• EatYouWell@lemmy.world
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    11 months ago

    The masks don’t really do much to prevent getting covid. Their main purpose was to stop people from spreading their covid.

    • timetravel@lemmings.world
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      11 months ago

      My fiance was on a movie set that got hit bad and had to shutdown twice, she was one of the only people not to catch it, and was in very close contact with infected. She always wears a kn95 mask. I know they aren’t as great but they have kept us both from getting it so far and these newer ones are comfy enough to wear. I’m already heavily disabled and could easily be screwed so we’ve been careful and are grateful to not have to deal with long COVID. I have friends who lost wives and were in thier 30s. Every time I’m about to loosen up I see something like this article and m just gonna keep a stock of em. The limited effectiveness has been enough for us so far

    • chicken@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      11 months ago

      I don’t think that’s true. Face masks, especially the kind designed to filter air, reduce how many particles from the air get into your lungs and airways.

      IIRC the studies used to make that argument were using data from respiratory diseases other than covid, which are different in that you only get infected when stuff gets deep in your lungs, which is going to be the very smallest particles that will not end up getting filtered before then by landing on the inside of your throat etc. That might mean that masks are less effective, since they don’t filter the very smallest water droplets quite as well. But it doesn’t apply to covid because with that disease infection isn’t as localized.

      There isn’t a practical case for why masks would not make a difference. You block particles containing the virus, you reduce chance of infection.

      Edit: Also, here’s a snippet from an article a few clicks away from the OP article:

      Epidemiological investigations have helped quantify the benefit of mask wearing to prevent the spread of SARS-CoV-2 (Table; Supplement). At a hair salon in which all staff and clients were required to wear a mask under local ordinance and company policy, 2 symptomatic, infected stylists attended to 139 clients and no infections were observed in the 67 clients who were reached for interviewing and testing. During a COVID-19 outbreak on the USS Theodore Roosevelt, persons who wore masks experienced a 70% lower risk of testing positive for SARS-CoV-2 infection.4 Similar reductions have been reported in case contact investigations when contacts were masked5 and in household clusters in which household members were masked.6

    • grue@lemmy.world
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      11 months ago

      Doing much to prevent other people getting covid is, in fact, “do[ing] much to prevent getting covid.” The distinction you’re trying to make isn’t meaningful except in the delusions of selfish assholes.

    • MalReynolds@slrpnk.net
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      11 months ago

      This is valid downvoters. Masks are for the community, not the wearer. You may get some protection, but that’s not the general goal.

        • MalReynolds@slrpnk.net
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          11 months ago

          You’re not wrong, but n95 is not the mask in the public consciousness. Generally the primary transmission vector is touching your face, eyes, mouth which obviously masks help with, but thinking you’re bulletproof because of a random ebay mask actively hurts.

          • Zaktor@sopuli.xyz
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            11 months ago

            This sounds like old information from early in the pandemic. COVID is airborne. The primary method of transmission is breathing it in. And all masks help, N95 just help the most.

            I do agree that thinking you’re bulletproof with a cloth mask is not a good idea, but this is all straying from the original falsehood. Masks work, both for the wearer and those around them. The better the mask, the better the protection. Though personally I find that N95s breath a lot easier than cloth masks and since they can be reused aren’t much more expensive, so I’d encourage anyone with a cloth mask to just switch to them.

      • grue@lemmy.world
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        11 months ago

        No it’s not. He falsely claimed that “masks don’t really do much to prevent getting covid.” He didn’t say who it would prevent getting it which means he implied it wouldn’t help “anybody,” but in reality the answer to that question is that it would help “the community.”

        (And that’s even if we were to accept his premise that masks don’t help the wearer, which is also false BTW.)