I don’t know any other way to explain your comment then.
Shrug
Fact is what i said is true. If it relates to you or anyone else then so be it. If it walks like a duck…
Doc, you’ve worn a face mask every day at work for the past ~40 years. Because it made sense. Now at the peak of a disease outbreak it makes no sense to me to assume or accept that all of a sudden it no longer makes sense. Regardless of journal articles.
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@Sam I am not anti-mask, I wear one willingly when around other people.
My point is, is that the way I see many people wearing masks is very counterproductive. Noses are not covered, constant touching of the mask, rubbing the eyes. Under the best of circumstances a mask is of limited value. In our current circumstances, a mask can be a detriment.
The best ways to stay safe are frequent hand washing and alcohol sanitizer, and social distancing.
In my practice if I inadvertently touched my mask, I would deglove, change masks, wash my hands, and reglove. I guarantee you that this is not standard practice among the lay public.
People simply need to be aware of the practical limitations of a mask in controlling Covid.
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These are completely different contexts, though. Why would people need to wash their hands after touching their mask to make it useful in a pandemic?
While these are problematic, only the first one seems relevant to masks. I’d actually speculate that touching the mask is probably better than touching the mouth or nose, which is the alternative if no mask were worn. And rubbing eyes doesn’t seem related to masks at all. If people are following public health advice, they should be trying not to touch their face. If public health is not communicating that information, then that’s a problem, but it’s not related to whether masks are useful.
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The primary mode of transmission in Covid 19 is not aerosol, it is hand-face. Constantly touching the mask with your dirty hand (from touching environmental surfaces) is very likely going to bring the virus into proximity of your nose and eyes, which is it’s primary entry point into the body.
Again, touching the mask with a contaminated hand is problematic. The mask surface can become virulent just like any environmental surface. The alternative is simply not to touch your face or mask. If I can do it during a one hour dental procedure certainly anyone can do it.
Masks are certainly responsible for eye rubbing. Having what amounts to a foreign object on your face triggers a person to touch that object or near it.
Of course, all this changes when you are dealing with a symptomatic individual, but they should not be out in public anyway.
Yeah, so when people have literally accused me of being mentally ill multiple times on this board, both in the public board and by PMing me, for having my own opinions, I just no longer really feel the need to disguise my lack of respect for their contributions. shrug I had doc on ignore, but for some reason in whatever device I was using at the time, the options to make it permanent didn’t show up, so it expired. Fixed now!
That is information that I didn’t know. I had gathered from my reading that the most current assessments hold that fomites are of relatively small importance for this particular virus, and direct inhalation of droplets (large and maybe small) from the air was the primary mode of transmission. Now I will have to look again and see if I’m mistaken.
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The last paragraph of the text I pasted below is most relevant to this discussion.
Person-to-person spread
The virus is thought to spread mainly from person-to-person.
- Between people who are in close contact with one another (within about 6 feet).
- Through respiratory droplets produced when an infected person coughs, sneezes, or talks.
- These droplets can land in the mouths or noses of people who are nearby or possibly be inhaled into the lungs.
- COVID-19 may be spread by people who are not showing symptoms.
The virus spreads easily between people
How easily a virus spreads from person-to-person can vary. Some viruses are highly contagious, like measles, while other viruses do not spread as easily. Another factor is whether the spread is sustained, which means it goes from person-to-person without stopping.
The virus that causes COVID-19 is spreading very easily and sustainably between people. Information from the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic suggests that this virus is spreading more efficiently than influenza, but not as efficiently as measles, which is highly contagious. In general, the more closely a person interacts with others and the longer that interaction, the higher the risk of COVID-19 spread.
The virus may be spread in other ways
It may be possible that a person can get COVID-19 by touching a surface or object that has the virus on it and then touching their own mouth, nose, or possibly their eyes. This is not thought to be the main way the virus spreads, but we are still learning more about how this virus spreads.
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Yeah, don’t touch your face. That still stands regardless of whether you are wearing a mask. Masks are not to protect the wearer, and are not a replacement for following other public health advice. Again, if that information is not being communicated, then that is a problem, but is a separate issue from whether or not masks are helpful during the current pandemic.
Current evidence suggests that COVID-19 spreads between people through direct, indirect (through contaminated objects or surfaces), or close contact with infected people via mouth and nose secretions. These include saliva, respiratory secretions or secretion droplets. These are released from the mouth or nose when an infected person coughs, sneezes, speaks or sings, for example. People who are in close contact (within 1 metre) with an infected person can catch COVID-19 when those infectious droplets get into their mouth, nose or eyes.
Also from the WHO:
Limiting contact with people who are infected with COVID-19, frequent, thorough, hand cleansing and wearing a mask when at least 1 metre of physical distance can’t be guaranteed, help to break chains of transmission.
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My understanding is that while they believed hand-face was a primary cause of spread early on, like it is with influenza, that they’ve come to the realization that it’s actually primarily droplet spread—— and the debate rages on about what proportion of the virus hangs out in various size droplets and how long they can be airborne for… But still I think even someone wearing a mouth incorrectly with their nose out etc still probably significantly reduced the amount of droplets that they’re expelling into their surroundings
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I can’t remember where I read it, but masks may curb COVID-19 spread between 24% and 99% depending on the mask type. Meanwhile, shutting all the schools in the world likely reduce transmission between 2% and 4%.
Scrap of annoying fabric, I’ll take it!!
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The crazy part is we seem to be on track to cancel schools anyway. Fingers crossed my governor doesn’t make that rule and lets our district run the show.
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well, my kids chew on them; that’s probably not the best mask wear for transmission! 
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In the few cities that have mandated masks in Canada, I believe children under 12 are exempt. It’s likely partly because kids find masks more difficult to wear. But it’s also likely partly for the same reason that our province decided to re-open schools in June (word is still out on what is happening in September, as it depends partly on how case numbers do): research thus far shows that children rarely catch the virus, even when no physical distancing with other children is happening: when they do catch the virus it’s usually from family members (i.e., very close, sustained contact); and that even when they catch it, they rarely transmit it to others.
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Boy I can sure relate… but for the sake of greater good and fostering worthwhile discussion, somehow I trudge on…
I don’t want to wade into “The Great Mask Debate” (dibs on the book title, or at least 0.00001% royalties). But my Dad’s rather depressing opinion is that given everything we know, it’s basically inevitable that most everyone is going to get it…
He’s politically conservative and an Econ professor emeritus - so mind the adage that “Economics is the dismal science”. He does wear a mask, but mainly (I think) because me and Mom make him. In Bloomington, Indiana, so a low Covid-rate (so far). But students are coming back, so… we’ll see.
My semi-humorous feeling at some point, we’ll understand enough about this to actually settle The Great Mask Debate… One day after we get a vaccine and this will all (sort of) be over.
Anybody know of a Covid vaccine-challenge trial going on at IUPUI? I’d rather just get it over with - and maybe have (better) access to immunology/allergy specialists if something goes wrong.
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I don’t think you need to be conservative to realize that something that is this contagious combined with the US individual culture and a healthy population of 20 and 30 somethings who ignore the rules is going to infect most everyone at some point unless a vaccine is developed to interrupt the sequence. Even in places in the world that have done a better job than the US, they are currently fighting recurrences, it is just happening slower there because they have or enforce better compliance. I also think it has been reasonably proven that the masks will slow things down, but they aren’t going to eliminate transmission, thus we march toward herd immunity or a vaccine. I have my money on the vaccine researchers.
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You’re ignoring the factor of improved treatments though. As we go, the bigger factor than even vaccines may be better understanding of how the virus works and ways to make it less deadly or harmful. Remdesivir is an example of one promising approach, but over time there may be many more, including more effective options. So there is very real value in delaying infections, even without a vaccine, especially for those at greater risk (and we are also still learning who those people are, given that some risk factors are known, but there are deaths and serious longterm harms from the virus that do not fit any obvious pattern).
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There are no vaccine challenge trials ongoing in the US. They are doing some in the UK in Oxford, but I’m unsure whether they would take volunteers who are not British.
I think masks will cut some transmission-- on their own certainly not enough to make this go away. But we don’t have to cut all transmission to get this disease to decrease in prevalence. We just need it to get to an Rt of below 1. I think if you combine masks with actual efficient testing, tracing and isolating we can do that, which will mean the disease will gradually go away or infect people so slowly that the whole population is not doomed to get this thing.
Also, if you do a heterogeneous model of infection across the population – instead of saying everyone is equally susceptible, saying that some people are less susceptible because they mix less – then the amount of people this virus will infect before “herd immunity” is reached goes down quite a bit.
Anyways, the point being that i personally wouldn’t want to just get the disease and get it over with, because I don’t think it’s inevitable. that we all get it.
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