Face mask effectiveness: What science knows now
In an interview for 60 Minutes, CBS News chief medical correspondent Dr. Jon LaPook posed that question to Linsey Marr, a Virginia Tech University professor specializing in aerosol science.
"They are very helpful in reducing the chances that the person will get COVID because it's reducing the amount of virus that you would inhale from the air around you," Marr said about masks.
No mask is 100% effective. An N95, for example, is named as such because it is at least 95 percent efficient at blocking airborne particles when used properly. But even if a mask has an 80% efficiency, Marr said, it still offers meaningful protection.
"That greatly reduces the chance that I'm going to become infected," Marr said.
Marr said research shows that high-quality masks can block particles that are the same size as those carrying the coronavirus. Masks work, Marr explained, as a filter, not as a sieve. Virus particles must weave around the layers of fibers, and as they do so, they may crash into those fibers and become trapped.
Marr likened it to running through a forest of trees. Walk slowly, and the surrounding is easy to navigate. But being forced through a forest at a high speed increases the likelihood of running into a tree.
"Masks, even cloth masks, do something," she said.
Not that I expect most people to believe it at this point...
Lockdown has made me realise that people don't crave freedom, they instead crave a lack of responsibility to a sociopathic level. They are unwilling to consider a greater good nor anything else beyond the immediate effect on themselves.
Lockdowns were the single biggest attack on freedom we've seen in our lifetime. We can never let them happen again
So what should we do next time there is another global pandemic? What's the alternative?
Lockdowns are not an option and never were.
Lockdowns were economic warfare against the poor and working class, there was no greater good, only disaster.
The lock downs were always going to be a failure. Stay-at-home measures should have been last resort due to harmful effects (the economic harms, the educational harms, the harms to access to healthcare, the harms to societal wellbeing … just the way we all function … and especially mental health).
We destroyed and entire generation with lockdowns. Gen Z will never recover from that.
Lol. Meanwhile, in places with functional, proper lockdowns, you know what happened? No-one died of covid. (Well, 7 out of 2 million).
And then you know what they did? Because there was no covid anywhere around, there were (almost) no restrictions. And no-one died of covid for all of 2021 (actually zero).
People could walk around, free of worry, fear and disease. Because the lockdowns worked, and worked well - when they were actually done.
Now, half-assing things... That was basically the worst of both worlds. And if there is one thing the USA excels at, it's half-assing things.
Just going to ignore the suicides, massive decline in income, education, and society. But yes, no covid.
[Citation needed]
https://www.nimh.nih.gov/news/science-news/2023/youth-suicide-rates-increased-during-the-covid-19-pandemic
That says the rates were higher than expected during pandemic, it does not say lockdowns were a cause.
It was the cause.
Your citation does not support that statement.
Lucky for me you're not my PhD mentor and this isn't graded. You don't have to accept that isolation lead to a huge up tick in suicides, but you can't provide a argument that it didn't.
Claims to be working on a PhD but can't cite sources to support their argument and wants others to prove a negative.
You've provided nothing to this conversation. Now your attempting to throw insults because you've failed to back up your claims. I'll take the win here. Good day.
The whole pandemic situation lead to increased stress and you want to blame it all on ineffective lockdowns. You have been a detriment to discussion.
Have fun with the participation trophy that you didn't earn.
What I love is how you're focused on suicides from poorly managed areas, and ignoring deaths from covid.
Not saying suicide isn't tragic, but drowning in your own lung juice is also tragic, and with a reduction of deaths by several thousand times compared to places to none or poorly handled lockdowns, it seems saving lives and restoring the economy quickly worked really, really well for them.
But let's focus on how "bad management leads to bad results", and then question why you're a whiny child who has a temper tantrum when being told what to do.
Where does it say that?
Nope, you don't understand what I wrote. Read it again, this time with all the words.
I'll clarify it for you.
Effective lockdowns led to safe no-lockdowns.
Big boost in economy as everyone else was fckd, but they were able to return to normal.
What you're complaining about were ineffective lockdowns. Half-assing it. Lockdowns are - and proven were - very, very effective in all respects.
What you're talking about isn't "lockdowns bad", but "if we do things poorly we get poor results".
Obviously you're not a tertiary education student, or you'd be aware of that concept.
There were zero safe lockdowns. ZERO
Except for all the ones that were.
But you want to be a reality denier, and live in your imaginary fantasy world, I can't help you.
What's worse is how little you value human life. A secondary issue to the main topic of you ignoring reality and actual recent history of places that aren't where you live.
Wide spread lockdowns were an anti-science position that politicians went with to appear to be acting.
Lol. "Anti-science"
The science is super simple.
Virus is transmitted person to person.
If person is not near other person, virus doesn't get transmitted.
What about that is "anti-science"?
Or, is your complaint actually "my local government leaders did things badly but because I worship team red, I have to blame evil science"?
The science for responding to something like covid wasn't complete lockdown. It was isolating those at risk, quarantine the infected, do contact tracing, and limit large crowds of people.
Think Mcfly, think.
How do you quarantine the infected if you can't identify the infected until they show symptoms?
You can't science good.
It was the worst public safety decision I have witnessed in the United States. It made a bad situation worse.
The issue is not with lock downs, the issue is a piss poor government handling of the situation. Leaving everything "open" for business would have quite literally collapsed sectors of services to the point of potentially snow balling into something worse.
Everything should have remained open within countries, international borders should have closed for six months. International ports could operate with certain restrictions to prevent cross contamination.
Hospitals were on the verge of collapse WITH lock downs. Can you imagine how bad it would have been if everything remained open? How many people died because of covid WITH lock downs active? Hospitals fail because they are overwhelmed, and it spit balls from there. I believe your suggestion would have been catastrophic at the least.
Hospitals would have been regardless. Lockdowns didn't decrease spread because churches were the number one location for spread and they were exempt.
Lockdowns absolutely decreased spread. https://www.gavi.org/vaccineswork/did-covid-lockdowns-work-heres-what-we-know-two-years
We are of course basing this on what we know. Had we done no lock downs, no masking. We can only guess at what would have happened.
Unfortunately religion prevented any lockdown from being a success.
https://theconversation.com/faith-in-numbers-is-church-attendance-linked-to-higher-rates-of-coronavirus-160527
That just says church causes higher chance of spread, not that lock downs don't work.
Fortunately, there were places where lockdowns were a fantastic success.
2020: 7 deaths out of 2.6 million
2021: 0 deaths out of 2.6 million, AND basically completely open
Not the USA, of course.
Because it was badly done in the USA. Half-assed.
Do it properly, and it worked well.