Most people didnt use N95 masks, they used random cloth ones and the surgical looking ones. The N95 masks are actually really good for dust, I use them all the time.
they used random cloth ones and the surgical looking ones. The
While not as good as a properly fitted N95, they are still more effective than no mask at reducing the spread of airborne particles from the wearer.
Remember that masks were always mostly about protecting others, not so much about protecting the wearer. And I think that's where the loudest resistance came from - selfish people who don't give a fuck about the wellbeing of other people.
Great, can you quantify how effective they were? So the issue is that if almost all infection happened not in public and cloth masks are marginally useful, what the point of wearing them in public if there is no measurable benefit?
The issue here is that people pretended masks were very affective, and I have not seen any actual data that they were very useful. I have seen a lot of memes like the one above that pretend they were essential when the only data I ever recall seeing was they were overall 4% useful, by a pro-mask source. And if you look around there are lots of sources that said they did nothing, I dont know which is true, but lack of solid evidence seems to point to it was pointless.
Do you think masks should have been mandated indoors if they had a 4% impact? How about 0.1%?
Twentyish studies are sourced at the bottom of the article I linked, and it details the effectiveness of each mask type in the body of the article. Why we are discussing mandates now I don't know, feels like a bit of the ol' goalposts on wheels to me, it's not what I replied to.
I think this is the most important part of the article "Yes. When used with measures such as getting vaccinated, hand-washing and physical distancing, wearing a face mask slows how quickly the virus that causes COVID-19 spreads." It essentially says do all the things and it will be impactful.
At what level of impact do you think masks should have been forced on people?
I'm not going to re-litigate mask mandates with you. I'm sure you'll find someone happy to have that argument. You can keep moving those goalposts, but I'm not following.
Thats great, but did they actually prevent spread is the question to ask. We can start out with the hypothesis that they do work, then we need to actually confirm if that is true.
i mean.... you could look into it? know that it's difficult to set up an ideal study during a pandemic.
edit - also, it's hard to take you seriously in this debate when you aren't bothering to ACTUALLY LOOK AT SOME RESEARCH yourself. but i see you making lots of comments making a show of concern.
From all that I have seen and heard its at best split or the impact is so small that it is not noticeable. I think most of the ones that say it worked involved healthcare setting where trained people used good masks, not me at home depot with a mask from a box.
What I can say is that during the "mask years", I seriously never got a cold, flu, or Covid. I usually get a cold at least once or twice a year. I think it's still been a while since I've had one. My sister actually just got Covid about 2 weeks ago, I wore a mask around her for a few days and never caight it, tho I had a booster 6 months before, and she was about a year out. I took 3 home tests over 5 days and they were all negative.
Cool, I dont really know how this relates to the overall effectiveness of masks. I am going to guess that you were very cautious and took all kinds of precautions.
That people can still type in these word salads in 2024 is beyond me. Real actual scientists all over the world have answered these questions years ago. Stop asking Facebook for answers. Try Google
No. Google helps you search the web. It's up to you to look for trustworthy sources but that's not too hard. Just sticking to Wikipedia is fine most of the time.
But that involves reading and this may prove challenging to some.
So wouldnt that apply to facebook also? And question are a good way of clarifying things, and pointing out flaws in people ideas. I also dont want to be smarter than anyone because that is not really controllable, I want to be wiser and more accurate in what I believe.
Pretty much every study agrees, cloth masks are not as good as n95 or surgical masks. They don't however say that cloth does nothing. Also I have not been able to find even 1 study that looked at multilayer cloth masks. Some even state that multilayer would probably do much better than single layer, but they weren't even going to test them to see. Pretty much every study is focused on how well masks protect the wearer, but very few focus on how well they protect others from you. The only study that I found that does talk about it, says that while less than n95 masks, that even cloth masks have a significant affect on your spreading of the virus.