Like taking shoes off in the house and making high school a college-admissions death march, maybe this widespread East Asian custom will spread in the West as well.

That said, It isn't just people wearing mask, or something innately Japanese. At the beginning of last year they had a serious flu outbeak[1]. This years flu cases saw a major reduction when measures to combat COVID-19 came into effect[2].

I have noticed a lot of little things that have come into effect as a response to covid-19.

* Medical clinics put signs up saying don't come in if you have flu like symptoms, phone and keep yourself isolated. That allows them to keep the vast majority of people with mild colds and flu separated from those with possible COVID-9.

* Stopping schools reduced the numbers of people on public transport.

* Putting pressure on companies to allow people to work from home.

* The supermarket bakery started wrapping all bread and pastries before putting them out, previously you would place what you wanted in a tray and they would wrap it.

1. https://www.nippon.com/en/japan-data/h00386/japan-gripped-by... 2. https://twitter.com/adtimmering/status/1240900101687480320?s...

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5153448/ “The overall effectiveness of vaccination and mask wearing was 9.9% and 8.6%, respectively.”

There aren’t nearly enough masks to go around for the general population so it would be reckless to recommend people in the USA wear (commercial quality) them right now due to the need for all available supplies to go to healthcare workers.

> Hand washing (1.447, 1.274–1.644) and gargling (1.319, 1.183–1.471), however, were not associated with protection. In the natural setting, hand washing and gargling showed a negative association, which may have been due to inappropriate infection control measures or aggregating infected and non-infected children to conduct those measures.

So hand washing isn't effective and masks are? That's the opposite of what we're being told for a different disease. Are you going to say we shouldn't wash our hands?

But I don't think that negates the whole paper. It could be that the methodology used for the hand washing data is more flawed than the mask portion.

They do a lot to prevent you from infecting other people.

Surgical masks protect you from inhaling larger particles to some extend, but there’s large holes in it’s coverage, so you still basically get a bunch of contaminated air in, especially when spending time in a saturated room. What they do do however is prevent you from spraying droplets all over everyone near when you sneeze/cough/exhale, and that’s their main benefit. Protecting others from the bacteria and viruses in those droplets.

I think a study was done that indicated they make you about 30% less likely to get sick.

More highly rated masks (generally called respirators), will completely seal your mouth and nose (at least to a much greater extend than a surgical mask) and prevent bad stuff from coming in much better. Generally this is indicated in the form of a rating N95, N99, N100 (actually 99.97). And indicates what percentage of bad stuff the mask is likely to keep out. They’re less useful for protecting others, since there’s still some exhalation valve to get rid of excess air (still mostly same usefulness as surgical mask though).

Medical professionals generally want the N95 masks, but they’ll happily settle for just a surgical mask if that’s the only thing available.

Simply putting on a mask does very little to keep you from getting sick, because you’re very unlikely to be following proper PPE donning/doffing procedures. Unless you your house set up as a “clean zone” with two rooms between it and the outside world - one for removing PPE, and one for putting PPE on - then it’s really not helping much for reducing your exposure.

It makes sense to me.

In one of the articles linked in this thread there is a study showing mask usage in children is nearly as effective as intervention against flu as vaccines are. I only read the summary of that paper but I don't think the children are working with clean zones or following doffing procedures carefully.

The article does mention that the effectiveness of masks was greater along older children. To me, that connects with what I wrote earlier. The better you are about using your mask, and here I expect mask diligence comes with age, the better a result you will have, but something is still better than nothing.

For those that don't know, this is sarcasm. Most ICUs don't have any sort of sealed off clean zone.

Right - most ICUs aren’t set up to handle infectious diseases.

Here’s the CDC recommendation on doffing procedure. Note the repeated mention of the “doffing area”: https://www.cdc.gov/vhf/ebola/hcp/ppe-training/n95Respirator...

Proper use of PPE very much decreases your chances of infection.

That maybe true but that doesn't change the fact they help you from catching it as well.

It simply doesn't make any sense going one way is 100% and the other is 0%

And what we want is to chip away at the R0 in as many ways as possible.

And that's skipping the fact people thinking they are protecting themselves are also protecting others.

It's not 100% vs 0%. It's probably something like 70% vs 5% (Disclaimer: I'm pulling numbers out of my ass).

When someone who is sick wears a mask, they dramatically cut down on how much virus is PROPELLED OUT OF THEIR MOUTH. That's the big win. It still likely comes out their nose or is on their hands. But at least it isn't propelled with a cough or sneeze so if you wipe surfaces and avoid contact, you're probably okay. That mask protects dozens of people.

When a healthy person wears a mask, he protects only himself and the only thing he is "protecting" against is airborne droplets into his mouth. Most masks don't cover the nose and eyes which are the primary transmission routes for droplets. Most people don't breathe with their mouth open. You're probably safer simply wearing glasses, especially safety glasses. A lot of famous singers wear glasses/sunglasses all the time for exactly this reason.

A mask shortage will exacerbate these scenarios. One healthy person taking a mask away from one sick person is a TERRIBLE tradeoff.

Factually, perhaps you never have seen a mask such as we are discussing here. They do cover the nose. Perhaps not perfectly, but to a very large extent.

https://www.news-journalonline.com/business/20200320/coronav...

When you sell to the public to protect themselves they can fund a lot more than a hospital and maintain it for long periods of use.

Other than just letting people all die off and getting herd immunity any possible solution will involve everyone wearing masks.

We have a year more of this, there is still time to change direction.

I was basically treated like a country bumpkin in a work channel (Amazon) for suggesting if you are going outside (Seattle) you should wear a mask.

Isn't that an obvious oxymoron?

- context i.e. clinical setting vs on the street

- type of mask

- skill set of those using the equipment

For example, knives are very effective in surgery when they are:

- in a surgical theatre

- a scapel

- used by a surgeon

I don't suggest doing surgery in the street with a knife from your kitchen draw used by a teenager.

When they get wet and uncomfortable, you adjust the mask, and now you are transmitting the virus to the surfaces you touch.

Washing your hands and avoiding contact with crowds are the main ways to avoid getting sick. Everything else may help, like using your ring finger knuckle to press elevator buttons or wearing gloves that you change frequently or a mask. But they will only help marginally.

Depends on the part of the US. Huggers actually exist.

Where are you from? I see the opposite in Tokyo.

> most people I know are arranging or participating in flower viewing parties despite the government's requests not to.

Doesn't sound like the majority to me either.