Do cloth masks work?

Federalist is a questionable source that promotes conspiracy theories and fake news according to mediabiasfactcheck.  Low credibility rating and numerous failed fact checks.  Twitter has locked out access to website for spreading covid misinformation.

Now World health organization recommends mask wearing at indoor public areas where social distancing is hard to maintain.  Fact checks by Reuters, USAtoday and politifact debunk claims that WHO and CDC found masks to be ineffective.  Anti-maskers distort their studies supporting mask mandates. Facebook has flagged anti-mask claims as covid misinformation.

This the Fauci you talking about:

Fauci said that it's "common sense" there's a lower risk of spreading the virus outdoors and foreshadowed a potential change in Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) guidelines to that effect. He said the agency would make its recommendations, coming as a larger portion of the population gets vaccinated, after ensuring it looks "at the data and the data backs it up." 

"I don't want to get ahead of them... but I think it's pretty common sense now that outdoor risk is really, really quite low. Particularly, I mean if you are a vaccinated person wearing a mask outdoors, I mean obviously the risk is minuscule," Fauci responded.

"What ... the country is going to be hearing soon, is updated guidelines from the CDC. The CDC is a science-based organization. They don't want to make any guidelines unless they look at the data and the data backs it up," Fauci continued. 

Fauci's comments come as CDC guidance continues to tell Americans to "wear masks in public settings, at events and gatherings, and anywhere they will be around other people."

It also says masks are "NOT a substitute for social distancing. Masks should still be worn in addition to staying 6 feet apart, especially when indoor around people who don't live in our household." It does add that masks "may not be necessary when you are outside by yourself away from others, or with people who live in your household."

Recent CDC guidelines also say fully vaccinated people should continue to wear "masks, maintain physical distance, and practice other prevention measures when visiting with unvaccinated people from multiple households."

But he also encouraged people last year to still wear masks outdoors. He told the health care forum Advisory Board in July that "on the rare occasion" people come to his house they are outdoors and socially distanced, while wearing "masks, unless we are eating."

Fauci also said in an August Facebook Live chat with then-Rhode Island Gov. Gina Raimondo that masks should still be worn outside despite decreased risk.

Fauci also told Raimondo he wears a mask when in a car with others even if the windows are open.

"I keep the mask on, keep the windows open," he said. 

“So the CDC is going to look at data that says it’s OK not to wear a mask outdoors. But they never had any data that said masks were effective is stopping COVID spread outdoors in the first place. In order for a medical intervention to be prescribed it must be shown to be safe and EFFECTIVE. The CDC has failed to do that with any of their social distancing and mask wearing guidance. How did 6 feet social distancing requirements become 3ft for kids in school?  Come on folks...they’re just making this stuff up as they go. Just for fun read the FDA’s emergency use authorization for Mask use. FDA states that manufactures cannot make any claims as to the effectiveness of mask use to stop or reduce the spread of infectious disease. Why? Because there is no convincing data. Mask wearing has become a religious belief.”

“Exactly. There is no science behind wearing masks, especially cloth masks. They are collecting and quoting statistical data for political science reasons, not natural sciences. There is no biological science behind this.”

100%. Indoor transmission is the most common- especially cars and bars. Anywhere where someone has their mask off in poor ventilation. Its aerosol, it can linger in the air for up to 3 hours. Masks keep you from sneezing or coughing or speaking with droplets on someone directly. It does not prevent COVID from coming through your mask. This is ideology, not science.

This guy is all over the place:

“There’s no reason to be walking around with a mask when you’re in the middle of an outbreak,” Dr. Anthony Fauci said back in March. “Wearing a mask might make people feel a little bit better and it might even block a droplet, but it’s not providing the perfect protection that people think that it is. And often, there are unintended consequences; people keep fiddling with the mask and they keep touching their face.”

Obviously, the good doctor eventually took an about-face on that advice, attributing it, apparently, to a national shortage of fabric capable of being turned into face coverings, or something. But what part of his initial rationalewas incorrect? Did scientists not know about “droplets” in March? Apparently they did, considering Fauci addressed the issue in his statement. Did the “unintended consequences” he listed suddenly disappear as soon as mask use to “stop the spread” became a literal religious cult? Did people stop fiddling with their masks and touching their faces? Of course not. Given the amount of almost nonstop “fiddling” I see just in my own observations, it’s hard to imagine any real gain in the reduction of droplet transmission not being more than made up for by bacterial and viral surface spread.

With so many high-mask-compliance places now going into lockdown, does it not strike anyone as odd that the bold statements made by our overlords months ago - that 80+% mask compliance would end the pandemic, or at least severely curb it - are now being memory-holed? Remember when CDC Director Robert Redfield told us in July (and God knows how many other times), that mask-wearing would end this pandemic. I believe he may have even said that masks were a “vaccine,” although the memory-holing is fogging my own memory a bit. 

The “big lie” propaganda technique, a phrase coined by Adolf Hitler, purports to tell a lie so "colossal" that people simply wouldn’t believe the teller "could have the impudence to distort the truth so infamously." You’ve doubtless seen the most famous adaptation of this, which may or may not have been said by former Nazi Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels. It goes as follows:

“If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it. The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie. It thus becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of the State.”

about a “compelling new study” they claimed provided “fresh evidence for a simple solution to help us emerge from this nightmarish lockdown.” Their ‘solution’? “If 80% of Americans wore masks, COVID-19 infections would plummet.” Well, mask compliance is well, well above 80%. In fact, in the states that fine businesses for people not wearing masks in their facilities, boots on the ground tell me it’s pretty close to 100%. Yet, other than a few New England states where the virus just hasn’t hit yet, high mask compliance states aren’t really doing any better than low mask compliance ones, and are in many cases doing quite worse.

Of course, when infection rates do come down, and they will, they will come down regardless of how high or low mask “compliance” is in an area, because that’s also what viruses do when a certain seroprevalence is reached (yes, there are problems with PCR tests, but the herd immunity threshold admittedly seems higher than what many of us initially thought). Except, the masks will then be given the “credit” in the high compliance areas, while the low compliance areas that also decrease will be ignored.

Whether they mean well or they just want to turn us all into faceless sheeple capable of obeying even the most absurd and destructive commands, the truth is, it takes a lie the size of Mount Everest to continually prop nonsense like this up and to keep people believing it despite what we all see in front of our eyes. It takes a "Big Lie."

https://swprs.org/face-masks-evidence/

1. Studies on the effectiveness of face masks

So far, most studies found little to no evidence for the effectiveness of cloth face masks in the general population, neither as personal protective equipment nor as a source control.

1. A May 2020 meta-study on pandemic influenza published by the US CDC found that face masks had no effect, neither as personal protective equipment nor as a source control. (Source)
2. A Danish randomized controlled trial with 6000 participants, published in the Annals of Internal Medicine in November 2020, found no statistically significant effect of high-quality medical face masks against SARS-CoV-2 infection in a community setting. (Source)
3. A large randomized controlled trial with close to 8000 participants, published in October 2020 in PLOS One, found that face masks “did not seem to be effective against laboratory-confirmed viral respiratory infections nor against clinical respiratory infection.” (Source)
4. A February 2021 review by the European CDC found no significant evidence supporting the effectiveness of non-medical and medical face masks in the community. Furthermore, the European CDC advised against the use of FFP2/N95 masks by the general public. (Source)
5. A July 2020 review by the Oxford Centre for Evidence-Based Medicine found that there is no evidence for the effectiveness of cloth masks against virus infection or transmission. (Source)
6. A November 2020 Cochrane review found that face masks did not reduce influenza-like illness (ILI) cases, neither in the general population nor in health care workers. (Source)
7. An April 2020 review by two US professors in respiratory and infectious disease from the University of Illinois concluded that face masks have no effect in everyday life, neither as self-protection nor to protect third parties (so-called source control). (Source)
8. An article in the New England Journal of Medicine from May 2020 came to the conclusion that cloth face masks offer little to no protection in everyday life. (Source)
9. A 2015 study in the British Medical Journal BMJ Open found that cloth masks were penetrated by 97% of particles and may increase infection risk by retaining moisture or repeated use. (Source)
10. An August 2020 review by a German professor in virology, epidemiology and hygiene found that there is no evidence for the effectiveness of cloth face masks and that the improper daily use of masks by the public may in fact lead to an increase in infections. (Source)

Additional aspects

1. There isincreasing evidencethat the novel coronavirus is transmitted, at least in indoor settings, not only by droplets but also by smaller aerosols. However, due to their large pore size and poor fit, cloth masks cannot filter out aerosols (see video analysis below): over 90% of aerosols penetrate or bypassthe mask and fill a medium-sized room within minutes.
2. The WHO admitted to the BBC that its June 2020 mask policy updatewas due not to new evidence but “political lobbying”: “We had been told by various sources WHO committee reviewing the evidence had not backed masks but they recommended them due to political lobbying. This point was put to WHO who did not deny.” (D. Cohen, BBC Medical Corresponent).
3. To date, the only randomized controlled trial (RCT) on face masks against SARS-CoV-2 infection in a community setting found no statistically significant benefit (see above). However, three major journals refused to publishthis study, delaying its publication by several months.
4. An analysis by the US CDC found that 85% of peopleinfected with the new coronavirus reported wearing a mask “always” (70.6%) or “often” (14.4%). Compared to the control group of uninfected people, always wearing a mask did not reduce the risk of infection.
5. Researchers from the University of Minnesota found that the infectious dose of SARS-CoV-2 is just 300 virions (virus particles), whereas a single minute of normal speaking may generate more than 750,000 virions, making cloth face masks unlikely to prevent an infection.
6. Japan, despite its widespread use of face masks, experienced its most recent influenza epidemicwith more than 5 million people falling ill just one year ago, in January and February 2019. However, unlike SARS-CoV-2, the influenza virus is easily transmitted by children, too.

1. In the US state of Kansas, the 90 counties without mask mandates had lower coronavirus infection rates than the 15 counties with mask mandates. To hide this fact, the Kansas health department tried to manipulatethe official statistics and data presentation.
2. Contrary to common belief, studies in hospitals found thatthe wearing of a medical mask by surgeons during operations didn’t reducepost-operative bacterial wound infections in patients.
3. During the notorious 1918 influenza pandemic, the use of cloth face masks among the general population was widespread and in some places mandatory, but they made no difference.
4. Asian countries with low covid infection rates, most of them neighboring China, benefited not from face masks but mainly from early border closures. This is confirmed by Scandinavian countries Norway, Finland and Denmark, which didn’t introduce mask mandates but closed borders earlyand saw very low covid infection and death rates, too.

So, at any rate — if it makes you feel more comfortable to wear a mask, then wear one. 

Also, if they ask you to wear a mask — wear one.  No need to offend folks that have been scared.  

Just know that wearing cloth masks are not effective.  

I love it when I see people wearing masks and then pull it down every 15 seconds to better talk to people or to adjust it or to breathe better, etc.

Like you’re saying to COVID, timeout, wait a second, don’t come here and infect me right now, let me shout out instructions to my players on the court/field or take a sip of this Diet Pepsi. Okay, mask is back on. Go back to doing your thing now, Covid.

Fight Club said it best, “the illusion of safety.”

@Raiders22

Asking this question is like asking, “does wearing a condom work ?”

Apparently, anti-mask extremists are unconvincing in their arguments against masks.  Vast majority of people wear masks worldwide.  Anti-maskers distrust real experts and scientific consensus.  None are as blind as those who refuse to see the truth.

Well if the vast majority does it... 

Why are vaccinated people wearing masks? 

@I_Need_A_Detox

1) Some people who are fully vaccinated against COVID-19 may still get sick because no vaccine is 100% effective.

2) As of April 22, 2021, only one in three people in the United States over the age of 18 years are fully vaccinated.

3) There are 9 variants of the virus that causes COVID-19 circulating globally and 5 within the United States.

4) I don't think it's funny.  You laughing at 600,000 dead people in the USA and 3,200,000 dead people worldwide.

I don't think it's funny.  You laughing.

Now, if you'll apologize like I know you will...

I wonder if laughing at something that liberals don’t think is funny will be against the law in the future 

50/50 

Have to cross into NH to laugh and then come back 

  NH

Awww.  Poor toxie butt hurt because Biden crushed Trump by 7.4% in NH???

Cry us a river toxie... 

I'm your Huckelberry.

Why, toxie.  You look like somebody just walked over your grave.

Somehow those posts made sense in your little brain 

Get off the drugs son