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Originally Posted by dilbert firestorm
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New Study my ass. It's a bunch of bozos on some web site called Rational Ground coming up with garbage. The evidence that masks save lives is overwhelming. Here's some info from a 20 minute look on the web,
https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumeswr/mm6947e2.htm
They say, The governor of Kansas issued an executive order requiring wearing masks in public spaces, effective July 3, 2020, which was subject to county authority to opt out. After July 3, COVID-19 incidence decreased in 24 counties with mask mandates but continued to increase in 81 counties without mask mandates.
So what happened over the next 84 days? New cases in counties with a mask mandate decreased by 6%. In the counties without a mask mandate, new cases increased by 100%. That translates into twice as many deaths in counties without the mask mandate. And most likely higher medical expenses, more lost jobs, and a poorer economy in the counties without the mandates.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/scienc...40673620311429
Their findings showed a reduction in risk of 82% of getting infected by maintaining a physical distance of one meter in health-care and community settings. Every additional one meter of separation more than doubled the relative protection, up to three meters.
Masks and respirators reduced the risk of infection by 85% with greater effectiveness in health care settings than the community, which they attribute to the predominant use of N95 masks in health care settings. N95 respirators were 96% effective; other masks were 67% effective.
Tiny's note: N95 masks without valves for industrial use are now available and inexpensive. Everyone should buy some.
Eye protection resulted in a 78% reduction in infection in health care settings.
https://www.pnas.org/content/117/51/32293
We employ public regional data about reported severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 infections for Germany. As face masks became mandatory at different points in time across German regions, we can compare the rise in infections in regions with masks and regions without masks. Weighing various estimates, we conclude that 20 d after becoming mandatory face masks have reduced the number of new infections by around 45%. As economic costs are close to zero compared to other public health measures, masks seem to be a cost-effective means to combat COVID-19.
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-02801-8
The science supports using masks, with recent studies suggesting that they could save lives in different ways: research shows that they cut down the chances of both transmitting and catching the coronavirus, and some studies hint that masks might reduce the severity of infection if people do contract the disease.
Confidence in masks grew in June with news about two hair stylists in Missouri who tested positive for COVID-19. Both wore a double-layered cotton face covering or surgical mask while working. And although they passed on the infection to members of their households, their clients seem to have been spared (more than half reportedly declined free tests). Other hints of effectiveness emerged from mass gatherings. At Black Lives Matter protests in US cities, most attendees wore masks. The events did not seem to trigger spikes in infections2, yet the virus ran rampant in late June at a Georgia summer camp, where children who attended were not required to wear face coverings
More-rigorous analyses added direct evidence.
A preprint study posted in early August (and not yet peer reviewed), found that weekly increases in per-capita mortality were four times lower in places where masks were the norm or recommended by the government, compared with other regions. Researchers looked at 200 countries, including Mongolia, which adopted mask use in January and, as of May, had recorded no deaths related to COVID-19. Another study5 looked at the effects of US state-government mandates for mask use in April and May. Researchers estimated that those reduced the growth of COVID-19 cases by up to 2 percentage points per day. They cautiously suggest that mandates might have averted as many as 450,000 cases, after controlling for other mitigation measures, such as physical distancing.
“You don’t have to do much math to say this is obviously a good idea,” says Jeremy Howard, a research scientist at the University of San Francisco in California, who is part of a team that reviewed the evidence for wearing face masks in a preprint article that has been widely circulated
https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1....22.20109231v5
In a multivariable analysis of 196 countries, the duration of infection in the country, and the proportion of the population 60 years of age or older were positively associated with per-capita mortality, while duration of mask-wearing by the public was negatively associated with mortality (all p<0.001).
https://www.goldmansachs.com/insight...s-and-gdp.html
States that currently don’t have a state-level mandate account for 40% of US total confirmed cases, 45% of US GDP, half of the population, and two-thirds of new infections. This group has also experienced an average daily growth rate in confirmed infections of 2.9% in the past 7 days. Based on our analysis of state-level mandates, we estimate that a national mask mandate would raise mask usage by 25pp in these states. Our country panel shows that a 25pp increase in self-reported mask usage lowers the infection growth rate by 1.9pp (or just over 60%). The national mandate could therefore lower the daily growth rate in the group of states without a mandate from 2.9% to just over 1%.
Thus, the upshot of our analysis is that a national face mask mandate could potentially substitute for renewed lockdowns that would otherwise subtract nearly 5% from GDP.
Tiny’s Note: 5% of GDP is $1 trillion fucking dollars.
