Cloth masks are worse and may increase the rate of infection.

[AnaadiNitya]

Carl Heneghan is a clinical epidemiologist with expertise in evidence-based medicine, research methods, and evidence synthesis.
He is Director of the NIHR SPCR Evidence Synthesis Working Group a collaboration of nine primary care departments across UK universities. He set up and directs the Oxford COVID Evidence Service, has over 400 peer-reviewed publications (current H Index 67); published 95 systematic reviews. He is Editor in Chief of BMJ Evidence-Based Medicine, and Editor of the Catalogue of Bias.

He recently attended an online
aCOVID 19 special response committee meeting. He is saying there is no evidence these masks work especially in the way we are being told to wear them.

Here is the video

isn't all this a bit like saying a condom with a few tiny pinholes is not going to be as fully protective; agreed
but on a desert island it's better than nothing
no - it is about reducing viral load/viral dose which is the difference between mild and severe so quite important.

sorry nc fail! by accident

So many 'drs', so many 'experts', so much bollocks!

I'm fed up of YouTube drs, fed up of twitter and the conspiracy theorists.

Just wash your mask after each wear?! Maybe...it's boring.

Virus rates have gone up and I think it’s due to the fact people feel more ‘safe’ with a cloth mask on and not sticking to guidelines. When there was no masks people mainly stayed away from each other. Now they are happy to lean over some one to get their shopping

I work in a large supermarket. I see mamy people wearing cloth masks and they do not practise less safe behaviour. The people who are more likely to be spreaders are the younger people, who are either not wearing a mask at all, wearing one of those black spandex jobbies which never gets washed, the kids I've seen outside the shop handing each other a mask out of their pocket, or the ones who are wearing a surgical mask under their feckin nose!! And that's when they have to wear a mask i.e. not down the pub.

@AnaadiNitya I expect Jimmy Savile was on BBC news too but it doesn't mean everything he did that wasn't related to any one specific news item was 100% sound . . . If this current research is so right then why isn't he on BBC news as we speak, telling the world??

This is bullshit.

You don't need evidence fucking based medicine to tell you that someone with their face covered is going to cough and sneeze on other people less and thereby reduce the overall population's infection rate. It's already evident!!

He is saying there is no evidence these masks work especially in the way we are being told to wear them

OP, there is no real evidence that any masks work, however we wear them.

To prove whether masks really work, or not, there would have to be a proper trial. People infected with Covid would have to cough in the direction of people not infected with Covid. Some of those infected would need to be wearing masks, and others wouldn't. Only that way could anyone really tell whether masks are effective.

I would personally be very happy to be a Covid-free person in such a trial. However, such trials are apparently not allowed for "ethical reasons".

As a result, we all become part of a trial with no control group, and there is still no real evidence as to whether masks are effective or not.

Hold that that looks my friend's cousin's dogwalker who knows a policewoman who's husband works at GCHQ who met a man in Portsmouth who lost a kidney whilst drunk to some organ-harvesters based in Spain . So it certainly seems credible to me.

Of course home made cloth masks dont work. Otherwise surgeons would use them.
Paper "disposable" masks are worse. They gap at the sides visibly, and ride up, requiring constant adjustment.

@AnaadiNitya have YOU looked in to his credentials. I can't tell if you're on the wind up? LoTs of impressive sounding words jumbled together does not make him a credible expert. None of the sources you mention seem particularly well followed, no blue ticks on twitter, using names that sounds like authorative sources but just a bit different - "in Oxford" but nothing to indicate an official affiliation with Oxford uni. A publication with BMJ in the title bit nothing to do with the actual BMJ. It's either an elaborate hoax or someone who may be an academic in the field who is bigging himself up. Either way, he is on the fringes of scientific endeavour. Not central

For all of you saying you prefer written text to a video, most of the time youtube videos have a hidden transcript. If you click the 3 dots just below the video there's an 'open transcript' option.

He is one person. More evidential based research needed.

@FinnyStory

Isn't this what we were told all along, until the government decided that actually, people wanted to be told to wear masks?

Yep. That and Boris desperately trying to get the people he terrified into hiding at home out spending money. It hasn't worked on me either - my visits to shops are now minimal. People wanted to be ordered to wear masks; he picked his moment carefully, or somebody else told him when to say it.

And I still say: notice how this "mask mandate" hasn't cost the government much at all. They've not spent anything on an enforcement/exemption system, because they know there's a mob happy to see to that, and maybe they're not actually taking masks very seriously - it was a very easy headline grab to make them look as if they were doing something, having everyone wear highly visible symbols of "I believe in Father Christmas the virus" in public, and of course, it gets the people furious with each other all over again (instead of with the government), because most of those ways have now evaporated.

@MoonBoogie949 I expect they meant a scientific journal etc, not just being able to read the subtitles of a youtube video!!

So, we have

Not coming into contact with the virus in the first place - best of all
Full respirator system - next best
Surgical mask - next best
Cloth mask - next best
Other masks - next best
No mask/using it as a beard snood - least best

Doesn't seem particularly groundbreaking or controversial?

In any case, I'd far rather the medical and care staff had access to all the surgical masks they need, rather than them being unobtainable because they've been bought by the rest of the population at ten times the standard price through Amazon.

Love the amount of people saying "if cloth masks worked, surgeons would be wearing them". This is why this country is going down the drain.

No, Karen, that is not implied. What IS implied is, that if you fecking sneeze and wear a cloth mask you will not sneeze on everyone in 10m radius but only on the ones in your proximity.

Surgical masks are worn by surgeons because they are designed for their purpose. Surgery. That means sterile environment. And least but not last, here is a photo, of a surgeon, wearing a reusable cloth mask. From times when, you know, things were not all single-use.

I saw simulator today with mask and without and how far cough droplets spray without the mask. It seems commonsense to me if some of these droplets can remain contained!

Exactly! This is why we wear masks - only a fool would believe that wearing one suddenly stops covid in its tracks, it's a tool to aid the stopping of spread by someone who is infected, not a magic wand! Why can't people just do as they are asked?

@Swelteringmeltering

Oh ffs.

It's intolerable. Only yesterday I was reading about different mask effectiveness!
3 layer fabric were good apparently, surgery ones ok.
Scarf around face was a no no.

I read that as well

“Cloth masks do not work that’s why they are not allowed in health care settings.

They don't work as well as N95 respirators. In order of effectiveness, it's always been

1. respirator
2. surgical mask (well fitting, changed at appropriate intervals with aseptic technique)
3. anything else”

We sell face masks at work, and buy them from all over the world. I have had to educate myself on masks. PermaStress’s mask summary is correct.

Non surgical/medical masks don’t have CE marking, don’t have any test certification and can be made from anything. They offer the lowest form of protection to other people. They don’t protect the wearer.

Medical or surgical masks provide over 95% filtration and need EN 14683 test certification and CE marking and don’t protect the wearer. They protect other people from the wearer.

Respirators are the only masks that protect the wearer and are graded by the amount of filtration they offer. They need EN 149 test certification and CE marking.

Like other posters I would rather read about something than watch a video.

Frontline MHS masks are properly fitted to the wearer and training given in using them effectively.

The face coverings thing is a free for the governments figleaf to encourage the nervous out.

A nurse on another thread likened them to being more similar to wearing your hanky instead of having to use one that had been in your pocket, or use your clothed elbow, in which to cough or sneeze. I found that quite a reasonable description and good support of how often they will last and/or need washing.

As far as how well they will stand up against travelling viral particles - surely the point is that you don't drop the social distancing, and do continue to weigh up how risky the space you are in is, when you are (also) wearing your mask? I don't recall any advice saying it would give you any better prospects for 'either/or'.

Funnily enough, right after I read your thread, this article popped up in my AOL feed. There has been some further research. Wider opinion may still be divided, however given that the government say they have listened to the science on this and put masks in place for a reason, for once I appear to be agreeing with the government. Just wear a mask, for now, until this has subsided. And wash your hands, and social distance...

www.aol.co.uk/news/2020/08/17/wearing-a-face-mask-a-reduces-spread-of-covid-19-through-coughi/

"Wearing a face covering lowers the risk of spreading Covid-19 to others through speaking and coughing, new research suggests.

Speaking and coughing without face protection exposes people nearby to droplets carrying the virus that could otherwise be stopped by wearing a mask, according to the study.

Researchers found someone standing two metres from a coughing person with no mask is exposed to 10,000 times more droplets than someone half a metre from someone coughing and wearing a covering.

The simple message from our research is that face masks work

Professor Paul Digard
Lead researcher Dr Ignazio Maria Viola, of the University of Edinburgh's School of Engineering, said: "We knew face masks of various materials are effective to a different extent in filtering small droplets.

"However, when we looked specifically at those larger droplets that are thought to be the most dangerous, we discovered that even the simplest handmade single-layer cotton mask is tremendously effective.

"Therefore wearing a face mask can really make a difference." "

He is also the man that forced the government to review the PHE failings

Oh, a Dido acolyte

You may as well be wearing a Kleenex tissue over your face, judging by the way people wear masks - I've seen loads of people with the mask over their mouth and under their nose. Pointless.

@iseeu

isn't all this a bit like saying a condom with a few tiny pinholes is not going to be as fully protective; agreed but on a desert island it's better than nothing no - it is about reducing viral load/viral dose which is the difference between mild and severe so quite important.

Don't they mean the same thing?

Better than nothing as in it won't stop all the droplets but will stop some....so that means it's lessening the viral load or dose that someone is getting or passing on?

@motivationalpigoftraal

I think the cloth masks can make it worse. I have yet to find a way to stop my glasses steaming up so I can see, the other day they were so steamed up that I had to keep pulling the mask off my nose to let them clear. I paid for petrol and didn't see sign to go down the other aisle on the way out because my glasses were so steamed up. I was trying to find a particular product in the supermarket to avoid allergies and couldn't read the small print because my glasses were steamed up. I can take my glasses off of course but then I can't see to read the small print either. I know there are sprays people say to use but my optician says they damage the anti-glare coating on my glasses.

Tit tape on the mask where it sits on your face. It’s a faff but it does work (for me anyway)