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Comment by umvi | Hacker News Reader

> which is something we know is highly effective (purely from a physics point of view)

This in itself is a tricky claim to make with confidence. I agree we know certain types of masks (N95) are highly effective at preventing spread of airborne illness if worn properly.

But... in the context of the article you referenced, are you prepared to defend the claim that cloth masks which haven't been washed for months and are frequently touched, adjusted, and worn incorrectly by kids and teens are "highly effective at preventing spread of airborne illness"?

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Just because inferior masks poorly handled aren't worth much doesn't mean masks aren't worth much.

But it does indeed mean the mask mandates weren't worth much.

It means mask mandates that allow cotton masks as opposed to surgical masks or N95s aren't worth as much.

Which is what they were.

So we all agree they weren't worth much.

They're still worth a lot. For one, mask mandates are going to encourage some people to wear non-cotton masks who would otherwise skip masks. For another, cotton masks are still better than nothing.

But I agree, we should statrt having stricter mandates.

I'm still waiting for the CDC to explain why last year when they were explaining how N95 masks required expert knowledge to use and that us dummies in the public would just poke covid in our eyes if we tried to wear them, how exactly that changed. Are we no longer dummies and capable of using masks without poking covid in our eyes or were they lying? And if they were lying, how many people died from using inferior masks since then based on the lie that cotton masks are somehow useful.

Do you have anything to support this “dummies” claim? What I remember from the N95 “guidance” (it wasn’t a “ban” iirc) was that the reason was to ensure there was enough supply of them for healthcare / frontline workers, who need them more than the rest of us, which made sense at the time (and I can see reasons why it would change later). I’m curious when that reason switched to “you are all dummies who can’t be allowed to use masks”?

https://web.archive.org/web/20200301071220/https://www.forbe...

They wanted to save N95s for professionals due to a shortage. They lied. It's the same way the fed lies about inflation because people thinking inflation happening worsens the effects making it irresponsible to tell the truth.

How many people died? Hard to say. You have to also compare how many were saved because medical workers had access to N95 masks. But you're not considering this factor.

Honest truth is that it's complicated and people were trying their best. It's not a conspiracy it's just that we're humans.

> making it irresponsible to tell the truth.

So, we should be thankful for being lied to? Perverse. And extremely short sighted.

I'm saying that things aren't simple. If you're not aware of cases where telling the truth is worse than telling a lie then I'd tell you that you're lying to yourself.

Are there Jews in my basement? No, Nazi fucks, not at all.

But that's not really the same thing as a critical taxpayer funded health body telling major fibs at the outset of a crisis. And if you think it is then who here is lying to themselves?

> They wanted to save N95s for professionals due to a shortage. They lied.

That's certainly a plausible interpretation of what happened. Another is they actually thought masks don't help in most cases and that covid wasn't primarily air-transmitted.

You adjusted the parent's assertion by saying "worn incorrectly by kids and teens" where they only said "masks are effective".

Sure the original article was talking school mandates, but that wasn't the parent's point.

I don't understand how anyone can assert that masks are not useful in preventing the spread of airborne saliva and mucus particles. Have you never in your life had someone talking toward you and had some spit land on you? Have you ever been to a salad bar and seen a sneeze guard? Do you cover your mouth when you cough?

Particles spread a lot when forcefully exhaling, and not just when coughing or sneezing.

Yeah but my point was the claim that "wearing masks is highly effective" needs more qualifiers.

There are many kinds of masks and many different communicable diseases. A cloth mask will not block covid aerosol transmission at all, and covid is known to transmit via aerosol. A cloth mask may prevent some spread via droplets, but it's unclear if it's "highly effective" or just "marginally effective" or even "ineffective" given how often people touch and adjust cloth masks and how rarely people wash them.

Cloth masks definitely prevent said spit that lands on you but not fine aerosols. My point was how effective, not if

The science on cloth masks is pretty settled - they are ineffective at preventing covid transmission.

Huge study by pro-masking people at Stanford and Yale, N=350,000: https://med.stanford.edu/news/all-news/2021/09/surgical-mask...

Cloth masks had no statistically significant effect on the transmission of covid. There is good news though - a 20% increase in masking with surgical masks resulted in a 10% decrease in transmission.

You should consider cloth masks to be purely psychological protection.

"not statistically significant" means you cannot draw conclusions from it. You're mistaken when you draw the conclusion that masks are not effective.

When we're talking about well-executed studies with N=350,000 I think the practical conclusion is pretty obvious. This is not an underpowered study. The effect size was tiny.

That's not what the article says. The article says, "cloth masks did reduce the overall likelihood of experiencing symptoms of respiratory illness during the study period"

The part about statistical significance says, "Although there were also fewer COVID-19 cases in villages with cloth masks as compared to control villages, the difference was not statistically significant."

The paper said that villages in Bangladesh that used the provided cloth masks did not have a statistically significant reduction in cases. This is not the same as saying cloth masks do not work; a cloth mask with higher filtration efficiency than was used in the study can be manufactured, but this was cost prohibitive compared to surgical masks. It was also not possible to procure one of the materials they wanted to use in the cloth masks; without it efficiency was only 37% instead of 60%. This was described in some detail in Appendix F.

From the paper:

These cloth masks had substantially higher filtration than common commercial 3-ply cotton masks, but lower than hybrid masks that use materials not commonly available for community members in low-resource settings

and

In our internal testing, we found that cloth masks with an external layer made of Pellon 931 polyester fusible interface ironed onto interlocking knit with a middle layer of interlocking knit could achieve a 60% filtration efficiency. Upon discussions with the manufacturers, we learned that those materials could not be procured.

It may be theoretically possible to improve cloth masks, but the ones you see people wearing around here in California aren't that.

Nice logical fallacy you got there. move that goalpost.

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