that to trying to reduce the spread of airborne respiratory infections.

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