Advice on mask-wearing to protect against Covid-19

This image is old, and the numbers will be different for the Omicron variant, but it does show that even one-way masking does do something to protect the mask wearer.

N95 masks >> surgical masks >> cloth masks

Mask effectiveness - smaller.png

Sorry, don't have the URL for the article this chart is from. I just did a screen shot of the chart. I have no data on the study or experiment that led to these numbers.
 
The mask mandate is going to be removed here next week, except for health and aged care facilities, despite plenty of Covid still floating about the place (almost entirely Omicron variants now, in fairness).

But I think I will still be wearing mine for a while longer when I leave the house.
 
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NIH study on masks, released today (March 10):

Mandatory masking in schools reduced COVID-19 cases during Delta surge
NIH-funded study compared more than 1.1 million students across nine states.

Schools with mandatory masking during the Delta surge had approximately 72% fewer cases of in-school transmission of SARS-CoV-2 when compared to schools with optional or partial masking policies, according to a study funded by the National Institutes of Health. The study included more than 1.1 million students and over 157,000 staff attending in-person school across nine states: North Carolina, Wisconsin, Missouri, California, Washington, Georgia, Tennessee, Kansas and Texas. The study is supported by NIH’s Rapid Acceleration of Diagnostics – Underserved Populations (RADx-UP) program and the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD). It appears in Pediatrics.

The authors pointed out that their study was conducted when Delta was the dominant variant, and that their study did not obtain data on school masking in preventing the spread of the Omicron variant. However, they added that masking remains a critical preventive measure in times with high community infection rates with more transmissible variants, such as Omicron.
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Still wearing mine when going out. Not mandatory here now, but still recommended.

Plus the new Omicron variants (BA-2 & 3) are yet to make their way to these parts. So I guess we will all be masking up again before much longer.
 
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Sean said:
Still wearing mine when going out. Not mandatory here now, but still recommended.
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Same here. I went to do my weekly shopping and I was almost the only one with a mask though, there were only 1-2 others.

My sister and her husband have changed their views on covid now and say it is not going away and they cannot live like this and want to enjoy life, so are taking these things less seriously. Well, as a result my sister got a respiratory infection straight away. She said she didn't have covid symptoms, but I checked the Zoe App and it looked like very typical omicron symptoms. She wouldn't test herself though because she says she won't be able to get the 4th vaccine for a while if the test is positive. To be honest, I even got into a fight with her because I'm very worried that she may end up like me, with ME/CFS. If it indeed has genetic components, she should be extra careful. She says she is willing to take that risk but I know she has no idea what she is talking about and doesn't really understand how bad it is to live with this. Anyway, I have to be very careful about meeting her now, for the sake of my own health.
 
Wyva said:
My sister and her husband have changed their views on covid now and say it is not going away and they cannot live like this and want to enjoy life, so are taking these things less seriously. Well, as a result my sister got a respiratory infection straight away. She said she didn't have covid symptoms, but I checked the Zoe App and it looked like very typical omicron symptoms. She wouldn't test herself though because she says she won't be able to get the 4th vaccine for a while if the test is positive. To be honest, I even got into a fight with her because I'm very worried that she may end up like me, with ME/CFS. If it indeed has genetic components, she should be extra careful. She says she is willing to take that risk but I know she has no idea what she is talking about and doesn't really understand how bad it is to live with this. Anyway, I have to be very careful about meeting her now, for the sake of my own health.
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I've been telling my sister who tested positive last week to look out for any ME like symptoms, I wish we knew more about risk when someone in the family has it.
 
"Some hospitals ask patients, visitors to remove N95s, citing CDC"

:nailbiting::bag:

https://www.politico.com/news/2022/03/16/hospital-mask-cdc-covid-00017556
Politico said:
N95s, which seal tighter to the face, offer better protection against Covid-19, studies show.

Late last year, Laura Wing-Kamoosi visited her 79-year-old father at the hospital in northern Michigan. To her surprise, a worker asked her to remove her N95 and replace it with a surgical mask. She declined, layering the surgical mask atop her N95 instead.

She saw no staff wear N95s, among the best respiratory protection available, while they treated her father for a tear in his aorta and other medical issues, she told POLITICO. One doctor wore his surgical mask under his nose, she said. Her father, who was hospitalized for about a month, contracted Covid-19 during his stay, and while he survived, the virus slowed his recovery.

... N95s, which seal tighter to the face, offer better protection against the airborne virus, studies show. For more than a year, many have called on the Biden administration to change its guidance to offer more protection inside hospitals, even as mitigation measures have been dialed back and case counts decline.

And yet, patients across the country say they are often told to replace their N95s with surgical masks as they enter hospitals.
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Its absurd @ahimsa & it has been going on a good while. see the thread i started about it here Members only - Bizarre mask policy at dentist & vaccination centre | Science for ME (s4me.info)

I have developed a tactic against the stupidity which avoids an argument that i got no energy for. I go in with an over ear N95 on (a covaflu one) covered with a surgical one. The straps almost cover each other so unless you up close its not obvious you got another on underneath.

When they ask me to swap my mask i say "certainly", turn my head away & just remove the surgical one & put theirs on. I then ostentatiously throw the surgical one i just took off away. The mask 'police' are in my experience utterly dim. It is ludicrous to ask a person to remove a mask that protects everyone to a high degree to one that does hardly anything. But they wont have it.
 
My dentist has sent an email saying that full covid precautions are being maintained for the time being. That means waiting outside until shown in when temperature is taken and sanitiser provided; hands to be washed with soap and water on entering treatment room. Masks to be worn of course.
 
Moved from the PACE thread

Loosely related to PACE, but it seems that the use of very poor methodology is definitely a much wider problem than our BPS overlords, it's all over evidence-based medicine. Canadian researchers did a randomized trial of mask-wearing where basically everyone crossed back-and-forth between multiple arms, reminiscent of how in PACE many in control arms ended up doing either or both CBT and GET, sometimes on their own, so that the results are completely uninterpretable.

Not that doing a randomized trial of mask-wearing, or of anything frankly, is of any value in itself, but it shows a deep undercurrent of blatant scientific illiteracy in medicine, how cherry-picking is fine as long as everyone is doing it in a way that aligns with popular expectations. This is what constantly degrading standards leads to, and what makes EBM completely unusable in real life.
Was it Continuous Use N95s? Doesn't sound like it... they talk about "Universal Masking", but the N95 arm was only required to wear them when treating COVID patients. So both arms were mixing and mingling with surgical masks the rest of the time?
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CDC encourages people to wear masks to help prevent spread of Covid, flu and RSV over the holidays

https://www.cnbc.com/2022/12/05/cdc...masks-to-prevent-spread-of-covid-flu-rsv.html
CNBC said:
* CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky said wearing a mask is an everyday precaution that people can take to reduce their chances of catching or spreading a respiratory virus.

* Flu and respiratory syncytial virus are circulating at high levels at the same time Covid is picking up, straining hospital emergency departments.

* Walensky strongly encouraged everyone who is eligible to receive their Covid booster and flu shot.

The Centers for Disease Control Prevention on Monday encouraged people to wear masks to help reduce the spread of respiratory illnesses this season as Covid, flu and RSV circulate at the same time.

CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky, in a call with reporters, said wearing a mask is one of several everyday precautions that people can take to reduce their chances of catching or spreading a respiratory virus during the busy holiday season.

“We also encourage you to wear a high-quality, well-fitting mask to prevent the spread of respiratory illnesses,” said Walensky, adding that people living in areas with high levels of Covid transmission should especially consider masking.

The CDC director said the agency is considering expanding its system of Covid community levels to take into account other respiratory viruses such as the flu. The system is the basis for when CDC advises the public to wear masks. But Walensky encouraged people to take proactive action.

“One need not wait on CDC action in order to put a mask on,” Walensky said. “We would encourage all of those preventive measures — hand washing, staying home when you’re sick, masking, increased ventilation — during respiratory virus season, but especially in areas of high Covid-19 community levels.”
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I'm glad the head of the CDC is finally encouraging mask wearing but I wonder who will listen.

After losing so much credibility with past comments/actions (comparing masks to the "scarlet letter", creating COVID-19 "community level" maps that downplay the risk of infection) it's going to take a lot to win back trust.

EDIT: I meant to add that masking should be recommended BEFORE hospitals are full, not after. But I guess this is better than nothing.
 
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They need to mandate masks. It makes my blood boil when I see 'encourage' and 'strongly recommending" masks. This will not encourage masks, people who don't want to wear them won't.

So now we are at great going lets do nothing while the Children Hospital of Eastern Ontario has called in the Red Cross to help. Unbelievable.
 
I wonder what will happen in Norway now, our deputy health minister has said people should consider masking, but just like other places "consider" and "recommend" doesn't cut it.

I wear a mask and have placed an air purifier in my office. It bugs me that I work in a building where two floors are for elderly care, while the first-third floors are full of students. Shared elevators and staircases. No mitigations :(
 
Heh, a rare moment where you can cut the CDC some slack. The CDC cannot mandate masks, or anything like that. They can only advise the politicians who make the decision, and this is a political hot potato that no one wants to touch.

It's pretty similar to the WHO, most of those organizations are only advisory, any "mandates" they put out are not theirs, they have no such authority without the full cooperation of local authorities to actually enforce anything.

The big problem is when agencies shy away from even the bare minimum, like how most of them still largely avoid saying that it's airborne. Now that's bad. As is their inability to do their job about Long Covid so they can properly advise about it. That's on them. But they have no real powers to "mandate" anything that cannot be countermanded by whoever is in charge. This is executive power, and it can often be overruled at the regional/state level.
 
Someone recently told me that the evidence shows that masks don't protect the wearer against viruses (including Covid) because the viral particles are too small to be stopped, and that some meta-analyses show that this is true even of N95 ones.

A quick Google search found the usual Internet whirlpool of confusion concerning the evidence on masks and Covid. I was struck by being unable to find any authoritative, government-level body that has given a recent (last few months) statement on the evidence-based opinion on masks. Even if there have been no recent studies, IMO they should still be issuing such statements so that people can be confident that their position on the science is current, and they should be fully referencing their statements. This seems a terrible failure of comms.

I don't have time to do a PhD in this (and neither, surely, does the rest of the public), but would like to know if I'm getting false assurance from my mask (or conversely, if it's giving me enough protection to enable me to spend time with people in real life again).

Is there really no such summary?

If not, how can ordinary people come to an evidence-based view?
 
Sasha said:
If not, how can ordinary people come to an evidence-based view?
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As see it the problem is that the experiment you need to do to prove anything cannot be done. Much as the experiment you need to do to show that the tides are due to the moon cannot be done. You would need a huge controlled trial of wearing and not wearing, foolproof to all the possible confounders. It will never be done.

So we have to accept in this sort of situation that practice should follow what is reasonably likely to be true on grounds of circumstantial evidence from situations where you can control things.

My own interpretation is that wearing a mask is unlikely to provide anything like complete protection, simply because we pick up viruses all sorts of ways and virus can survive on surfaces for hours at least. But a mask is likely to be of some use at least if you are in a public space with people coughing out Covid - which they are in most public spaces at present. The Covid cough is easily recognised - short and sharp.

I also think if people are wearing masks it is a useful jog to everyone to be a bit more careful. Quite a lot of people in Chile (where I have just been) wear masks. Chile and Peru have had very high mortality rates from Covid and I think the message has sunk in hard there.
 
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