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Originally Posted by Bill14564
Looking at the effects on entire populations with no idea how masks were or were not used is scientific and evidence based?? For someone who demands unambiguous RCT trials to move him away from his desired opinion you certainly have a different standard for "evidence" in support of your opinion.
I'm still looking over the papers referenced in the report. Oddly, the one at the bottom, "the world's only randomized trial," presents data that seems to show masks work for coronavirus.
Our results indicate that surgical face masks could prevent transmission of human coronaviruses and influenza viruses from symptomatic individuals.
Now this study was looking at surgical masks and not cloth masks and the sample size was small. I can't figure out why the author of the larger paper included it as if it supported his position.
Thanks for forwarding this, it is interesting reading. |
If you are talking about my link to the CIDRAP article, feel free to read all the papers referenced. However, the two Doctors who wrote the article are very experienced in infectious respiratory diseases and here's what they say after looking at all the referenced studies.
A recent pooled analysis of two earlier trials comparing medical masks ( surgical) and N95 filtering facepiece respirators with controls (no protection) found that healthcare workers continuously wearing N95 FFRs were 54% less likely to experience respiratory viral infections than controls (P = 0.03), while
those wearing medical masks were only 12% less likely than controls (P = 0.48; result is not significantly different from zero)
A randomized trial comparing the effect of medical (surgical) and cloth masks on healthcare worker illness found that
those wearing cloth masks were 13 times more likely to experience influenza-like illness than those wearing medical masks.38
So cloth masks are completely worthless, and surgical masks statistically no different than zero compared to N95.
These data suggest that surgical masks worn by the public will have no or very low impact on disease transmission during a pandemic.
All of the cloth masks and materials had near zero efficiency at 0.3 µm, a particle size that easily penetrates into the lungs
A cloth mask or face covering does very little to prevent the emission or inhalation of small particles. As discussed in an earlier CIDRAP commentary and more recently by Morawska and Milton (2020) in an open letter to WHO signed by 239 scientists, inhalation of small infectious particles is not only biologically plausible, but the epidemiology supports it as an important mode of transmission for SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19.
PS As far as the graphs showing cases versus when mask mandates were issued is not an RCT study. But it is real world data. I doubt you can find a country or state anywhere where surges in cases were stopped by masks mandates. All you need to do is look up a case graph for any location, and then google when they mandated masks and look what happened after.
Except for N95, they just don't work. N95 masks are cheap now, advise you use one when you are indoors with other people. And they are not bulletproof.