MasksForCovid19

ThoughtStorms Wiki

Context: Covid19

2022 summary of the state of research into effectiveness of masks at reducing Covid transmission.

https://www.fast.ai/2022/07/04/updated-masks-evidence/

tl;dr : they work! ... a bit.

Well fitted N95 or surgical masks work much better than non-well fitted or cloth masks.

For Omicron variants they work less well.

My take in general:

As always, there are no magic bullets for Covid avoidance. Many things reduce infection rate a bit, and do them all and you'll reduce infection rate somewhat.

And because public health and epidemics are all about the compound effect of actions over many potential iterations of infection events, the benefits of small reductions multiply over time / spread.

But there are no magic bullets. And nothing guarantees you won't infect others or get effected. So do all the small improvements systematically and you'll reduce your chance of either getting Covid or infecting others. And that helps everyone.

My other take.

It's astounding how many people, in this Covid pandemic, have suddenly decided they no longer understand that there are any numbers other than 0 and 1. Or 0% and 100%. And no possible value for masks (or any other prevention technique) than "guaranteed proof" and "useless".

AFAICT this whole issue has ALWAYS been statistical. About how small improvements add up and compound vs. the rate of spread and compounding effect without preventative measures.

It's disappointing and scary that people don't seem to grasp this.

See more on MathematicsOfCovid19

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