Virus's And Face Coverings

[nailit]

If face coverings are effective at preventing the spread of virus's such as Covid, then should we now expect to see a fall, this winter, of influenza cases?
If not why not?

[DTCwordfan]

because no one knew how to contest it practically, PP - the advancement of medical science and treatment has been pretty dramatic since then..... It does make me wonder if the Black Death and the Great Plague were related in some way to this Carnivorous illness, oops sorry Coronavirus.

[fiction-factory]

I think that if flu deaths do fall it'll be much more to do with social distancing and extra handwashing (and because a lot of vulnerable people died earlier from covid before the next winter flu could get them) rather than because of face masks. Social distancing has always been the main defence' face coverings just add a small extra level of protection (more to others than to the wearer although i'm not sure why doctors wear them in that case)

[sunny-dave]

PP at 22:00

'oh because masks dont work
we have known that for at least 50 y
and I have been posting that for what seems like 50 y "

For once it is easy to understand PP's post - shame that is just unutterable balderdash.

Masks don't stop you inhaling virus particles (true), but they very much do reduce you exhaling aerosol droplets which can/will infect other people if you already have the virus.

Masks save lives - there is so much proof out there that it's a trivial matter to find it - they may not protect the wearer from an unlucky inhalation - but they do protect others from you if you are a carrier.

https://files.fast.ai/papers/masks_lit_review.pdf

[gness]

As I've said on here before, FF.... were I sitting on a bus with a man who sneezed suddenly I'd be relieved to see he was wearing a mask....even though he was complaining about what was kept inside his mask instead of floating about the bus.

[sunny-dave]

... and to answer the original question ...

If (and it's a worryingly big 'if') there is high compliance with mask wearing and social distancing laws, I very much expect there to be a significant fall in 'normal' influenza cases.

[ anecdotally, a lot of people in my 'virtual' world are already commenting that they've had less of the routine coughs/colds and sundry other person-to-person infections over the last 6 months ]

[Old_Geezer]

Face coverings are supposed to be protecting others, not you. An alternative and better way of protecting others is to stop coughing and sneezing on them instead.

Is a flu epidemic forecast for this winter ? We need a good winter epidemic to be able to reach an accurate conclusion.

[sunny-dave]

A very helpful article - with lots of good links explaining the science behind mask-wearing and the numbers that make it essential :

https://www.ucsf.edu/news/2020/06/417906/still-confused-about-masks-heres-science-behind-how-face-masks-prevent

Just one snippet :

"Two compelling case reports also suggest that masks can prevent transmission in high-risk scenarios, said Chin-Hong and Rutherford. In one case, a man flew from China to Toronto and subsequently tested positive for COVID-19. He had a dry cough and wore a mask on the flight, and all 25 people closest to him on the flight tested negative for COVID-19. In another case, in late May, two hair stylists in Missouri had close contact with 140 clients while sick with COVID-19. Everyone wore a mask and none of the clients tested positive."

[gness]

Not coughing and sneezing on others or coughing and sneezing into hands which were then washed would be great, OG. But following MrG's transplant I became very aware of how careless folk are about this.

[Old_Geezer]

They're careless with masks too.

[gness]

Some are, OG. I see the odd person in the big town with a below the nose mask and want to pull it up as I want to pull up the trousers of young chaps who have most of their underpants showing and their trouser crotch half way to their knees.

[Dagman]

Fo those who missed this article...
https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&;source=web&rct=j&url=https://www.straitstimes.com/asia/east-asia/covid-19-outbreak-in-south-korea-starbucks-cafe-spared-employees-who-wore-masks&ved=2ahUKEwi1uYOy_cXrAhXuUBUIHdxlB9cQFjACegQIAhAB&usg=AOvVaw3AaULp_QMhrMN_CvfDUrrh
Masks work, why do people seem to want the idea to fail? What is the hardship of using them?

[eve1974]

In South Africa (where most of my family live) They have seen a drop in common colds and flu (they are coming out of winter now) and its thought to be due to masks. Incidentally tho they had one of THE strictest lockdowns in the world

[jim360]

// Never been told to cover up for much worse pandemics. //

It's important to be clear that (a) this isn't true, and (b) even if it were true, then it would be a terrible precedent.

In 1918, as a matter of fact, many countries went through almost the exact same cycle that we're going through now, including attempts to control the disease via various social-distancing and face-covering measures -- which, of course, were inevitably resisted; such resistance and pushback against the healthcare measures is almost certain to have contributed to the much-deadlier second wave of the 1918 flu.

There is by no means a guarantee that Covid-19 will follow the same cycle, but it is, at least, completely false to pretend that this is the first time we've responded to a pandemic by taking action. Even in the medically illiterate days of Black Death, Cholera, etc., people were at least *trying* to do something about it, even if their efforts mostly failed.

[fiction-factory]

Great answers jim.
I remember from school that some-mainly doctors- wore beak like masks in the time of the black death plague.

[jim360]

Nor do we need to go back to 1918, either. HIV is probably the worst pandemic of recent times. It is also a textbook example of how bad diseases get when authorities either ignore the danger, understate it, or blame the individuals concerned, and of how much more under control things got once they finally realised that it was worth trying to fight it. Covering up there turns out to work well too. As a result, a disease that was threatening to spread out of control, accounting for a couple of million deaths annually, has been at least turned around.

It is also worth pointing out that, technically speaking, AIDS itself doesn't kill, and so people only really die *with* AIDS rather than because *of* it. Then again, nobody takes that argument seriously with AIDS, because it is of course nonsense -- which makes you wonder why they advance it for any other disease...

[nailit]

Rereading this thread, Im happy to admit that I may be wrong (and hopefully I am). Im also happy to apologise for been a bit OTT in some of my replies, its a fault of mine, I admit.
But I just dont get how some Asian countries...with a history of wearing face masks due to pollution...manage to get high levels of Covid, Flu etc if masks were effective?
Hopefully when Flu season kicks in, and stats are available, there might be some evidence that they are. In the meantime I will continue to wear a face covering when requested, although Im not convinced of there efficacy.

[jno]

ff, I'm pretty sure the beaky masks (they had incense and stuff in them) were a 16th century thing, used in the Great Plague of London (and anywhere else) but not in the middle ages.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plague_doctor_costume

[fiction-factory]

Thanks, you are right, jno. I realised afterwards it was the 17th century Great Plague where we have records of their use. But still, it's a long time ago and shows masks and disease mitigation measures are certainly not new

[jno]

nailit, the Chinese were caught on the hop by Covid, as it broke out there, but other Asian countries are doing fine.

Deaths per million: UK 612, Japan 11, South Korea 7, Taiwan 0.3. Even China's figure is only 3, though I don't know how reliable that is.

I wouldn't swear it's all down to masks, but wearing them sure hasn't hurt anyone.

[jim360]

It's always going to be difficult to decide what works and what doesn't out of the various indirect interventions. Life is just too complicated to attribute such changes to a single factor. South Korea, for example, was probably "lucky" in a sense to have recently suffered an outbreak of MERS, which is at least somewhat related to Covid (it's also a Coronavirus), and, as a result, had learned lessons from that outbreak that it was able to apply to this one.