Around Hive, there have been several posts claiming that wearing masks is a scam, or that everyone wearing masks wouldn't accomplish anything to slow the spread of viral disease
Most of this claim isn't backed up with anything, but sometimes there are citations and links to irrelevant information. Most of the links indicate "wearing a mask doesn't stop you from getting infected". This is long known information, and was the reason that many people got the message "wearing a mask doesn't do anything". It's not information relevant to slowing the spread of disease, and thus opening up hospital space by reducing the number of active cases at any one time
Rather than try to track everyone down, maybe people could come here and let me know what their thinking is
Reviews of literature make it clear that wearing masks in a community significantly slows transmission of viral disease in general, and Covid19 specifically. Here's a recent summary of available information: https://files.fast.ai/papers/masks_lit_review.pdf
Reasoning from principles indicates the same:
- There's a lot of virus in snot and spit (it's how it spreads)
- Masks reduce the amount of snot and spit being sprayed into a room
Therefore, wearing masks reduces the amount of virus being sprayed into a room
Here are some fun videos showing why mask usage likely works as seen in the previously mentioned evidence
Mythbusters slow motion sneezes:
https://go.discovery.com/tv-shows/mythbusters/videos/slow-motion-sneezes/
Slow motion, various masks, various activities from a group at University of New South Wales:
Slow motion, 4k of how a mask impacts the spraying of spit and snot:
So what do you think?
Why would wearing masks within a given population not reduce the risk of disease transmission during a pandemic?
What flaws are in the evidence or reasoning?
Y'all have good