Masks. This Prof says if everybody wore one it would stop the virus in its tracks.

[DonPablo]

guardian opinion piece link

It's all so confusing, right at the start of all this we were told masks were pointless. The article says that when South Korea enforced mask wearing their death rate and tragectory, which did look like Italys, dropped right off.

Anyone want to discuss this with me? Should we all be wearing masks?

Why doesn't that TV doctor do a test? It would not be hard to do with some UV dye. No of course I know it is not scientific, I am not dim.

And why don't we just make them, at home, en masse. There was an entrepreneur in Oxford who started testing in local non PHE labs for 14 GP surgeries. No PHE approval but they were aware, he said he thought the risk of being sued was pretty low.

And now the UK is building a testing industry from scratch through local labs.

I'm going to start wearing one while I'm in shops.
There's some tutorials on youtube using pieces of kitchen roll (the idea is it's a non woven material), would think that one of those plus a piece of fabric over the top would offer at least some protection

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Good luck with that one.

Wait... back up a bit

a five year study in to COVID19?

Or droplets in general?

As others have said, home made masks would protect those around you from you, your breath, sneeze, cough. Which is why the advice has been to cough into your sleeve, same outcome and was probably intended to stop the panic about lack of commercial masks.

S Korea had a lot of very different responses, mainly due to the type of government and a societal norms. That's comparing apples to oranges...

Which person @Soontobe60? Why are they always charlatans in the end?

Wearing a mask to protect yourself might well backfire on you if you stick on a filthy mask that is already contaminated and keep touching it to readjust it, reusing it, etc. It will undoubtedly help protect others from you, though, if you are busy coughing and sneezing underneath it, as your respiratory droplets will be less likely to hit them in the face - something which no amount of hand washing will be able to protect them from.

Imho this thread illustrates the huge cultural difference between us and countries like South Korea.

No masks aren’t the solution but they are part of the solution. Containing possible transmissions from your mouth and nose is obviously going to reduce the opportunities for you to spread germs. Reduce not stop.Used in conjunction with other basic hygiene methods it can help.

It’s not comparable with a medical setting much like gloves because they’re not used in the same way. Gloves should be used per patient/procedure not the same pair worn continuously which just makes them the same as your hands. The general public are better off washing their hands since you can’t break down which tasks would have been the riskier ones to alert you to change your gloves plus disposal etc.

Yes individuals can make the choice to wear a mask but it’s only really effective if a large percentage of people do it on the understanding they’re not protecting themselves from people but people from them.

The impact may only be small and open to user error but I have to point out this is the culture in countries with previous experiences with SARS and I think it’s worth taking any advice from anything they’ve learned from SARS outbreaks. This is not something we have a lot of experience with in comparison.

I understand the arguments agaisnt particularly for the surgeon masks which are flimsy and won't contain the virus.
However don't forget our leaders are not going to be recommend we wear a product that could save us but is in massively short supply.
If masks were plentiful I'm sure they would happily say.. It won't harm try it...

And it is not true that research shows that any old cloth covering, however long you wear it for, however moist, however much you have touched it and left it lying around, however much other people have got their respiratory droplets on it, and however badly fitted, protects you 100% from the virus. That really is an absolute load of old bollocks.

Which person @Soontobe60? Why are they always charlatans in the end?

Jeremy Howard, the professor cited in the article you linked. He's a data scientist, not an epidemiologist, so all he does is have a look at some studies that have been carried out and daws his own conclusions. One scientific study he has cited on his Masks4All website actually states that the use of homemade fabric masks made very little difference to the transmission of particles from the user.
Data can be interpreted many ways. He's interpreted any data out there to suit his own ends. That doesn't make him a charlatan, but does make those in the scientific community very sceptical.

I was in Singapore lots during SARS hence my fondness for masks

Make your own, wash them frequently, assume you are the infected one.

I would very strongly approve of anyone with a cough, whatever they think the cause is, wearing a mask to protect everyone else, though - and proper advice on how to make, put on and keep clean, homemade masks. That would be useful.

@Walkaround

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Oh, I was looking up the Nobel prize winning scientist and couldn't find anything. And I looked up the author of the study too.

I think it does make him a bloody charlatan.

My query, is that this originated in China. And in China, if you have any illness at all, you wear a mask. It's the done thing. And sinc the start of the outbreak, the vast, vast majority of people in China have been wearing masks (I have a friend over there who is somewhat annoyingly very evangelical about them. So why did they need to start nailing people into their apartments?

a five year studyin to COVID19?

No into Corona.

A mask tree in CZ

We could do them here.

I suppose that we will never know. Thanks for a lively Sunday morning discussion about this. Everyone in my house was asleep so I had no one to chat with about this.

I'm off to do something, anything, to keep me busy.
I do really love it here.

I'm sure that masks would be a big help but they are not going to 'stop the virus in its tracks'.

The only thing that is going to do that is a vaccine or enough people getting it to give herd immunity.

While the majority of the population don't have any antibodies to this virus, it won't be going anywhere.

(I'm not advocating for letting everyone catch it BTW just saying that immunity, not just trying to prevent transmission, is the way to 'stop' the virus as far as I understand).

There is the argument about having a false sense of security, too. Sticking any old cover over your face is not going to rid the world of the virus.

Oh, good Lord, what happened there? That does not read well at all. I'll try again:

'My problem with this theory, is that this originated in China. And in China, if you have any illness at all, you wear a mask. It's the done thing. Since the start of the outbreak, the vast, vast majority of people in China have been wearing masks (I have a friend over there who is somewhat annoyingly very evangelical about them). So why did they need to start draconian quarantine measures, if masks alone would be 100% effective at stopping the threat?'

@PestymcPestFace

assume you are the infected one

And that’s the message that I think we really need to take on board in the west. We’re all thinking about catching CV not spreading it. If we all considered it from that perspective we’d benefit from each other’s precautions.

@Vaginandtonic, just to point out I agree masks will definitely not stop the virus in its tracks, but if our aim is to slow transmissions to manageable levels then they would certainly contribute to that.

which I find hard to disagree with. A 5 year study!

Have you read the study? www.nature.com/articles/s41591-020-0843-2

In all those 5 years, they tested four people with coronavirus on two different types of masks. 5 years makes it sound like an extensive and wide ranging study, but actually the numbers of people they tested are incredibly small.

And their conclusion was that people who are symptomatic might reduce spread by wearing a mask.

People who are symptomatic would also reduce the spread by staying at home.

I wear one every time I go to do my food shop now. With gloves. I don’t care how I look or what the advice is about them, I feel safer. And why would PPE be so important if masks weren’t of use? Pls wear one

Staying at home is nice. However, DH and I are both keyworkers and have to go out.

Wear a mask and protect me.

I'll wear one and protect you.