If anyone wasn't sure, more evidence that masks work

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41

Sadly, they were forced to remove the article. There have been no actual medical studies, that I have found, that show any definitive help from masks. That being said…

-they help get people out and about, vast amounts of people find it gives a visual response of safety from the novel Covid-19 strain

-cloth masks have been known for years to be more harmful than good, as the fabric used(mainly cotton)is made to absorb moisture, and most types hold that moisture in(dark, damp, warm place breeds what)
----- mix that moisture with germs, dirt and grime from many things, including but not limited to; the germs our bodies are naturally expelling as we exhale, plaque as it develops throughout the day, the sweat and secretions from our skin, anything that has touched our hands(and shirts as people use their shoulder to scratch their face) throughout the day, and many more

-masks were made to be worn in sterile environments, being changed and disposed of frequently, never being touched by hands, never being replaced over the mouth/nose once moved, and more important details that not one person follows while wearing them

-these things mentioned are all being mixed in an environment perfect for growth and breeding of nasty bacteria

-n95 masks keep the wearer from breathing in bad things, but allow EVERYTHING out

-The particles that masks are known for being able to stop are ones that our bodies require exposure to in order to keep our immune systems strong and able to have the antibodies to fight off the things we never even know we have in our bodies. If you live in a sterile bubble your entire life, you’ll be susceptible to the smallest infection, as your body was never exposed to be able to make a defense against anything.

-prolonged breathing through any barrier goes against what our bodies are designed to do. Children’s entire bodies are still developing. Their physical and mental growth depends on multiple factors, including environmental and social impacts. What are the long term results on their health and physical health going to look like? The past studies show (before Covid-19) that long term face coverings while breathing are immense impediments to adults that are finished growing, which puts our future generation where?

-our eyes and ears are still exposed.

-masks are moved for eating, drinking, smoking, vaping, chapstick, in and out of places, cars and such. All these different, times they are touched on many surfaces and body parts.

-the lack of socialization is causing detrimental consequences to mental health in both children and adults. While there is no actual scientific evidence of benefits to wearing one, the increase in deaths from suicide, Domestic Violence abuse and deaths for both adults and children, physical attacks on people from fear and more. Abuse is higher, in every form, as there’s a guaranteed cover.

My children and I are severely immunocompromised. Always have been. My 6 year old taught his entire class, teacher included, how to properly wash hands to effectively kill different germs. We have been told for years that wearing a mask improperly was more dangerous than not wearing one, as you would be infecting yourself by cross contamination.

This virus is deadly. There are a lot of deadly viruses. Only 2 have EVER been eradicated! Smallpox and rinderpest. Polio has had an amazing vaccine for some time, but is still around. Influenza is one of the most elusive viruses. There are a great number of viruses, and they are scary. We will not see this end for a long time, likely not in any of our lifetimes. If we wear masks waiting for it, the reciprocation the human race will face as a result, will be devastating to us all.

I understand that the more layers of protection the best. Think swiss cheese in a pile. Just remember, if just one of those pieces has a spot of mold, it will all be covered in mold soon.

:heart::heart::heart:

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42

Here’s an article that shows the actual effect of various kinds of masks vs no mask on the release of droplets when someone speaks https://www.cnn.com/2020/08/08/us/duke-university-face-mask-test-trnd/index.html

And here’s the scientific study behind that article https://advances.sciencemag.org/content/early/2020/08/07/sciadv.abd3083

I haven’t seen anything rising to the standard of a double-blind, controlled virus-challenge medical study on the effectiveness of mask wearing to reduce the probability of covid transmission probability, which seems to be what the previous poster wants. That does not detract from the numerous real results showing that many kinds of masks are truly helpful, including the common cotton masks with ear loops.

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Wearing a medical or non-medical mask is hardly living in a sterile bubble. Actually, what helps our immune system is exposure to dirt, plants including weeds, farm animals, and plain old fresh air – which too many kids and adults these days don’t get exposed to enough, a situation that has been linked to rising rates of everything from allergies to eczema to Crohn’s.

Anyway, I thought the idea that masks suppress the immune system had been debunked (though it’s alive and well on social media):

https://www.reuters.com/article/uk-factcheck-masks-list/fact-check-false-and-misleading-information-in-post-listing-dangers-of-face-masks-idUSKBN24333G

I’ve never understood this line of argument. So I can’t see the mouth and nose of the Amazon delivery guy or the cashier at my local greengrocer. That’s hardly damaging me. But there’s no requirement to wear a mask with my family at home, and I can visit with friends outside and indoors and, if we stay apart, we don’t need masks. Children get plenty of face exposure at home and with extended family and, depending on circumstances, with other unmasked children. So I’m not convinced we’re all suffering “lack of socialization” because of masks. Depression and suicide have many causes, of which wearing a mask is probably near the bottom of the list. Being out of work and worrying about an uncertain future are primary contributors. Being stuck at home with a spouse you now realize you can’t stand is another, and hence rising rates of abuse and domestic violence. It’s a complicated web, and to blame masks strikes me as terribly simplistic.

I’ve never heard or read that doctors and nurses who wear masks for 18 hours or more during complex surgeries are suffering “immense impediments.” And anyway, the vast majority of us aren’t wearing our masks “long term,” however that’s defined. At the supermarket, sure, on public transit, sure, in indoor spaces where mandated or if we prefer, sure, but none of that is “long term” in any sense.

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44

There are a lot of different things I want to respond to, and i will when i get a chance to sit and do so. I appreciate a true conversation about different thoughts on most any topic.

When it come to kids though, I wish so many more people knew just how many do not get interaction, attention, socialization or interaction of any kind, outside of school. There’s a lot of kids that go to school because they know it’s the only time they’ll eat. There are so many kids with families that do not care one bit if they need something, as long as they don’t have to be the one bothered with it. It’s heartbreaking!

There’s more to that, also, but I did want to respond to that part, now.

Look forward to talking, soon.

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Many inaccuracies and distortions in that post.

There is no evidence of this whatsoever, that over use during one day these become harmful. That said, this is why those masks are washable–they should be laundered between wearings.

This only applies to vented n95s, which are not the ones used for medical purposes. Non-vented ones protect the wearer and other people, by far the best of any option.

No one is suggesting wearing masks 24/7 or one’s entire life. People are wearing them when unable to socially distance during a pandemic of hopefully limited duration. This point is therefore entirely irrelevant to the current situation.

Please provide some real evidence for this. I don’t think you’ll find any. The medical field has been pretty clear that masks are safe and have debunked concerns about CO2 levels.

You aren’t getting COVID through your ears. It’s true your eyes are still exposed, so don’t touch them. Problem mostly solved, especially if everyone around you is also wearing a mask. If you are extra concerned, you can put a face shield on top of your mask, like medical professionals do when dealing with patients who need to not be wearing a mask for treatment.

Which is why many of us think restaurants and bars being open for in person service is really dumb and devalues servers’ lives. Don’t do those things in close proximity to other people in a pandemic; wait and then remove your mask. Problem solved!

Yep, that sucks. As a mental health professional, I am concerned about the mental health impacts, which is all the more reason for everyone to WEAR MASKS so we can have safer options to visit with people outside of our germpods, even if we still can’t be as close as normal. Also the sooner everyone does everything possible to stop transmission, including wearing masks, the sooner more of these things can go back to normal.

There’s just not evidence for this on a mass scale. Overall, where masks are used more, things with COVID are better. That’s not the strongest form of evidence for their efficacy, since it could be another factor correlated with mask use, but it would be surprising to see those findings if mask using was actually causing harm.

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46

This article is being horribly misrepresented in the media (never trust science reporting, it’s generally terrible). The article doesn’t really show any of that. It’s a proof of concept study about a method to test masks. It is not adequately designed to test mask efficacy and if you pick apart the results, the only thing that looks remotely robust of a finding is the N95s are better than all other masks (which, duh, basically validates that their test works). None of the masks actually seem to be “worse than nothing,” and the one person they use to test all of the masks has very weird and variable droplet patterns compared to the others they used for only a few of them (for several masks they had 4 participants). They also are incredibly vague about mask designs. and materials, and conflate mask design and material for several of the options. It’s a very bad study to draw any real conclusions from, because it’s not meant for that, but reporters don’t understand it well enough to care. Reminds me of how all the mouse studies get terribly mis reported as occurring in humans, even using words like “men” and “women” and “children” in the reporting of the findings.

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47

I listened to the scientist (Dr. Fischer) who spearheaded this test and method of testing to be adequate in the intent that was outlined in the study. They (Duke University) performed a test to see which masks blocked the most relative and total particles. They used different mask types and had people repeat the same phrases through each of the masks. I don’t know how that’s considered a terrible test or somehow there are misrepresentations of what was concluded by this small test. The study wasn’t wasn’t about a method to test masks…it was about ONE method they used to show how many particles made it through each type of mask.

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Anytime I read or hear this argument, as much as I sympathize and empathize with the children’s lack of socialization, I just come back to…BUT IS HE / SHE ALIVE? They can recover from everything else if they are …alive. Schools MUST be safe; otherwise, you’re potentially sentencing your child (and the entire family) to death. It’s just that simple to me.

Will my children possibly be set back slightly from having to learn virtually this year? Yes! Most certainly! My wife and I will do our best with what we have to try and make that gap small. But will my children be alive?? Hell yes! Everything else is recoverable in the long run but death IS NOT. I would always take an ounce of prevention over a pound of cure any day.

My kids have each other as their socialization “network” and they have their on-line friends (which all kids do) but any child who isn’t lucky enough to have siblings may miss some socialization in the short term for the long term benefits they are going to receive.

Having said this, I have NO problem with kids going back to school at all if parents choose this for their kids IF the school can adequately provide a safe environment for them to return back too. There has to be SMALL community outbreak. There must be mask MANDATES (not optional). Social distancing and handwashing must be enforced and testing, tracing has to be addressed. If those things aren’t happening then it’s just not safe to send them back NO MATTER the short term price it may take on them socially or otherwise.

If a parent chooses to keep their kids home during this pandemic because the facts bear out that it’s just not safe to send them back, then I consider that a very loving act on the parents part. Child may not understand it, but we don’t ask our kids to understand the decisions we have to make every day for them. What we do for them, we do out of our love for them. When they are old (thanks to our actions now, hopefully) they can thank us later.

So to me, missing out on some socializing is a small price to pay. The reward is that they …will …still …be …alive.

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The study is about testing a method to cheaply test mask efficacy, as noted in the title of the video you posted. Demonstrating viability of the method was the primary goal. They only used one person for most of their masks, and did not have adequate data to truly test the masks, nor are their results really consistent with the findings widely reported by mass media. Here’s something someone else named Emily Willingham wrote on FB that goes into great detail, and is consistent with my own close read of the actual paper and supplementary online materials:

" You might see headlines about a study that is purported to have assessed different types of masks and particularly found those neck gaiters to be “worse than nothing.” So, that’s not what the study found or even truly examined.

This study [linked in the first comment] was published in a journal called “Science Advances.” Its real purpose is to illustrate the application of a pretty straightforward way of measuring droplet transmission through masks made of different materials–it’s “proof-of-concept” that their setup for doing this works.

It is not, however, proof of anything else. Here’s why.

They tested their process on 14 masks. For each mask, one person–the same person throughout–put the mask on and said a sentence 5 times. For each mask, this (same) person did this 10 times.

For a subset of three of these masks, the authors added in three more people, so they also have data for transmission averaged across four people (including that one person they started with) for three masks types: surgical, one type of cotton mask, and bandana.

They averaged the 10 test results for that one person and presented the results in a graph. That graph does not show that this one person’s results for a gaiter were worse than “wearing nothing.” The standard deviations overlap, so for this single person wearing this single kind of gaiter and saying the same sentence in 10 trials, it’s about the same as if this person were wearing nothing.

One catch among many: They also show how this person and the other three people transmit while wearing nothing. Turns out, the person they chose for testing all 14 masks is a Loud Talker or a Big Spitter or something, because the curve for that person is really, really different (higher) than for the other three people, whose curves cluster together. So, the one person who did all the mask testing for the 14 masks, saying the same sentence in 10 trials per mask, with only a sip of water in between, is also a Big Spittin’ Loud Talker. Probably the PI [academic scientist joke]. This guy didn’t even himself transmit the same on different days.

Another catch: when you look at how the four people transmitted in each of the masks, there’s no clear pattern for any of them. Some of them transmit more through one kind of mask than another. Sometimes, one of them transmits more than another through the same mask and other times, it reverses. Regardless, transmission in these comparisons was always reduced with a mask on.

Yet another: When the values for all of this are log transformed, which removes some of the chaos from the data, the gaiter they used and “nothing” are almost identical. All the cotton stuff is pretty similar in performance. The only mask that really stands out as having a much bigger transmission inhibition effect is the N95. Which we knew. The other masks all do something, and none of them is “worse than nothing.”

Finally, the authors are extremely opaque about the materials in these masks. They call the gaiter a “fleece,” but it’s not what regular folks probably consider “fleece.” From the picture, which is small, making the fabric difficult to discern, it looks like a single-layer shiny stretch fabric gaiter. The same applies for the other masks: it’s not clear what the fabric is. There’s one that they call “knitted” that is actually, I think, “knit” rather than something you made with knitting needles and yarn.

At any rate, the masks are all singular examples, each the same mask used for the 10 tests in the one person who was the test subject. There is no information about whether the testing was standardized in some way, such as fit of the mask to the face, etc., or readjustment after each sip of water between the tests. One reason for that is likely that this study was not intended to test these masks or these materials per se but to demonstrate that this process could work to measure droplet transmission.

A study designed to genuinely compare masks and materials would have included far more participants, a standardized approach to donning the mask, probably longer breaks in between tests and water sips, and more detail (or, really, any detail) about the masks themselves. The authors overreach, I think (and others agree) in drawing any conclusions about broad categories of masks based on this work.

All of which is to say, this study likely shouldn’t change much about what you’re doing unless, of course, you’re planning to set up a “low-cost” and “simple optical measurement” process to test masks."

Here’s by the way, the figure on the 4 people used in the study. Person 1 was the primary person used across all masks, who as you can see has an unusually high droplet spread, as well as very high variability between readings themselves, so not probably an ideal test subject unless many observations were collected across different days for each mask:

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Also, there’s nothing wrong with this study. What’s wrong is the science reporting that is woefully misconstruing the point of it and plausible take-aways. But again, that’s super par for the course re science reporting.

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51

Mass media? Are we listening to them now above universities and scientists? I’ll believe this small study over someone who posted a message on FB any day. lol.

It was a basic test that returned basic results. Not biased toward any specific mask and no ulterior motives other than to show which mask allowed more particles through. Period. You can choose to believe it and other tests like it, or “mass media” and messages on FB…up to you. I will believe science anyday…even rudemintary science, over FB posts from some woman.

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But see, you aren’t believing the study. You are believing the misinterpretation of the study presented by media coverage. I’m a trained scientist, and I’m telling you that the actual science of the paper doesn’t say what you think it is. The person on facebook is also a scientist, breaking down the points for people. Mass media is fine for some things, but as a scientist, I am constantly seeing them misrepresent the findings of scientific studies to make them seem more interesting or important than what science often is–more limited, nuanced, and often methodological in nature.

Also scientists aren’t immune from overstating the importance of their findings. Happens all the time. I’m telling you if you actually go look at the details of this study or listen to most people who know scientific methods who has really looked at in depth, they will say the same. In my academic circles, everyone was head shaking about this whole mess.

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This study?

The one I’ve read now multiple times?

Yep, I believe THAT study. I don’t get my facts from CNN or any other network…I read the studies and do the research.

This was the purpose of the test and that purpose was accomplished.

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You are proving my point–the goal of the study is to establish their method for mask testing. it is not to conclusively test the masks themselves.

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Crazy thing about interpretations…We’ll just have to agree to disagree.

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This is why communicating about science is so frustrating. But again, I urge you to read the critique and the complete study and all online materials if you want to understand why you shouldn’t take their findings very seriously beyond that they have a method that probably works to test masks.

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I’ve read as many things as I can find - but not FB posts from some person proclaiming to be a scientist. Point me to the research articles and critiques from scientific - non partisan, non-politically affiliated, universities and scientists and I’ll happily read them. I’m always up for learning.

Communicating about science isn’t hard at all - until folks start throwing in things that may or may not be verified BY science in their critiques.

The scientific method starts just as Dr. Fischer’s experiment was performed. He tested a hypothesis and until other science disproves his findings, he followed the method.

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Right and his study was testing his method, which it did. It was never designed adequately (not in materials, research methods, nor adequately powered) to test differences between the masks and shouldn’t be used as evidence for such. It’s pretty simple really. That person’s account I posted just does a very nice job of walking through the critique for lay people, but all of what she points out is also evident to anyone with adequate research training when reading the article.

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Also, you won’t find a scientific, peer-reviewed source saying what she does, because such a thing isn’t necessary. She’s translating for a lay audience.

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Disagree. It was a basic and rudementary test as indicated in the research article for different types of masks. His “method” was something that didn’t really need a video. It was a laser in a box with a mirror…something anyone could construct.

Her critique was her interpretation for the lay person. Something churches do every sunday for the masses.