A total of 3030 participants were randomly assigned to the recommendation to wear masks, and 2994 were assigned to control; 4862 completed the study. Infection with SARS-CoV-2 occurred in 42 participants recommended masks (1.8%) and 53 control participants (2.1%). The between-group difference was −0.3 percentage point (95% CI, −1.2 to 0.4 percentage point; P = 0.38) (odds ratio, 0.82 [CI, 0.54 to 1.23]; P = 0.33). Multiple imputation accounting for loss to follow-up yielded similar results. Although the difference observed was not statistically significant, the 95% CIs are compatible with a 46% reduction to a 23% increase in infection.
The recommendation to wear surgical masks to supplement other public health measures did not reduce the SARS-CoV-2 infection rate among wearers by more than 50% in a community with modest infection rates, some degree of social distancing, and uncommon general mask use. The data were compatible with lesser degrees of self-protection.
So 1.8% of the people wearing masks got COVID, while 2.1% of the people not wearing masks got COVID.
Now, of course the study found marginally better results for people wearing masks. No one disputes that the masks can help reduce the spread of COVID.
What we dispute is that masks are sacred talismans imbued with Magical Powers that ward off the Evil COVID Spirts, like having an Indian Dream Catcher above your bed to prevent nightmares.
From the start, medical experts were only claiming masks to be effective at keeping infected patients from sneezing or coughing and spraying COVID droplets into the air and on to people around them.
And that’s only for genuine surgical masks. Right now we have an “anything goes” policy for masks–want to wear a bandana like an outlaw from the Wild West? Go ahead. Neck gaiter that was never designed to prevent the spread of viruses? Knock yourself out. Painter’s dusk mask? Sure.
So many people out there believe COVID is just floating around in the air, sentient, and waiting for you to walk outside without a mask so it can lock on to you and fly into your uncovered nose or mouth.
It doesn’t work that way. You get it through close physical contact with someone who already has it. You get it through swapping saliva with someone that has it–kissing, being sneezed or coughed on, sharing a drink, etc. Or if someone who has it touches their face and then touches you.
I have had COVID. I have two roommates and they didn’t even get the virus when I had it. These are people who live in the same household as I do.
It spreads like the normal flu. To the extent that COVID is in the air, it’s in the form of respiratory droplets that quickly fall to the ground. Don’t take it from me, take it from the CDC:
As the respiratory droplets travel further from the person with COVID-19, the concentration of these droplets decreases. Larger droplets fall out of the air due to gravity. Smaller droplets and particles spread apart in the air.
Yes. Water droplets do not float in the air indefinitely. We should all inherently know this, but COVID had made us forget how to think.
CDC even admits that airborne spread of COVID is rare. The chances of you catching COVID through the air while just walking around out in public are very low:
There is evidence that under certain conditions, people with COVID-19 seem to have infected others who were more than 6 feet away. These transmissions occurred within enclosed spaces that had inadequate ventilation. Sometimes the infected person was breathing heavily, for example while singing or exercising.
“Enclosed spaces that had inadequate ventilation.” AKA your house. I guess just make sure you and your whole family are not doing jumping jacks in your basement at the same time.
It’s funny, we think we’re the smartest, most advanced society in history, and so we, unlike all those previous generations who Didn’t Have Science, can stop a virus due to our superior intellect and technology.
What cutting-edge technology are we relying on? Cloth masks and face covering, which have existed for literally thousands of years. Look at your mask right now. Do you really think that Americans during the 1918 Spanish Flu Pandemic were incapable of producing that or something similar to it? Do you think Europeans during the Black Plague couldn’t have conceived such a device?
Any society in history with the capability of producing loin cloths could have used face masks to attempt to stop the spread of a viral plague.
And yet America 2020 is like, “We’re gonna beat this virus because WE have MASKS!”
The virus is going to spread one way or another. There’s little we can do about it, unless we go Full China and lock every single American in their homes for a month straight with zero exceptions.