gottago wrote: Sat 04 Dec, 2021 12.58
cwathen wrote: Sat 04 Dec, 2021 10.36
cdd wrote: Fri 03 Dec, 2021 23.50
Oh goody. I’d missed this cheerful thread.
I was strongly against reimposing mandatory masks because, aside from it being demonstrably obvious that they don't do anything
Eh? That's not true at all. Where did you get that one from?
Lets start with something I imagine we do agree on - the impact of vaccination. The science and evidence behind the vaccines is visible in the results - hospitalisations and deaths are down against case rates which previously would have caused a much bigger problem. Without even viewing the science, you can see the vaccines work. That's why the anti-vax brigade need to rely on Uncle Jim's Reddit account to cite 'evidence' of their cause.
But when it comes to masks, mandatory wearing was first introduced in July 2020 and we were told this would deal with what, at the time, was a small uptick in cases. I thought it was worth a try, but it can't really be claimed that it worked can it? Cases surged anyway. It might be argued that without masks it would have been even worse, but there is no modelling I've seen to show that. But that argument too became academic when mask rules were dropped in July this year, and as you yourself note voluntary compliance dropped and dropped and was at pretty low levels even well into November. Yet the situation did not deteriorate without them and case rates have been bouncing around the same number for months. So can you explain based on the observable results what has been achieved by wearing masks and what has been lost without it? From the ground, it looks like they do nothing either way.
I haven't come presenting bollocks from Reddit showing masks not being effective, I've simply asked for the evidence those in favour of masks are relying on. It all seems to be nothing other than generic studies showing that face coverings have a utility (which is not in dispute), but I have not seen any peer-reviewed study showing how transmission is being prevented specifically of Covid, and specifically with the type of masks that are common (paper surgical masks and shop bought fabric masks made to no known technical standards seem to account for 99% of masks in use), and also the way in which they are being used (disposables being used multiple times, being handled, not fitted correctly etc etc). In this very thread I was once presented with no less than 8 pieces of 'evidence', some of them were interesting reads but none of them were that. Significantly, several of them found that face visors which are considered perfectly acceptable face coverings do pretty much diddly squat in terms of stopping cough particles in a lab test.
Possibly if we were all donning FFP3 masks (and using them properly) and no situations where the masks could be taken off when mixing were permitted (which I think is widely agreed isn't practical) there may be an impact on transmission, but we're not doing that and have never been asked to do that.
The argument that at worst they do nothing doesn't really hold when they are being mandated. I've no problem with anyone personally choosing to wear one either because they feel safer doing so or feel they are making others safer if that's what they believe, but mandating them constitutes a restriction. It might be a tiny restriction in itself, but it's now been shown 3 times that once we start on restrictions we will keep going until they achieve their aim because 'we rule nothing out' is still the principle being used. That's why I'm against them being mandated so much.
