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2 responses to “History Advocates for Wearing Masks during a Pandemic”

1. 

   October 2, 2021

   Aurélien Pierre

   If you push the experience further, google-scholaring the matter, you will find very few studies on the actual efficiency of masks. In this set of very few studies, you will find that most of them are conducted in closed rooms in time frames of 10 to 20 min and only measure the particles filtering abilities of said masks at a short distance and usually only in front.

   The problem is that the life cycle of a mask doesn’t last 10 min between putting it on and off cleanly. There is actually no study over the whole life cycle, including disposing of the mask, putting it on, off, and back on (you know, in restaurants…), repositioning it when it falls (usually when you have one grocery bag in each hand), and so on, not to mention the impact of improper use.

   Also, there are psychological matters that get convoluted in the process, beyond particles filtering performance. Human beings, when they feel safe, tend to increase the amount of risk they take. For example, the 3-wheels BMW scooters, more stable than the 2-wheels generic ones, lead to a bit fewer accidents than the 2-wheels ones. However, the average gravity of the accidents is higher with 3 wheels, meaning the bikers probably pushed them harder. The same way, in FR, local governments shut down the lights at night on suburban highway sections after they noticed more accidents on them… That reduced accidents by up to 30% on the same sections.

   All in all, if masks are better to filter viruses in outer breath but lead to more reckless conducts, the gross total of the operation could actually be a loss. Only a proper study can answer this, but I still don’t have seen any concluding on that topic.

   So, while doctors might be the experts, in the absence of scientific studies following due-process of peer review, tests, P-values and so on, whatever they might say is nothing more than an opinion. This whole pandemic event has shown dozens of educated opinions proved wrong a couple of months later. Having a PhD doesn’t actually make everything you say true, moreover the clinician doctors might be biased by the sub-sample they see everyday in their office or at the emergency and might lack the scale of a proper statistical analysis, which is not the job of the people in the emergency room.

   Thus I don’t think taking refuge in expert’s opinions is any more sound and sensible than going with your gut feeling. Opinions are still not knowledge, no matter who expresses them. Not to mention, experts take a guilty pleasure of disagreeing with each other, so you can build your confirmation/sample biases the way you want by listening to whomever you like. In the absence of proof, all we have is doubt.

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   1. 

      October 4, 2021

      Weston Ruter

      Still, I will prefer to rely on the opinion of the majority of experts who have devoted their lives to the study of their area of expertise rather than trust my gut or the advice of others who have only recently become “experts” on a topic. Sure there is disagreement among actual experts, but there is more consensus than disagreement, as far as I have seen.

      Nevertheless, the CDC actually just published a study that masking in schools limits the spread of COVID-19. If a school lacks mask requirements, it’s 3.5x more likely to have a COVID-19 obreak compared with schools that started the year with a mask mandate.

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