Masks are ineffective in preventing transmission of Covid.
Yet nearly every Health Care Professional and “Expert” told us we had to mask in order to prevent the spread.
So either they were parroting what they had been told or they were lying. Either way, their credibility is (again) eroded. At this point why should we believe anything they tell us?
I usually tell the Covidiots, that if real studies proved that masking worked, it would be tattooed on everyone’s forehead and on every billboard in America.
Of course masks “work”. (If, by “work”, we mean “drastically decrease the likelihood of disease transmission outward from the infected”.)
It’s been demonstrated since the time of Pasteur, Lister, and Semmelweis.
If they didn’t, operative infections would kill everyone, exactly like they don’t.
QED
For the hard-headed, there’s been a simple study that showed wearing a simple surgical mask decreases outward transmission of viral COVID particles by between 99% and 99.9%.
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41591-020-0843-2
Idiots discounted it because it doesn’t scratch their prejudicial itch, but it’s also the only actual test of commonly worn masks as designed to be used since this all started. (All the other idiots were testing them to see how well they prevented the wearer from getting sick, for which they were never intended – which is about as bright as testing seatbelts and parachutes to see how well they prevent plane crashes.)
But people in general are idiots. That’s the flaw in the masking plans.
Always was, always will be.
And we noted that from the outset:
https://raconteurreport.blogspot.com/2020/04/why-masks-and-gloves-will-and-wont-ever.html
Everyone’s not as smart as surgeons in an OR.
Expecting everyone to perform at that level was ludicrous, and the fail not only was predictable, it was predicted.
And we all watched people screw that pooch right in front of us, daily, non-stop, for years, just to drive the point home.
This is why, as always, if you like your pandemic, you can keep your pandemic.
Whether it’s flu, COVID, Ebola, or anything else.
There’s a non-zero number of idiots in every population. They will always out-idiot any solution that depends on common sense, and have always done so.
Masking didn’t stop it.
Quarantine cannot be indefinite.
The only thing that saved us was basic biology: the virus, entirely apart from faux not-a-Vaxx attempts and happygas PR from the CDC @$$clowns, mutated all on its own to less lethal and less virulent forms.
And now, the virus that was killing at just a tad under a 3% rate at the outset is now down to a mortality somewhere between the annual rate of deaths from rabid hamsters, and the odds of getting killed by a lightning strike while juggling rattlesnakes during a shark attack.
Which is why even the CDC idiots have waved the white flag. Having burnt their last shreds of credibility with flamethrowers, they have nothing left now but to try telling the unvarnished truth (if only for the novelty of that approach): COVID is history. Stick a fork in it.
The only way to make it more final would be for Fauci to come out in a gray and red bathrobe and announce “You’re still here? It’s over. Go home. Go .”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T1XgFsitnQw
I never said masks don’t work. They do, although likely not the 99 percent you cite, (unless changed VERY often). Outward droplets are reduced for a few tens of minutes (and after that it declines rapidly). and that number assumes no hard breathing to blow past the sides
But in the real world, not the lab or a hospital, masks don’t work.
And yes, few of us wore them properly (black people almost NEVER) and when one adds in the rest of the issues, like handwashing and such that few did, the overall masking scheme was a complete failure.
I’m not saying you said that.
As for time of effectiveness, I’m unaware of anyone else that actually studied masks as designed to document that point.
Surgeons routinely operate for 6 hours.
Whether and how much or how fast ordinary mask performance deteriorates would be a splendid subject for actual scientific testing.
As for “hard breathing”, the mask test was conducted with coughs and sneezes, at a 6′ range, IIRC. That’s far more vigorous than “hard breathing”.
The hospital is the real world.
But Average Joe isn’t as bright as Surgeon Joe or Nurse Joe or even Tech Joe, as we’ve all seen times beyond counting at the mall or supermarket.
The masks aren’t the weak point in the experiment. The idiots wearing them are, always, and they always reveal why nothing is foolproof: because fools are so ingenious.
Mask fail about as often as seatbelts, which is why most auto accident summaries list the cause of the crash as “loose nut behind the wheel”.
Giving people the option to get out of quarantines, which could not be maintained indefinitely, was the right idea.
But expecting perfect efficacy from the entire bell curve of intelligence was asinine from the start.
As I told folks from the outset, and just as with Ebola, the Gilligans in every population are always the ones driving the boat, but everyone along for the ride suffers for that.
There’s also a “Moving the Gola Posts” penalty flag for those who now complain “Masks don’t work”.
The point was to slow the spread” to prevent overwhelming resources, not “prevent any spread whatsoever”.
95% of the whinging, pissing, and moaning from various outlets deliberately forgets the former, then complains that the latter was never achieved, when in reality it was never contemplated nor expected.
Nobody’s studied that, because a valid survey couldn’t screen for 200 variables, so they throw the baby out with the bath water, and throw masks under the bus.
Were masks going to stop all spread? Never.
Was wearing a mask and going to the market or the office better than starving at home or going broke, which was the sum of options on the table at the time? Hell, yes!
If anyone’s got a better plan than that, that’s also better than “F*** everyone, and devil take the hindmost!”, I’d like to hear it. Because we’re going to see this kind of thing again, and the next outbreak of contagion may not be a plague with a paltry 3% mortality rate.
And just like with the tiny Ebola outbreak in the US in 2014, we were totally unprepared to cope with it, in any way or form, to any appreciable degree, and remained so for months and months.
We’re going to see this material again, and the grading will be steep.
“If they didn’t, operative infections would kill everyone, exactly like they don’t.”
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/1853618/
So, Matt, you can Google PubMed.
Now, please tell us how many first world hospitals have subsequently dropped the use of face masks in surgery in response to that one 30-year-old study, or even all of them. (I doubt you’d need both thumbs to count them.)
Then tell us how that study controlled for any 50 other variables to make masking (or not) the sole criteria of analysis. [That’s a subtle hint that it didn’t do any such thing, which is why the conclusion was and is risible, then, now, and any time in between.]
The science behind aseptic technique – including masking – was documented 100-plus years ago, at a time when antibiotic therapy was unknown. Trying to conduct a study of post-op infections at a time where we now blast all operative patients with a veritable gatling-gun therapy of prophylactic broad-spectrum antibiotics makes any study of mask efficacy alone flawed from the outset without also withholding all antibiotic therapy, which would be akin to the experimental ethics of Dr. Mengele.
You thought you’d found a study that showed masks don’t matter, but you’ve actually found a study where the authors weren’t bright enough to realize that multiple other things can overcome not masking, and the study’s sponsors weren’t bright enough to realize they hired functional idiots to attempt science.
That’s before we get into the deep weeds of that flawed piece of codswallop, to note that studies of post-op infections, especially from 30 years ago, would have been looking for and tracking solely bacteriological post-op infections, not viral ones, and would have totally missed any uptick in URIs, colds, influenza, etc., not least of which because there were no rapid tests for any of those things, which exact viral infections, BTW, are exactly the point at issue here.
(While you’re up, review the recommendations for CPR from 1991, when they did that study, and compare them with current CPR guidelines, specifically regarding bystander-acquired URIs, pneumonia, and other assorted nasties noted after trying mouth-to-mouth, and even masked CPR, and note that currently, CPR is considered fine if you do no respirations at all. Then ask yourself why they didn’t know all that in 1991, and why they’d change the recommendations if it didn’t make any difference.)
Then look up the number of articles where study results, including in the one you listed, cannot be reproduced independently, and what the current rate of unverifiable “scientific” studies is. [Pro tip: Google “reproducibility crisis”, and start at 85% at the low end. IOW, 85% of anything alleged is BS.]
When I can spot that many flaws just off the top of my head in two minutes, the turd in that punchbowl is an elephantine cannonball.
So thanks for playing, but you’ve just tried to win a poker hand with a two-card straight amidst a four-suit flush, which I gather was not your intention.