what's the science on masks in terms of lessening and reducing spread, improving health outcomes?

[openallthetime]

Sorry if this has been done to death. I have some anti masker friends. I want some arguments. I'm curious as I've read everywhere differing things, I am just asking for people if they are so inclined to break the stats down very simply so I can understand without having to wade through full articles still none the wiser.

I am in favour of masks, and wear one, FWIW.

I’m interested in this especially with regards to the lateness of Wales to make mask wearing mandatory and their high numbers in the South.

Might not be quite what you're looking for but there's this from the University of Oxford.

I’m very pro mask but they really don’t seem to be helping very much at the moment .. 🥴

Given the situation generally seems worse than when we didn’t have to wear them I’m hugely sceptical. I still wear them properly though

uk.reuters.com/article/idUKKBN2770DF

This is a good article.

I can believe that they work a bit in lab conditions or possibly medical settings.

I'm quite sceptical about mask mandates doing much though. I think masks are politically useful to governments because they allow society to function while appearing to increase people's safety. I think the US, Spain, Italy etc. embraced masks for this reason and they have replaced other measures. It doesn't appear to have been very successful.

I think the mask to table at restaurants (and masks for school children in corridors and masks except on your mat at baby groups etc.) are particularly silly. You spend 30 seconds walking to your table in a mask, take it off for an hour and then put it back on for the 30 seconds it takes to leave. How likely were you to infect someone in that minute you were moving around as opposed to the hour/s sitting down?

There was a Danish study which found no statistically significant protection for the person wearing a mask. This study was unusual because it had a group wearing masks and a control group not wearing them and outcomes were basically the same in both, albeit that you might need to do a bigger study in a country with higher covid prevalence to confirm this result. That obviously doesn't tell you whether they protect others though.

I can’t work out how to attach....google ‘pee and pants meme’. Non scientific but hard to argue with the logic.

@MoirasRoses

I’m very pro mask but they really don’t seem to be helping very much at the moment .. 🥴

But they could be taken off in pubs and so on couldn't they - so not used probably when needed most, indoors, at close quarters with other people.

There is no scientific evidence that mask wearing by the general public reduces virus transmission. Those you tube video's showing a mask stopping water droplets or a cartoon figure sneezing into someones face either with or without a mask have hoodwinked many... including some who should know better.

But unless you wear a plastic bag over your head (not advised as it would kill you) then your breath with virus particles much, much smaller than any mask will escape through the mask and from the sides of the mask. It will also live quite happily in the nice warm moist environment of the mask itself. A sort of virus incubator.