And this time the government isn’t going to hand out vaccines with no strings attached. Now you have to agree to some website’s grossly one-sided terms of service in order to get vaccinated. No, I do not agree to binding arbitration over something being put in my body; I’m not completely stupid.
Wear a mask appropriately, wash your hands, and be safe! And mRNA based vaccines are heavily researched already (and freaking cool to me), but sorry you have go through a website TOS to get a vaccine… that does sound kinda dumb for accessibility. I can just walk into a pharmacy and ask for one the same day. Though I’m pretty sure I’m still signing a TOS on paper regardless, cause that’s just kinda how risk/benefit works. Wish you all the best though and good luck!
reddit-logo posting style made “I love/I love it that/I like it that/it’s funny that” into a tiresome passive-aggressive and sarcastic prelude to rage posting, and I hate that.
Forcing everyone to hide their face in public is an astronomical cost. Even if forced masking worked, which it does not, it would not be worth the cost.
millions of people died. is it chronic anxiety or do some of us just allow ourselves to grieve and adapt to the reality of the new world while heartless monsters such as yourself revel in the mass death
I lost 4 people close to me to covid. I’ve had friends lose cognitive function and have to leave their jobs of years. I’m glad you’re lucky enough to not have that happen to you. But the fact you can be so disgustingly callous and refer to yourself as any kind of person who cares about people is the biggest lie you’ve ever told yourself. I hope you reflect on this and what your rhetoric means to people who have experienced loss.
But training doesn’t make you smart or perceptive or even capable of independent thought. It just makes you trained. We also train fish, mice and worms.
It’s very strange to me. I live in Sweden, we barely shut things down, no masks etc things went about as well as other places that did do masms and we’re now looking like we’re doing better in some respects (e.g. education)
We fucked up at the start of it all with care home rules not being strict enough but otherwise all good.
It’s not the worst, but certainly not a pleasant experience at least in summer or winter. In summer your face gets all sweaty and disgusting and in winter I get a runny nose and the mask gets disgusting. If it’s not really necessary I’d rather don’t wear it.
It’s funny. I didn’t understand these sorts of complaints until I remembered I have a beard. There is always something on my face and I’m just used to it.
I’m inconsistently bearded/shaved and I also don’t care about wearing a mask. I can wear an N95 or equivalent all day doing manual labour. I get that some people have breathing difficulties, etc, but for those who don’t… never really understood the objection. You forget it’s on after five minutes.
I’ve not stopped masking since the start of Covid. I’ll put one on before going into a shop and frequently only remember to take it off when I get home. Medical masks are even less of a bother.
I do hate the masks with elasticated ear loops, though. They hurt. I don’t know whose bright idea that was but they need promoting to a position where they can’t cause any more damage.
Yes, I get strange looks. But I can convey with my eyes that I think they’re a Muppet for not wearing a mask, so I don’t get many actual comments.
It’s the worst thing for me. I know there’s elderly, immunocompromised, and poor people who would be devastated after a serious illness. But I worked really hard at my office job and I need to see people smile because that’s important for some reason.
The lesson I’m learning is that we should have worn masks during “flu season” all along. In crowded and poorly ventilated spaces at least. It’s a cheap and easy measure and I don’t know what the BFD is with masks.
You’re really showing some serious ignorance with your comments. It’s really funny that people are actually stupid enough to believe the stuff you’re trying to sell LoL.
The disposable masks are reusable until they’re dirty, worn or damaged. They shouldn’t be reused if you think you’ve been in a high exposure area but if you wear it while in the corner store for 2 minutes, you can safely reuse it.
Reusable masks only go so far. Any mask will reduce your risk of spreading the virus to others. But a good mask will do so far better, and only a good mask will protect you from infection from others.
For reusable masks, the only good ones either are either only good for a limited number of washes or require replacing a disposable filter the provides the actual protection (and so are mostly just holders for the disposable masks. It’s possible that the extra material saved using disposable filters vs disposable masks is not equal to the additional resources required to make the mask they fit into.)
Most reusable masks people wear tend to only provide ok protection for others and none for themselves. Often the ones I see provide very little protection for others and are really just a concession to following the word but not spirit of the rules.
I’d rather encourage people to use disposables that are usually far more effective than the reusables they would otherwise use personally.
The lesson I leaned is that as long as it’s not a COVID everyone is dying, we need to save our healthcare system from collapsing situation we shouldn’t wear masks because we need to be able to fend off common colds with our body or we are artificially creating a pandemic. For example we almost had a new collapse of infant care because way to many babies for a certain flu type after everything opened up again which would normally spread out over longer periods.
Well, you see, I want to be able to persecute others because that’s, like, the foundation of my religion. But it doesn’t really feel right because I end up feeling like the instigator. So I go out looking for reasons I’m being persecuted against so I can sleep at night after a good long day of playing the victim and retaliatory persecuting others.
And that basically explains masks and the rest of the garbage the right yells about.
Masks just aren’t inherently a big deal. It’s just been made one by people seeking to politicise what should be a universally accepted good (trying to stop the spread and harm of a pandemic/epidemic disease.) People have reframed it as “they” are trying to control you! So vote for me/buy my tat/give me attention and I will protect “us” from “them”! and just about everyone has been influenced in their response to this simple practical health issue in some way as a result. Some entirely buying into the message and insisting there’s some insidious reason we’re being asked to take simple actions to prevent infection, others simply being a little more lax in their action than they would be if there wasn’t a fairly large vocal minority insisting that no action should be taken at all.
They are a big deal. Acting like it’s not affecting your life is just as stupid as people saying the bill gates is creating a new world order it whatever. It affects our immune systems, it affects our social life’s and it’s more than annoying in certain climate conditions, if you have a runny nose etc.
I will always wear a mask if it’s necessary but not just out of pure precaution
That’s the damn truth lol. I wish I would’ve known and used masks more appropriately before; could have avoided a bunch of little respiratory infections. The most I would have had to deal with is people asking “are you sick?” because I’m wearing a mask
It used to be a valid question because the culture around masks was different before covid (where I live). Now people are more informed about types of masks and how to utilize them properly. If someone asks now, I just inform them; but the taboo is no longer really a thing. Some masks can protect others, some masks can protect both user and others.
Most I deal with now is someone pushing their ideologies about “not wearing one if you’re not sick”. And I’ll try and inform them if they care to listen. My wife is immunosuppressed and I work as an ICU nurse; I don’t play with fire when it could possibly end with me losing her, over something as simple as being aware. And neither of us have gotten covid yet, so we’re doing something right.
Misinformation about masking and general public hygiene is it’s own pandemic
No excuse but the entitlement of being adult toddlers. Or actual toddlers but they tend to be a bit more sensible. (Unfortunately, I’m partial to acting like a toddler now and again myself, so this comment is a little self deprecating – turns out it’s really hard to try to solvee social problems as an individual when the rest of society lives like fuck-you-i-don’t-care-if-i-cough-a-deadly-virus-into-your-face.)
Read the review. It’s the most comprehensive post pandemic study from a highly respected journal. They clearly state the following:
There is uncertainty about the effects of face masks. The low to moderate certainty of evidence means our confidence in the effect estimate is limited, and that the true effect may be different from the observed estimate of the effect. The pooled results of RCTs did not show a clear reduction in respiratory viral infection with the use of medical/surgical masks. There were no clear differences between the use of medical/surgical masks compared with N95/P2 respirators in healthcare workers when used in routine care to reduce respiratory viral infection. Hand hygiene is likely to modestly reduce the burden of respiratory illness, and although this effect was also present when ILI and laboratory-confirmed influenza were analysed separately, it was not found to be a significant difference for the latter two outcomes. Harms associated with physical interventions were under-investigated.
If we can’t settle the issue after a 2 year pandemic, I highly doubt it will ever be settled by science.
Masking is political theater and is ultimately a matter of expressing your tribe at this point. Alternatively, we could think of people who wear masks today as leaning more heavily towards social humanism and hive mentality (society over the individual), where non masks proponents lean towards liberal humanism (in the sense of freedom of the individual, that is, personal liberty).
Given that the science is inconclusive about masks, and even suggests that they are not effective, it’s about time that news outlets drop the topic. If you want to wear a mask, then do it. But don’t force anyone else to or suggest that governments should regulate it.
COVID is over. New shit will come. Masks won’t be the solution.
Edit: downvotes without any proper rebuttal. Classic tribalism at all cost despite the truth.
The pandemic is over. COVID is sticking around forever as far as we know it. It’s endemic and it was endemic from a very early stage. The COVID zero idea was very dumb.
“Our confidence in these results is generally low to moderate for the subjective outcomes related to respiratory illness, but moderate for the more precisely defined laboratory-confirmed respiratory virus infection, related to masks and N95/P2 respirators. The results might change when further evidence becomes available. Relatively low numbers of people followed the guidance about wearing masks or about hand hygiene, which may have affected the results of the studies. ”
Yeah… They are not really confident about their results… You can find studies that show effectiveness of the mask in a few clics : elischolar.library.yale.edu/…/1086/
Soooo, I will continue to think that the mask is effective against viruses spreading by air. Knowing that n95/P2 masks protect mostly the person who wear them and surgical masks protect mostly people from the wearer.
Yes, they aren’t confident. Isn’t it amazing that that is their results after 2 fucking years and a ton of studies into it? You’d think they could come up with more conclusive evidence that masks work. But they didn’t. The science on masks isn’t resolved. That’s pretty damning in my view.
Surgical masks don’t do shit. They only protect larger particles. Virus shit is far too small for any effectiveness.
I put in my previous message one of the most important reason, if not the most important, why it is difficult to have good data about the mask efficiency. Here it is again : **Relatively low numbers of people followed the guidance about wearing masks or about hand hygiene, which may have affected the results of the studies.**If you can not trust the people you use as data, you can not trust your results, and for something as trivial as wearing a mask, we have seen that people cannot be trusted… So, how can you produce proof that masks work ?
Yes surgical masks are effective. Not 100%, but they have a good efficiency to prevent people to spread the desease. They stop the biggest dropplets when you speak or cought, no debate. They also stop smaller particles because of the electrostatic effects and the diffusion effects. Also, the mask mesh doesn’t look like a football net. It’s more like a dense forest. Adding to that the fact than small particles don’t move in straight lines ( brownian movement ), it makes the surgical masks have a non neglectible efficency.
The main reasons surgical masks are recommended above the others (n95/p2),are that other masks are more disturbing to wear and they cost more than surgical masks.
Hahahaha is that the shit they had to apologize for because it didn’t actually conclude masks were unnecessary but the lead author went on a press tour touting the anti mask shit anyway, and a couple of the authors were affiliated with anti-mask think tanks? That’s what you’re citing? Some shit Cochrane themselves have distanced themselves from?
“Covid is over” do you like, not live on the earth? People have been getting Covid this whole time, and yes, as this new wave comes about, more people I know are getting Covid. You and everyone who thinks like you are a fucking joke. I can’t imagine having my head buried this far up my own ass.
Edit: also lol @ “liberal humanism.” Yeah, that humanism drops real fast when I choose to exercise my supposed personal liberty and wear a mask.
It wasn’t the lead author you dimwit. It was the editor of the journal who ultimately doesn’t get to make the decision because the article passed rigorous peer review. You clearly don’t understand how academic publishing in peer reviewed journals work. The only reason she posted this was to sooth people like you that now treat the mask like a blankie.
We are engaging with the review authors with the aim of updating the Plain Language Summary and abstract to make clear that the review looked at whether interventions to promote mask wearing help to slow the spread of respiratory viruses.
So, did they change it? (Spoiler alert, No, they didn’t)
You people seriously just don’t get it. One editor in chief wrote this piece. It’s not all of Cochrane. Cochrane is a journal. You clearly don’t understand academic processes. The article was peer reviewed by a panel of experts and written by numerous other experts. The author you are bringing up is solely one person that has an opinion on the matter due to the political ramifications of the article’s findings.
It’s annoying having to explain academic processes to the general public who don’t have a clue.
To be fair to them. It’s not long since I pointed that out. They seemingly haven’t seen my comments at all yet. Maybe they’ll read them, read the statement, review their understanding of the paper and express that their perspective has changed. It’s too soon to say that definitely wont happen! (So let’s enjoy imagining it will while we can.)
Who knew there were still so many mask supporters. It’s a weird world with a lot of people that cannot use critical thinking. They would make good bee workers in a hive. I guess we need those people, but let’s hope politicians don’t bend to their idiotic masking demands.
Correct they’re fucking tools that ignore what’s obvious. Everyone masked, everyone locked down, everyone vaccinated, and every fucking one of them got sick. Countries that didn’t, had far less get sick. Their response, “DAH, ERM, UMM, AMERICA FAT” and hiding the fact that they are not getting continual boosters while still promoting the failed gene therapy drug
Yea they’re fucking slaves so easy to rope in just give them an authority figure and they fall in line like cattle. They’re going to inject whatever untested shit you want just tell them it has emergency authorization
I didn’t know lemmy was full of anti maskers. Wear a mask ffs. You should have kn95s or n95s. They work and prevent all sorts of illness. Even a regular mask works better than nothing. They did plenty of studies.
I’m not an anti masker, wore mine for 3 solid years, but definitely tired of it. And we can’t wear a mask forever.
I can understand if I’m sick or regularly near someone who is sick, but day to day is too much. Especially in my line of work, where I’m working in the heat doing physical work.
Why can’t we wear masks in public forever? Do you wear pants in public? Shoes?
If you are in an open space outdoors distanced from people, like most hard labor, you probably don’t need to be masked. But white collar jobs in coffee proximity to each other?
I should ask this, how long do you typically wear a mask for when you do wear one?
I had to wear it for 8-12 hours a day while at work. My sinuses were clogged up by the end of the day, acne all over my face, and the mask venting into my eyes was causing an stye to develop on my eyelid.
I think the newest Cochrane medical study rated n95 as 18% effective and regular masks 5% effective against covid, btw. Better than nothing, yes, but worth it?
Other studies show that in health-care workers, n95 vs medical masks made almost no statistical difference.
However, the use of masks in the public is not necessarily to protect yourself. It’s to keep you from spreading germs in a wide range if you cough. It’s the same concept as herd immunity with vaccinations. We all help protect each other.
WAIT?! You made this comment an hour after I quoted and linked to the clarification from Cochrane that it is a misunderstanding that their study says cloth masks are not effective in response to ONE OF YOUR comments.
Have YOU read THAT?!
Don’t be out here saying “OMG have you readed what Cochrane said about it?!” when not only have you misread it but also seemingly not read Cochrane’s attempt to gently explain that to you!
A cloth mask is effective, read the Cochrane statement.
I mean sorry but are you wearing a helmet every day at your desk? There is surely a 0.01% chance that it prevents some minor headinjury from a colleague bumping into you
That’s not what the science says. It seems logical, but the mask is supposed to protect the wearer from external shit. It seems logical that it would slow down the spread if an infected individual wears a mask, but the science is far from clear on this after a multi year long pandemic. If a mask makes you feel better, then wear it, but it’s not evident that it plays a big role when it comes to respiratory viruses.
There is uncertainty about the effects of face masks. The low to moderate certainty of evidence means our confidence in the effect estimate is limited, and that the true effect may be different from the observed estimate of the effect. The pooled results of RCTs did not show a clear reduction in respiratory viral infection with the use of medical/surgical masks. There were no clear differences between the use of medical/surgical masks compared with N95/P2 respirators in healthcare workers when used in routine care to reduce respiratory viral infection. Hand hygiene is likely to modestly reduce the burden of respiratory illness, and although this effect was also present when ILI and laboratory-confirmed influenza were analysed separately, it was not found to be a significant difference for the latter two outcomes. Harms associated with physical interventions were under-investigated.
Clearly you haven’t read the review I linked. I guess people struggle with reading the literature so they spew shit that, while logical, is simply false.
i’m not an anti-vaxxer, ut I do refuse to have my DNA modified by a vaccine. Not only that the risks associated with the vaccines for covid are too high for my health. I’ve already had 2 heart attacks, I don’t need a vaccine to increase the risk of another one.
during the pandemic, before the lockdowns were completely lifted, I wore my mask for the sake of others. Not all anti-vaxxers can be lumped into your last comment. Oh and btw, I’ve had covid twice, once before it was even listed as a pandemic, and it did not put me in the hospital, but it did make me feel worse than if I had the flu.
also, on another note, I thought the vaccine was supposed to HELP defeat Covid? Obviously that was a lie. Everytime a new variant comes around, all of a sudden you need another booster shot which has not been “programmed” to help with the new variant. At this point the covid vaccine is nothing more than a cash grab for big pharma.
I think the newest Cochrane medical study rated n95 as 18% effective and regular masks 5% effective against covid, btw.
Lots of people seem to have picked up the idea that the recent Cochrane report states that the evidence shows masks not to be effective that but it is a misunderstanding (largely it just seems to claim that the various studies it found on the various topics they were looking at were mostly useless for drawing any sort of conclusion about the matter.)
The text of the statement on the matter from Cochrane from the above link:
Statement on ‘Physical interventions to interrupt or reduce the spread of respiratory viruses’ review logo
The Cochrane Review ‘Physical interventions to interrupt or reduce the spread of respiratory viruses’ was published in January 2023 and has been widely misinterpreted.
Karla Soares-Weiser, Editor-in-Chief of the Cochrane Library, has responded on behalf of Cochrane:
“Many commentators have claimed that a recently-updated Cochrane Review shows that ‘masks don’t work’, which is an inaccurate and misleading interpretation.
It would be accurate to say that the review examined whether interventions to promote mask wearing help to slow the spread of respiratory viruses, and that the results were inconclusive. Given the limitations in the primary evidence, the review is not able to address the question of whether mask-wearing itself reduces people’s risk of contracting or spreading respiratory viruses.
The review authors are clear on the limitations in the abstract: ‘The high risk of bias in the trials, variation in outcome measurement, and relatively low adherence with the interventions during the studies hampers drawing firm conclusions.’ Adherence in this context refers to the number of people who actually wore the provided masks when encouraged to do so as part of the intervention. For example, in the most heavily-weighted trial of interventions to promote community mask wearing, 42.3% of people in the intervention arm wore masks compared to 13.3% of those in the control arm.
The original Plain Language Summary for this review stated that ‘We are uncertain whether wearing masks or N95/P2 respirators helps to slow the spread of respiratory viruses based on the studies we assessed.’ This wording was open to misinterpretation, for which we apologize. While scientific evidence is never immune to misinterpretation, we take responsibility for not making the wording clearer from the outset. We are engaging with the review authors with the aim of updating the Plain Language Summary and abstract to make clear that the review looked at whether interventions to promote mask wearing help to slow the spread of respiratory viruses.”
You are not up to date. The science on whether mass masking is effective is far from settled and the biggest reviews of the literature strongly suggest that masks are not effective in preventing or slowing the spread of respiratory viruses. See below.
The Cochrane Review is highly respected in the medical community. The authors, after a massive study, write the following:
We are uncertain whether wearing masks or N95/P2 respirators helps to slow the spread of respiratory viruses based on the studies we assessed.
There is uncertainty about the effects of face masks. The low to moderate certainty of evidence means our confidence in the effect estimate is limited, and that the true effect may be different from the observed estimate of the effect. The pooled results of RCTs did not show a clear reduction in respiratory viral infection with the use of medical/surgical masks. There were no clear differences between the use of medical/surgical masks compared with N95/P2 respirators in healthcare workers when used in routine care to reduce respiratory viral infection. Hand hygiene is likely to modestly reduce the burden of respiratory illness, and although this effect was also present when ILI and laboratory-confirmed influenza were analysed separately, it was not found to be a significant difference for the latter two outcomes. Harms associated with physical interventions were under-investigated.
The science on whether mass masking is effective is far from settled
Be kind and wear a mask until it’s settled that they don’t help. What we know for sure is that it’s very hard to measure whether they’re effective or not.
FWIW, they definitely do work. The issue is that it’s quite hard to produce effective studies to confirm if they work one way or another to point to to say “see, we’ve proved they work, now put one on!”
Stop posting this all over the place. Masks clearly work, unless you like randos sneezing and coughing all over you. It catches all the phlegm.
Also, it prevents the smells of anti-maskers from reaching your nose. They can be pretty bad. You wear clothes over literally every other part of your body. Why do you think your face is different?
“Stop posting something that, while scientific and deeply rigorous, goes against my deep seated and unchangeable views. I can’t handle it with my weak, feeble mind!”
It is scientific and rigorous. You’ve not understood it correctly and Cochrane have been explicit about the fact of that misunderstanding. They are not saying the things you think they are saying.
The editor in chief was covering her ass due to the political nature of the results. All she attempts to say is “we don’t have conclusive evidence that masks are not effective”
No shit. The review said the same thing. The point is that the large scale study showed no effects of masking. That is, they weren’t sure if they helped or not. That means there is no conclusive evidence, still, after 2 years, that masks are an effective population level intervention.
“But I wear my cloth mask just to be safe.” Okay. You do you. But just know there is no conclusive evidence that it works. Might as well stay in your room, locked for life. Just to be safe.
You’ve been corrected multiple times with excerpts from the authors of the study you’re parroting all over this thread. And yet you just keep posting the same shit, not acknowledging the people who are refuting your claims.
I haven’t been corrected. The farthest anyone has gone was post the editorial comment or highlight that the Cochrane review said “we don’t think masks made any difference but we don’t really know because we need more studies”. Don’t you think it’s pretty damning that, after 2 years, they still don’t know whether masks are effective at the population level? So you are just gonna argue “just to be safe!”
No. I don’t live my life by that mantra. Read Haidt’s The coddling of the American mind.
I don’t understand people downvoting without correcting. This way this wrong information stands here, seemingly scientifically sound as a study is linked, contradicted only by votes and words.
Thank you @SigloPseudoMundo for looking at the study and noting its limits here.
Some studies exist that measured no benefits of masks under certain circumstances. E.g. only evaluating complete protection. But few also seem to be sound at first glance. E.g. one looking at effects of a mask requirement in Bexar County, TX.
Many of the negative result studies focus on cloth face masks, one even suggesting they increase risk.
Many studies and metastudies with generally more sound methods suggest mask are effective at preventing spread and limiting mortality.
Conclusion: Masks, excluding simple cloth masks, are likely quite effective. More research is needed.
Your conclusion, in respect to the highly detailed Cochrane review, is extremely wrong. I don’t know how people like you come up with this logic. It’s bizarre. Cloth masks have been proven to be in effective time and time again and you keep promoting them. It’s ridiculous.
It’s not seemingly scientific, the study I linked is the best study we have and it came up with “masks don’t seem to help for reducing the spread of respiratory viruses.” Yet you spew the same bullshit we had at the beginning of the pandemic that wasn’t researched.
Luckily I live in a place where it will be highly unlikely for some ridiculous mandate. Hopefully you live in a place that will mandate this shit for the rest of your life so you can live in the dystopia you want to live in. Leave the rest of us alone.
It seems you have not read my post or the study in detail.
Indeed it seems that cloth masks are not very or even not effective. But, and that’s a big but: FFP2/KN95 Masks seem to be quite effective.
The Cochrane study authors themselves note the low confidence they have in their results. The sample size is quite small (e.g. only 8407 people in summary over all studies they evaluated for FFP2 masks) They even got the result that handwashing has no benefits.
In Contrast the studies in the metastudy I linked work with far larger sample sizes.
I won’t respond anymore after this comment as you seem agitated and resort to personal attacks which won’t lead to a productive discussion. I hope you find a calmer moment to consider the evidence studies have gathered and overthink your position.
Largely what the Cochrane report appears to say is that these studies aren’t actually suitable to draw firm conclusions from (which is what all the talk of “evidence” are about. They mean that the studies they read don’t have sufficient evidence to support their own claims and that while Cochrane can therefore tell us “study X had conclusion Y” they and we shouldn’t assume that’s actually correct as “study X” wasn’t actually very good.)
My whole point is that the scientific consensus on whether masks make a difference at the population level for respiratory illnesses is inconclusive. So why should governments continue mandating them? “Just to be safe” is not a sound argument, especially when the intervention is so drastic against the human condition.
I love showing my face and seeing other people’s’ faces. It angers me that so many people don’t care about faces. I find these folk to be expressively anti-human and it angers me. Masks limit human expression. They dull human life.
“The high risk of bias in the trials, variation in outcome measurement, and relatively low adherence with the interventions during the studies hampers drawing firm conclusions.”
“Our confidence in these results is generally low to moderate for the subjective outcomes related to respiratory illness, but moderate for the more precisely defined laboratory-confirmed respiratory virus infection, related to masks and N95/P2 respirators.”
You failed to mention that part when you quoted the study. Good thing not everyone is a health care worker huh?
In addition to Macros’s comment explaining some of the details around what the specific claims of that report are, here is the statement from Cochrane explicitly saying that people have misunderstood the report in claiming it says masks aren’t effective (and taking ownership of the fact that this is at least in part because of issues with how clearly the report communicates it’s findings.)
To err always on the side of caution, especially when it comes to denying a very human expression (one’s face) is not a good way to live. If we erred on the side of caution for everything, it would be a meaningless life. Life involves risks. It’s very low risk to not wear a mask.
KF94’s are also equally effective (and similar in comfort to KN95’s.) There are concerns about counterfeits of KN95’s in general and masks made in China in general though so KR95’s (Korean) made in Korea or n95s made not in China are more reliable options.
Even a counterfeit mask claiming to be any of the above is likely to be alrightish and far better than nothing.
What you want to look for generally is a triple-layer (or more) mask that is made from non-woven/melt-blown material that gets a good seal. Beyond that just finding something you can afford, reliably get and feel comfortable wearing are kind of the next most important things to look for (the mask you wear is always better than the one you don’t!)
False information. Masks made in China are perfectly fine. The majority of N95 respirators (and masks in general) are made in China. In fact the numbers in the name is part of the Chinese Filtration Index.
KN95, KN95S, KR95, KF94 all follow the same index.
N95 respirators will always be the best option, but they require a shaved face and are very uncomfortable.
The anti maskers/vaxxers are just loud and like to make their opinion known. I don’t really give a fuck anymore who wears a mask or not, I just stay safe and try to keep others safe. People are gonna be dumb no matter what you do. Just wish they weren’t so fucking vocal about pushing misinformation, while being so confidently incorrect.
I really like the KF94’s personally, they’re more comfortable for me. Definitely look into them if you haven’t already!
Edit: By looking at your upvotes vs the loud minority, you can tell what people around here think lol. A lot of instances don’t allow downvotes (mine for one), so upvotes are the only option
No, your immunity to viral infections doesn’t last forever. Cultures around the world wear masks when they are out in close proximity or if they are sick and you don’t see higher infection rates among them. Japan is a culture famous for wearing masks and they have a lower infection rate overall.
I don’t wear one in my day-to-day, but I’m certainly not going to begrudge somebody for wearing one, and you can be sure I’m gonna have em around for flu season, COVID or no.
The problem is masks got politicized by assholes that want to be contrarian for the sake of preserving their paradigm, their worldview.
These are people so mentally weak and reliant on the lifestyle they’ve grown accustomed to that when something like a plague comes around, it shifts their paradigm so fuckin’ hard that they have to tell themselves the science is wrong and everybody is going to be fine. I suppose the other part of it is treating your national politics like a fuckin’ football game, but that doesn’t even warrant discussing because it’s so goddamn obvious and pervasive.
Now imagine, as a hypothetical scenario, the government tells us aliens are real one day, and they’re here. Watch these people really lose it. Wouldn’t know whether to shit or go blind.
Edit: As for the people that are just genuinely tired of hearing about it, be it on here, Reddit, or else where… Pull the fucking plug and let everything go for a bit. Decompress. You don’t have to be online and connected to everything every minute of your boredom or free time.
There’s no lockdown anymore. Go touch grass.
Using a bad mask badly is still better than not at all. But we really are doing a lot worse in terms of quality of masks and mask usage than we ought to be…
it’s been a long time since I took biology but my gut keeps telling me that this isn’t some binary thing… like, all these suggestions we follow to me seem to be about minimizing exposure… like if I get 100 individual covid viruses in me through a cheap, cloth mask, my body can fight it off. And that may be a different outcome if I didn’t have a mask at all and got 1,000 individual viruses in me.
I don’t know, I’m not a biologist, I just don’t get how everything is constantly framed as all or nothing. it doesn’t make sense to me.
if you want to know more, you’re describing the effects of viral load. and your gut is correct!
and also these all or nothing folks literally don’t consider how effective n95s and other respirators are at filtering particles. it’s not new technology, it really works
You absolutely can take off and reuse a mask. Ideally one should be replacing it daily. But don’t let perfection be the enemy of the good.
But the media mentions it like its the only solution.
The scientist in this article also critiques the government for lack of reporting and failing to give boosters to most adults, so I don’t think this is fair.
Dunno, but the vibe on this comment is “I’m not gonna wear a mask because it has to be perfect, so I’m not going to bother.” Sorry if I read this wrong.
I saw a study a while back that claimed that good filtration and ventilation systems in indoor public places were more effective than masking. If that’s the case, what I’d like to see is subsidies for businesses and public buildings to get.new systems installed, as well as new minimum air quality standards for public spaces with inspections for enforcement.
Yes, and I’ve always worn a mask when needed, but filtration and ventilation require planning and funding, mask policies allow for the individualization and moralization of health crises.
This is a good start, but even if this all was enacted I’d still mask up during COVID surges. There’s no way in hell I would trust any business to do what’s best for the general public.
If we couldn’t achieve this when everyone was scared of covid, what makes you think we’ll pull it off now? This fight is lost. We’re just going to keep getting exposed to this shit, and take cardiac damage every time.
My girlfriend brought Covid home like three times last year I didn’t get sick once I just have decent. HVAC and I get the high quality Vairo filters that put extra strain on the HVAC.
Well so there’s the question: how much more effective is good ventilation than masking? I was under the impression that it’s, like, a lot. Orders of magnitude. Like if good ventilation was equivalent to seatbelts in cars, then masking would be wearing a helmet while driving.
But perhaps someone who is better at reading scientific results could find the study and come up with a better analogy for us laymen, in case my understanding is way off base. If it’s actually that masking is more like airbags, then I think people would be a lot more amenable to doing both.
Wearing a mask is like wearing a mask. It helps prevent spit and other large particulate matter from escaping your personal space. Some work better than others, some work almost not at all.
All are, at least, somewhat helpful in containing the spread of illness.
And despite masking, COVID spread all over the globe and killed a fuckload of people.
Would more people have died if there was no masking? Yes, absolutely.
But the question of interest is: how many fewer people would have died if we made a concentrated effort to improve ventilation in public spaces?
Maybe I’m completely missing your point, or maybe you’re just being snarky/contrarian and don’t really have a point, but it sounds like you are basically saying (reusing the above analogy) “Why are we talking about adding seatbelts to cars when we already have helmets?”
Maybe I’m completely missing your point, or maybe you’re just being snarky/contrarian and don’t really have a point, but it sounds like you are basically saying (reusing the above analogy) “Why are we talking about adding seatbelts to cars when we already have helmets?”
I can promise you the latter is not the case. It’s possible I misinterpreted your post. I am 100% for layers of preventative measures.
I know actual boomers that really do think there’s a vague and undefined conspiracy that wanted to deny them access to the ever-flowing chocolate fountain at the Golden Corral.
That thing was a horrifying disease vector well before covid.
millions dead, millions more permanently disabled, and you can’t even comprehend the notion that it was all preventable. advocating for further deaths+disabilities and justifying it as fear is beyond stupid - it’s bloodthirsty membership in a death cult.
Would you kindly walk into an intensive care unit at a hospital and repeat your flaming hot take to the nursing staff and maybe some intubated people there?
The government could announce a volcano evacuation and you stupid fucks would be like “how long are you babies gonna be scared?” as you walk into the burning hot lava.
How absolutely moronic. Hey, malaria has been around since Ancient times. How long are you going to let yourself be scared of that? Go to the nearest swamp and see if you can attract some mosquitoes, bro.
How dramatic. I don’t think people are generally still scared of this. It’s been part of our lives for a few years now.
Normal people see this and go “Hmm, I’ll keep some N95s around in case there’s a notable uptick in people gettin’ sick this flu season.” Meanwhile, some people, such as yourself, seem to have a negative knee-jerk reaction to anything in the news related to COVID, and then proceed to get shit upon by the community when you bitch about it; their knee-jerk reaction is to immediately assume you’re a right-winger and call you out on it (they’ve done it to a couple other people in here). While I don’t think that’s a fair assumption off the cuff, I can see how they’d jump to that.
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