You can increase your chances with a respirator. But finding a good quality one, certified with a proper standard (that doesn't just cover dust protection like KN95), verifying the certificate with certification company, and hoping it's still not a nice looking fake, one with some helping features that makes making the proper seal easier (like memory foam pad around the nose, or some rubber lining), best with a head band so that you can make it make seal better, is just way too hard, without spending a ton of money.

And that ton of money may not be worth it if you're young enough, and lucky.

I used 3 kinds so far, one was KN95 and just not sealing at all. Probably not much better than a typical "surgical mask", maybe even worse.

Other was marked "FFP3", but without a certification that I could find independently. Much better seal with memory foam around nose, and an ear bands that can be connected behind your had. That one at least felt useful. ;)

The last one is the most expensive so far, with an independently verifiable "FFP3" certificate, and a rubber lining for better seal with a proper headband. That one should be the best on paper. I have not used it yet.

Anyway, if you look at independent tests of random protection equipment that's sold on the market and people buy, sometimes it doesn't even meet the stated specs. That's not encouraging either.

I find navigating all this kinda tough, especially with some sellers proudly showing certificates which are obviously for something else than what they're selling, or blurring some information on the certificate, sometimes including the model information, lol.

(That is for the use case of actually protecting yourself from airborne particles in risky situations, not just "your mask, my mask" thing sibling posters write about)

The point of wearing masks is mostly to prevent you from infecting others if you're already infected. They're somewhat effective at preventing infection but that's not what they're best at - if you're wearing a mask in a room with an unmasked, contagious case, you're still in danger.

Maybe they should advertise it like that. I and most i know are wearing thinking it would reduce our risk to exposure.

I thought masks will reduce the viral load and lessens the severity of infection

I though the same. Maybe it has reduced the severity. It seems 99% of infections in Bangalore are asymptomatic. Actual number of infections might be very large.

That's been the messaging around masks from the scientific community from the beginning, and also partly why they were hesitant to recommend universal masking early in the pandemic.

It was advertised like that. The mask deniers were louder.

India really needed to keep up consistent messaging about wearing masks, promote easy to understand infographics (for folks who cannot read)

https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/prevent-getting-si...

The government, the lax attitude of the public and inconsistent messaging has lead to this situation. It is heart breaking to see so many lives lost needlessly where something as simple as wearing a mask effectively could have averted this disaster.

>If you’re already infected.

And if you’ve had it or been vaccinated?

In today's news: "An unvaccinated worker set off an outbreak at a U.S. nursing home where most residents were immunized."

An unvaccinated health care worker set off a Covid-19 outbreak at a nursing home in Kentucky where the vast majority of residents had been vaccinated, leading to dozens of infections, including 22 cases among residents and employees who were already fully vaccinated, a new study reported Wednesday.

Most of those who were infected with the coronavirus despite being vaccinated did not develop symptoms or require hospitalization, but one vaccinated individual, who was a resident of the nursing home, died, according to the study released by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/21/health/vaccine-nursing-ho...

And what has that got to do with people like me whom have had the rona and not died? It doesn’t mention that the worker had and recovered from the rona, just that they were unvaccinated. Even the WHO have started to admit to immunity through exposure.

unfortunately it is not about the individual who can get corona and can recover from it. It is about stopping the spread into the community to prevent the vulnerable individuals from catching on to the virus and breaking the transmission chain.

I am certain most of the world population can get covid and recover, but that is no justification to allow it to spread uncontained and cause so many preventable deaths.

Yes, this.

Requisition (symptoatic or asymptomatic), or simply acquiring viral particals and re-distributing them, are both possible.

It's also far easier to establish (and verify) a "masks requried" policy (visual inspecition is sufficient) than a "masks or fully-completed vaccination schedule required" one.

The ultimate goal isn't protecting individual health but public health, and here, social measures including distancing, quarantine, masks, sanitation (though perhaps less so than first thought), etc., all reduce the probability of transmission through the population at large.

We're used to thinking of individual health. Public health is related, but is not the same thing. Logics and measures that are appropriate or sensible in the case of individual health may not be for public health. (And vice versa.)

Public health is an emergent phenomenon of individual health.

People don't understand that the area under the curve will remain the same. Mask or no mask, the same percentage of people will be needed to reach herd immunity.

The only exception to this is vaccinations. They may give you immunity without being infected. (They are not without risk though.)

Not quite - the faster the rise in cases is, the more you overshoot the herd immunity threshold by.

As far as I can tell, we got lucky this time and the approved vaccines are close enough to "without risk" that you can round it off to "no risk" unless you are extremely risk-averse (if you drive 100km without thinking about your risk of dying in a car crash, you are not risk averse and probably shouldn't spend time worrying about risks from the vaccine).

Still requires that vaccines are available though, which is not a given worldwide yet.

Interesting, what kind of mask did you wear while going out for groceries?

Wearing a mask is method of reducing the risk of transmission. No one ever claimed it prevented transmission. Wearing a mask but still getting infected is not an abnormal or unexpected outcome.

The guideline is: your mask protects me, and my mask protects you. From what I read earlier, when COVID19 was new, the guideline is based on the physics of masks and airflow, and how masks reduce transmission of the virus via speaking, sneezing and coughing.

So, by the quick probably prejudiced knee-jerk downvotes for a factual statement, I can see that anti-science (or maybe even anti-minority community)? types on HN are alive and buzzing, in their cesspools. Sharing this subthread on Twitter, so more people can see the fun and filth.

Don't take it hard upon yourself, I think there's anti-mask activity here judging from the how all pro-mask or 'mask facts' comments have been down-voted(likely automated).

Perhaps @dang can verify it, But I don't want to impose as moderating HN is extraordinarily hard job as it is.

Likely. Thanks. I'm not taking it hard, though. Thoroughly enjoyed blasting that troll and donkey, the HN (mis)user called lolthishuman, though I only do it if someone else starts such petty nonsense, as anyone can see from my HN comment history. Cheers.

Update: Speaking of comment history, I just took a quick but good look at the history of user lolthishuman, the user who tried to troll me above, to analyze why anyone would do such dumb cheap shit.

As expected from someone with such silly comments (to me) and such a giveaway (to their mentality) losername, many of their previous comments on other threads were downvoted, and some heavily. That is very telling ... The most charitable assessment is that they probably don't have a good or maybe even any semblance of a life, outside of forums where they troll, anonymously, and weakly, at that.

>a belief you don’t actually understand

Also, get your logic and wording straight, before you fart in public.

One does not understand or not understand a belief.

One believes a belief.

One understands facts.

Ta ta, bye bye, for ever.

Fool or troll or prejudiced frigtard that you undoubtedly are, where, above, have I said that I don't understand it? If I haven't said it, it is your wrong understanding or claim (unless there is good evidence), which is why I 'decorated' you with those above adjectives :), just as you implied wrong shit about me. Dry up and blow away, weakling. Don't pollute this space for your pathetic ego-boosting kicks.

Update: Also, as I've said many times on Twitter (as @vasudevram), "Bullies are always cowards". You are using a throwaway HN id, I see, ha ha, to escape the result of your trolling or hate-spewing actions.

You broke the site guidelines so badly in this thread that I've banned the account. You can't do that here, regardless of how wrong someone else is or you feel they are or how badly they behave.

If you don't want to be banned, you're welcome to email [email protected] and give us reason to believe that you'll follow the rules in the future. They're here: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html.

You sound just like a religious zealot.

Har de har har.

Pot calling the kettle black, you jingoistic freak.

I notice you did not address even a single one of the points in my comment that you replied to just above. Typical age-old cowardly attention-diverting rabble-rousing tactic, well-known to all.

Spout more bile to your heart's content. I will not dignify your trollery / tomfoolery with a reply. I'm done with this thread.

Nonsense has no right to a reply. Trying to shed some light is only right. May you be well.

Sorry you have so much negativity. I’ll be your friend.

We've banned this account for repeatedly breaking the site guidelines. Please stop creating accounts to do that with. It's vandalism if not arson, and will get your main account banned as well.

Me? What? What’s arson? Why am I flagged? I have no idea what you’re talking about. Why are you lumping me with this troll?

By "arson" I mean setting threads on fire, which is an apt metaphor - the same metaphor, of course, as in the word "flamewar". Comments like these are not acceptable here:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26892708

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26897350

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26912876

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26924151

Would you mind reviewing https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and taking the intended spirit of the site more to heart? Please remember that the rules don't stop applying when someone else behaves badly. Although I haven't asked the other user about it, I'm certain they would see you as "this troll" and themselves as the one who ought not to be "lumped in". It always feels like the other person started it and did worse. That's obviously a recipe for a downward spiral. The only solution is to do better, even when provoked.