If Facemasks work why is the infection rate rising so rapidly?

[Bbq1]

Just that really. Facemasks have been mandatory for a couple of months now and the majority of us are wearing them. However, if they are so effective why haven't they cut the infection rate massively? Instead, we're now expericing a second wave. Even if the amount of people currently wearing Facemasks was halved, you would still expect some reduction in infection, not an increase. Surely then, this all points to the fact that Facemasks just don't work?

This is why it is spreading:

www.devonlive.com/news/devon-news/anger-exeter-revellers-crowd-outside-4592710

University students just don't give a fuck for anyone but having fun themselves.. now rinse and repeat this at universities across the country......

Exeter was a really low area for Covid - now that Exeter Univ students are back it is rising rapidly.....

They might be university 'clever' but the ones like this don't rally care for anyone else

@Walkaround linked Lancet in a rush there is plenty of evidence coming through re fomite transmission being less risk as well as the fact that the risks of infection from fiddling with dirty masks is infinitely reduced by wearing them.

Read up guys there’s lots of emerging evidence even if I linked wrong piece!

Schoooooooools. Can't believe anyone is surprised.

Well a local homeless woman had to pick up and use a discarded face mask off the floor so she could access food and medication.

If it was about stopping the spread the Gov would be providing them. Italy manages it.

It was about getting people back into shops. If it was about health the homeless woman i spoke to wouldnt have had to do what she did.

@KaleJuicer

Because people aren't wearing them inside when socialising with other households. Which is why lockdowns ban that mixing of households.

And I've yet to see ANYONE on a London bus actually wearing them over their nose and mouth. Chin nappies all the way, or none at all.

I put my mask on before getting out of the car to go shopping and don't take it off until I'm in my car going home when I clean my hands, take off the mask carefully, put it in a plastic bag then clean hands again. I wash my face and hands straight away when I go home.

Also, I had my mask on when I popped round to my sister's house a month ago and when I had a ride in her car. The following week we both had masks on when we went to the shops in her car.

It's easy to do, but obviously way too hard for far too many people.

Exeter - Pennsylvania & University 301 cases of covid and the image of them all together outside a university students only drinking session shows why.

The masks are a red herring - so asking why it is increasing with mask wearing is ignoring the University driven spread. Perhaps it is perfectly understandable why the students at Manchester were told to stay in their rooms for 14 days after the outbreak but they struggled and mental health issues were given as a reason they struggled...sod the people they infect though more important that they party.

A silly question really as masks are not worn everywhere, most the time where they are worn they are not worn correctly.

Schools?
Pubs?
Restaurants?
Uni?
Residential homes (residents)?
Outside?
People seem houses?

Most of the spread are i these places, places where masks are not being worn.

They were never going to work in the way many seemed to hope because there is precious little evidence that they have more than a minimal effect in terms of transmission rates.
However, health and social policy cannot sensibly be based solely on epidemiology, so I suspect that masks have been mandated for a variety of reasons, such as economic - to calm the scared and tempt them out of isolation; political - to look like something is being done; sociological - a visual 'nudge' to try to remind people to be afraid and therefore keep levels of compliance high (or at least high enough); and probably a number of other reasons. Many people however seem to have started to believe that masks will have a significant effect on transmission, and two of the effects of this are that one subset of people seem to obsess about mask-wearing, which creates aggression and division and makes everyone forget the wider issues around Covid, governance and societal problems generally; and another subset feel that because mask-wearing is based on rather wobbly ground, so is everything else, which leads to even more lack of trust in government and even less belief that complying with the rules is worthwhile.
So all in all, it's a mess. Personally I think that it would be better for decisions to be made more openly and democratically, and with more honesty around the fact that 'following the science' is impossible, because our political, economic and social policies cannot be based solely on one virus.

A student died in Manchester. Still if people feel comfortable slagging off students so be it.

A student died in Manchester. Still if people feel comfortable slagging off students so be it.

I understood that the death was not covid-related?

A student died in Manchester. Still if people feel comfortable slagging off students so be it

The death the papers & family are saying wasn’t Covid related?

Could of been drugs, alcohol, un diagnosed health condition, freak accident so many possibilities.

So why are you using that poor student to ummm make some kind of point I guess, just not sure what that point is?

I don't think they reduce infection rates but do reduce viral load which is why deaths and serious illness are not so bad.

The majority of people are not wearing them for the majority of the time when they are outside though.

They aren't being worn in:
Offices and all workplaces.
School classrooms.
Universities.
Urban streets.

Where they are worn some people are wearing them:
Only over their mouth (rather than over the mouth and nose).
Under their chin.
Hanging off one ear.

That maybe part of your answer.

@RationalOne

Exeter - Pennsylvania & University 301 cases of covid and the image of them all together outside a university students only drinking session shows why.

The masks are a red herring - so asking why it is increasing with mask wearing is ignoring the University driven spread. Perhaps it is perfectly understandable why the students at Manchester were told to stay in their rooms for 14 days after the outbreak but they struggled and mental health issues were given as a reason they struggled...sod the people they infect though more important that they party.

There are plenty of students caught up in it who havn't been socialising/partying. My son is in 14 day lockdown because one idiot flatmate went out partying and caught it. The other 7 students in his flat hadn't been out, havn't caught it, but have to isolate. It's a minority (as always). There are thousands of students at most Unis, but only a few dozen causing the problems - a very small minority.

Most Covid organisms are spread from expired air, through exhaling coughing or sneezing.

Masks will only act to prevent that spread if
a) they are worn
b) if they are worn properly and in conjunction with social distancing and hand hygiene. (HH needed after touching contaminated objects).

As PP have said, masks worn around the chin won't prevent anything.

But my particular pet hate is mask with valves. Why would you breathe out a jet stream of microorganisms straight into other people's faces?

At least I know who to avoid.

I don't wear one when I'm outside. I'm never near enough to anyone to make it necessary.

@Al1langdownthecleghole

Most Covid organisms are spread from expired air, through exhaling coughing or sneezing.

Masks will only act to prevent that spread if
a) they are worn
b) if they are worn properly and in conjunction with social distancing and hand hygiene. (HH needed after touching contaminated objects).

As PP have said, masks worn around the chin won't prevent anything.

But my particular pet hate is mask with valves. Why would you breathe out a jet stream of microorganisms straight into other people's faces?

At least I know who to avoid.

Also to be avoided are people with those stretchy masks on and those only having a face shield on. Abosolutly pointless sutely contributes to the spread of the virus. They might as well not have anything on their face.

I think the majority of the spreading is from people mixing in homes rather in public places, where masks are compulsory. These are the people who think covid won’t affect them, like they have some kind of magical bubble around them. It’s selfish and reckless and then the same bemoan the fact that they are unable to see family members who are consequently hospitalised for covid.

@CakeGirl2020

Many still aren’t wearing masks. I was on the tube Friday I reckon about 50% had no mask on, do we really believe they all have a genuine exemption? All of them ?

Some people don’t wear a mask properly, they have the nose poking out, they pull it down to smoke etc etc

We have allowed people to travel to other countries, many won’t be bothering with quarantine when home. What good are masks when we allow free travel?

I think many people are also visiting friends/family in the home. Won’t be any mask wearing, distancing involved.

Masks weren’t ever said to rid us of Covid anyway, they weren’t meant to help us keep the numbers down. Has that worked? Well we don’t know what the numbers without masks would of been so we will never know.

Exactly. Loads of people on the tube this weekend with no masks.they must all be exempt?

Yet I didn’t see a single person inside the theatre this afternoon with no mask (although we had a hairy few moments when it was discovered our new box of masks were “wrong” for my autistic sensory sensitive Ds)

No one wears masks in my office and no one is wearing them in class at schools & colleges. One local school has banned the wearing of face masks at all as they don’t look smart/are not part of the uniform.

🤦‍♀️

I wear one all day at work and even though I know I shouldn't it's just become a fiddle toy for me. I usually don't even know I'm doing it. So it's basically pointless.

@Gwenhwyfar

"People were not catching Covid in shops in April/May"

Evidence for this?
I know someone who's sure he caught it in the supermarket.

You do know that you're not writing an academic paper where you have to reference and provide evidence for everything, don't you? barking EVIDENCE every time someone makes a point is so dull and pointless.

We have been told from the start by all manner of experts that the highest risk for covid is being within 2 metres of someone for 15 minutes. (and no, I can't be arsed referencing that as it's common fucking knowledge).

It stands to reason that in places like the supermarket, you are not face to face with someone for 15 minutes.

There is the (negligible) risk that you just happen to walk past someone with covid and they cough directly into your face you might catch it.

But if supermarkets were really such hotbeds of infection we'd have heard about it. The shopworkers union would be shouting about it. They wouldn't have scrapped hteir queuing, and one way systems and whatever.

The point stands. That apart from public transport, we're being asked to wear masks in situations where there is an extremely low level of risk. And masks are not compulsory in the situations where there is a risk, where you're sitting face to face with someone in your home, their home, a pub, a cafe, a restaurant.

I think the higher infection rate likely has a lot to do with people going abroad over the summer and then not isolating. The virus has likely mutated differently in different places around the world and we could be getting different strains back into the country with different infection rates.
I think closing non essential foreign travel would have been helpful from the moment we realised C19 was a growing threat.

As for face masks - I don’t believe they are particularly effective. Lockdown and social distancing were what lowered our rates, this is a token gesture and most people dislike them enough to wear them only when forced to.

@Tumbleweed101 - I’m not aware of people in the North and Midlands having holidayed overseas more than people in the South. I think you need to look closer to home.

Masks have a small net benefit. They're a lot more effective in hospitals when used properly and combined with strict hygiene measures.

E.g. Without masks the average infected person might infect 1.6 people, and with they will only infect 1.5 people.

Likewise handwashing reduces the number a bit, along with social distancing and rules around meeting people. The idea is that the combination of all these reduces the number to under 1, although that hasn't been achieved.