Germany did the same study and came to same results. Those fabric masks are still only 3% - 10% effective, eg pretty useless against the main infections, 1. direct aerosol via the nose, 2. hand to eye, but even those little numbers sum up in the exponential growth scenario.
They help against flyby droplet infections, help a bit against the aerosol load, and they prevent touching your eyes a bit. Removing caughers and washing your hand is still much more effective though.
And btw. the "second wave" will come for certain in the fall, but it will be another uncertain mix of influenza viri. Vaccination is always a gamble, because you never know what will come. 2018 it didn't work out, with the same numbers or worldwide much higher numbers as 2020.
also, most of the mask studies seem to be done in medical scenarios where the viral exposure is much higher and prolonged than what the general public faces. I suspect that, if a study could actually look at effectiveness in more common scenarios, the masks might look more effective.
OP is not an empirical study, but model-based one.
The paper first assumes that facial mask prevents individuals from spreading covid-19, then tries to estimate how it is effective at lowering the mass reproduction number.
So this paper proves
nothing about whether wearing mask is really meaningful or not in the first place. It is just assumed so.
I'd love to actually read the paper to see if it is reasonable. Anybody have a link? Having said that (and keep in mind that I'm in favour of wearing masks and wear one myself when I go out in public), I think it's pretty clear (as indicated in the article) that masks alone won't bring the R value below 1.
The article says, "He [Richard Stutt, who co-led the study] said the findings showed that if widespread mask use were combined with social distancing and some lockdown measures, this could be 'an acceptable way of managing the pandemic and re-opening economic activity' long before the development and public availability of an effective vaccine against COVID-19, the respiratory illness caused by the coronavirus." (emphasis mine)
Anecdotally, in Japan (where I live) there seems to be a much higher than 50% use rate and there is still need for lockdowns. However, as the article suggests, it appears that the severity and length of the lockdowns might be reduced.
The question I have, though, is if the sheer number of people with the disease in the US and UK may be an issue. In South Korea, Taiwan and Japan, the total number of active cases never really got above 10K -- so the chances of meeting someone with the disease is really quite small. Potentially (as seems to be the case in Japan) you can get away with just dealing with cluster cases and let the stragglers go -- as long as the masks are effective enough to keep transmission rates low in those situations. But if you have millions of people with the disease, many of them in large cities, I wonder if it will be as effective.
Masks alone are probably not enough. But they do seem to help when combined with other preventative measures.
My impression in the US is that people continue not to take this seriously, which causes us to be lax in the basic measures that could get this under control. Very frustrating.
On the positive side, looks like the R1 for most US states is below 1 - https://rt.live/
If I wear a mask, it's because I want to. Doing so "for others" is a direct route to supporting forced medical procedures. They can put one on if they want to.
Did Reuters post a story/retraction on the sourceless HCQ paper? https://www.hackerneue.com/item?id=23272222 If so, what metrics are available to the reader to gauge how prominently they posted each?
This is silly. Wearing a cloth over your face is no more a forced medical procedure than wearing one over your genitals.
Now adults are going to discuss weather the costs of getting a high uptake of people in society wearing a cloth over their face are worth the benefit that accrues, if any. You may decide you've made your point and leave it at that.
According to Wikipedia, influenza causes an estimated 41,400 deaths per year. 2017-2018 was the worst in 40 years and totaled about 61,000 (though the tally has not been finalised and some people have reported it as being as high as 80,000). The number of hospitalisations for the flue in that year was estimated at 800,000 people (clearly that isn't ICU). The number of medical visits was 21 million. I have no data for how many people were confirmed to have the flu, but were not hospitalised.
COVID-19 has killed 114,148 people to date. The number of hospitalisations are only reported up to the end of May 30 and appears to be 82 people per 100,000 people in the populations (thank you CDC for such an epically terrible statistic!) That works out to about 270,000 people. I'm going to use PCR tests as a proxy for "medical visits" for the flu, but in reality they aren't comparible. There are 22 million tests that have been carried out to date. The reason I use that as a proxy is I assume that there is reason to suspect that someone may have COVID-19 if they get a PCR test, just like there is reason to suspect that you have the flu if you have a "medical visit". The last piece of information would be the number of confirmed cases which is 2,045,549. So just under 10% of the cases that were tested were confirmed to have the disease.
Of the people who were hospitalised in the worst flu year in 40 years, about 10% died. Of the people who were hospitalised for COVID-19, about 42% died (well a little higher because I'm using June 10th data for deaths and May 30th for hospitalisations). The number of medical visits for the flu was 21 million in the worst year and the number of PCR tests for COVID-19 so far is 22 million (about the same). It may be a bad assumption,
They help against flyby droplet infections, help a bit against the aerosol load, and they prevent touching your eyes a bit. Removing caughers and washing your hand is still much more effective though.
And btw. the "second wave" will come for certain in the fall, but it will be another uncertain mix of influenza viri. Vaccination is always a gamble, because you never know what will come. 2018 it didn't work out, with the same numbers or worldwide much higher numbers as 2020.
Where did this number come from? It seems quite at odds with other sources.
The paper first assumes that facial mask prevents individuals from spreading covid-19, then tries to estimate how it is effective at lowering the mass reproduction number.
So this paper proves nothing about whether wearing mask is really meaningful or not in the first place. It is just assumed so.
Are there any hard data on this, or just predictions? Or are you talking about influenza, as you mention later?
The paper itself.
The article says, "He [Richard Stutt, who co-led the study] said the findings showed that if widespread mask use were combined with social distancing and some lockdown measures, this could be 'an acceptable way of managing the pandemic and re-opening economic activity' long before the development and public availability of an effective vaccine against COVID-19, the respiratory illness caused by the coronavirus." (emphasis mine)
Anecdotally, in Japan (where I live) there seems to be a much higher than 50% use rate and there is still need for lockdowns. However, as the article suggests, it appears that the severity and length of the lockdowns might be reduced.
The question I have, though, is if the sheer number of people with the disease in the US and UK may be an issue. In South Korea, Taiwan and Japan, the total number of active cases never really got above 10K -- so the chances of meeting someone with the disease is really quite small. Potentially (as seems to be the case in Japan) you can get away with just dealing with cluster cases and let the stragglers go -- as long as the masks are effective enough to keep transmission rates low in those situations. But if you have millions of people with the disease, many of them in large cities, I wonder if it will be as effective.
My impression in the US is that people continue not to take this seriously, which causes us to be lax in the basic measures that could get this under control. Very frustrating.
On the positive side, looks like the R1 for most US states is below 1 - https://rt.live/
If I wear a mask, it's because I want to. Doing so "for others" is a direct route to supporting forced medical procedures. They can put one on if they want to.
Silent protest is free speech; clearly facial experssions are too: https://www.hackerneue.com/item?id=23333873
Did Reuters post a story/retraction on the sourceless HCQ paper? https://www.hackerneue.com/item?id=23272222 If so, what metrics are available to the reader to gauge how prominently they posted each?
This is silly. Wearing a cloth over your face is no more a forced medical procedure than wearing one over your genitals.
Now adults are going to discuss weather the costs of getting a high uptake of people in society wearing a cloth over their face are worth the benefit that accrues, if any. You may decide you've made your point and leave it at that.
COVID-19 has killed 114,148 people to date. The number of hospitalisations are only reported up to the end of May 30 and appears to be 82 people per 100,000 people in the populations (thank you CDC for such an epically terrible statistic!) That works out to about 270,000 people. I'm going to use PCR tests as a proxy for "medical visits" for the flu, but in reality they aren't comparible. There are 22 million tests that have been carried out to date. The reason I use that as a proxy is I assume that there is reason to suspect that someone may have COVID-19 if they get a PCR test, just like there is reason to suspect that you have the flu if you have a "medical visit". The last piece of information would be the number of confirmed cases which is 2,045,549. So just under 10% of the cases that were tested were confirmed to have the disease.
Of the people who were hospitalised in the worst flu year in 40 years, about 10% died. Of the people who were hospitalised for COVID-19, about 42% died (well a little higher because I'm using June 10th data for deaths and May 30th for hospitalisations). The number of medical visits for the flu was 21 million in the worst year and the number of PCR tests for COVID-19 so far is 22 million (about the same). It may be a bad assumption,
Just to sum up (and sorry for those on mobile):
Where the asterisk means my esitmate which may be completely wrong. Edit: The first line is the flu and the second line is COVID-19But any way you slice it, I don't think the numbers work out the way you are portraying it. Corrections to the above are very much welcomed!
Nit: There is no accoring to wikipedia. It's a perception management platform. Use it to find a source, nothing more.