Cloth Masks Are Comfort Blankets according to SAGE committee member

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pm133

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Finally, some sanity regarding masks from a member of Sage who advise the government.
I've been banging on about this for over a year now and it's nice to see someone in authority finally publicly saying it.

My criticism? Where was this guy a year ago before medics were allowed to control the narrative regarding this masking obsession? Why are these people so damn slow?

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/07/17/cloth-face-masks-comfort-blankets-do-little-curb-covid-
spread/?WT.mc_id=tmgliveapp_iosshare_AxdbmR7tGYPz

Dr Axon said the public need to be offered a wider view of the science behind face masks, rather than the "partial view" of information being pushed by medics over their effectiveness.
'Medics have a cartoonish view of how the world is'
"Medics have this cartoonised view of how particles move through the air - it's not their fault, it's not their domain - they've got a cartoonish view of how the world is," he said.
"Once a particle is not on a biological surface it is no longer a biomedical issue, it is simply about physics. The public has only a partial view of the story if information only comes from one type of source. Medics have some of the answers but not a whole view."

"Masks can catch droplets and sputum from a cough but what is important is that SARS CoV-2 is predominantly distributed by tiny aerosols."
 
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I have always felt that cloth masks were never going to be 100% effective is stopping all possible spread of virus from me if I asymptomatically had it.

But I choose to continue to wear them because I believe they will have an effect of stopping the majority of droplets and SOME aerosols (including water vapour which I can feel as I wear one).

I believe they also serve as a useful visual reminder to others that there is an ongoing health concern with rising infection rates.

I’m less worried about surface transmission these days, but still choose to be cautious eg wiping down a supermarket trolley handle.

It seems to be it’s about attempting to reduce virus load. My understanding is that infection doesn’t happen because we come into contact with one single particle. We need exposure to a reasonable ‘dose‘.

So if by wearing a mask I can reduce the flow of aerosols from 100% and limit it to a few which leak out the edges, that seems worthwhile?
 
everydayupsanddowns said:
I have always felt that cloth masks were never going to be 100% effective is stopping all possible spread of virus from me if I asymptomatically had it.

But I choose to continue to wear them because I believe they will have an effect of stopping the majority of droplets and SOME aerosols (including water vapour which I can feel as I wear one).

I believe they also serve as a useful visual reminder to others that there is an ongoing health concern with rising infection rates.

I’m less worried about surface transmission these days, but still choose to be cautious eg wiping down a supermarket trolley handle.

It seems to be it’s about attempting to reduce virus load. My understanding is that infection doesn’t happen because we come into contact with one single particle. We need exposure to a reasonable ‘dose‘.

So if by wearing a mask I can reduce the flow of aerosols from 100% and limit it to a few which leak out the edges, that seems worthwhile?
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You are correct about them being a visual reminder. That is why their use was mandated last year.

You also mention reducing the viral load. So that scientist is talking about the holes in the mask being 500,000 times bigger than the particles containing covid.

If you imagine that the covid soaked particle is the size of a basketball, that's like throwing the ball at a net which has holes the size of Belgium and expecting the ball to stick in the net. You really are going to catch virtually nothing. If anyone believes otherwise and wants to continue wearing a mask, they are very welcome to do so but the Physics is crystal clear on this. Also, it's not my place to tell you not to wear masks.

You are correct that the biggest droplets of a sneeze or a cough will largely be caught but a very significant amount of both are also tiny invisible particles and you have the same problem.

That is why scientists are telling us to ventilate indoor spaces. These things hang in the air for significant periods of time. Large sneeze and cough droplets don't do that. they fall to the ground and surfaces like tables. If this was the source of covid, then wiping surfaces would have pretty much stopped it.

If someone with covid enters a pub and breathes out, I'm afraid that everyone in that pub is probably getting a dose.

The issue here is that there are extremely vulnerable people who now wrongly believe these masks work and will go into places which could be dangerous for them.

Incidentally, those green surgical style masks we all wear are no better. They are not designed to catch small particles either.

The best advice for avoiding covid is to avoid indoor spaces, whether people are masked up or not. That's the advice which needs to be sent to Clinically Extremely Vulnerable people and the government are not doing a good enough job of getting that message out there.
 
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As people in England move into tomorrow, the big worry for me is that so many have turned this into an issue of "morality" that we're inevitably going to see confrontation, especially on public transport. Some of that confrontation is going to end up turning violent.
I think that London is going to be an extremely challenging place to travel thanks to the Mayor over-ruling the government all on his own but without having the law to back up the people who are going to have to enforce his wishes.

The tragedy here is that it's all going to be over a piece of cloth which does nothing anyway.

People who want to mask up are not sheep. They are making a free choice and should be left alone to do so if that's what they want.
Equally, people who don't wear masks are not "heartless bastards who want to see people die so thay can have a pint". They also should be left to make their own choices without interference from others.

I hope that after Monday, a lot of the debate on this stuff fades away because what's been corrupted and lost in all of this is the science. Sadly, I don't think the public reputation of science will recover from this. It was refreshing to see a proper scientist with actual expertise in Physics finally speak out about the reality behind masks in that article I posted but sadly it's too little and more than a year too late. People are no longer listening I suspect. They've bought into the story about "every little helps" and they've switched off to reason. That's a real shame.
 
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The problem i find with this lot is that I have no idea just how useful masks are and i suspect those for them and those against them have no real idea either. The arguments for and against mask wearing make perfect sense in isolation but lead to irresolvable debate when set against each other. All you have is a shouting match based on opinion.

Wish there were some real definitions of terms and numbers that compared alternative approaches against those definitions.
 
The issue of morality and potential confrontation is why i'll probably continue wearing my exemption lanyard
 
Docb said:
The problem i find with this lot is that I have no idea just how useful masks are and i suspect those for them and those against them have no real idea either. The arguments for and against mask wearing make perfect sense in isolation but lead to irresolvable debate when set against each other. All you have is a shouting match based on opinion.

Wish there were some real definitions of terms and numbers that compared alternative approaches against those definitions.
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People who claim absolute certainty about how all transmission happens are full of it & safely ignored. But as part of a layered "Swiss cheese" defence, cloth masks indoors almost certainly reduce R by a bit, which translates into a whole lot of avoided infections in places with widespread community transmission.
 
Come back to my point. Much of this sort of argument continues because nobody thinks about quantified risk. So, all issues are either black or white. The probability of something happening is either 1 or zero. The world just does not work like that except perhaps in the minds of PR merchants and PPE graduates from Oxford.

What I would like those involved in this debate to do is to provide estimates of the probability of getting infected under any given set of circumstances and how then demonstrate how that probability would be affected by the wearing of a mask. I would also like to know the level of error in those estimates. That way I could make my own mind up and not have to listen to all the bull pooh being promulgated by the various factions in the powers that be trying to score points off each other.
 
Docb said:
Come back to my point. Much of this sort of argument continues because nobody thinks about quantified risk. So, all issues are either black or white. The probability of something happening is either 1 or zero. The world just does not work like that except perhaps in the minds of PR merchants and PPE graduates from Oxford.

What I would like those involved in this debate to do is to provide estimates of the probability of getting infected under any given set of circumstances and how then demonstrate how that probability would be affected by the wearing of a mask. I would also like to know the level of error in those estimates. That way I could make my own mind up and not have to listen to all the bull pooh being promulgated by the various factions in the powers that be trying to score points off each other.
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There's some relevant data & references in the CDC guidance: https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/science/science-briefs/masking-science-sars-cov2.html
 
Hi Eddy. You have re-introduced the R number! Back at the start it was the thing which told you all you needed to know about the pandemic. It disappeared when it dawned on the classics graduates in charge that understanding what was going on could not be encapsulated into a single number. You needed at think about at least two or three measures and the statistical errors associated with their estimates. Far too technical for the poor dears. Better to revert to point scoring debate.
 
Docb said:
Hi Eddy. You have re-introduced the R number! Back at the start it was the thing which told you all you needed to know about the pandemic. It disappeared when it dawned on the classics graduates in charge that understanding what was going on could not be encapsulated into a single number. You needed at think about at least two or three measures and the statistical errors associated with their estimates. Far too technical for the poor dears. Better to revert to point scoring debate.
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I think R is pretty useful when you have widespread community spread and you don't have granularity on actual transmission chains. Anyway, all the epidemiologists I follow still reference it.

BTW, don't be too hard on classics graduates. I did two years of classical Greek & being able to chant the first 20 lines of the Odyssey in the original makes me feel secretly special.
 
Agree about the R number with the proviso that it needs to be used by people who know what they are doing.

Look at you in a new light, Eddy, with that revelation about the Odyssey. I doubt whether any of the classics graduates in charge over here had anywhere enough talent to get that far!
 
I have been wearing a mask as it was required - logic had nothing to do with it.
 
Lucyr said:
The issue of morality and potential confrontation is why i'll probably continue wearing my exemption lanyard
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I'd be doing the same thing in your position.
It's a sad reflection of where we are in society at the moment that you would even need to consider doing this.
Hopefully over the next few months things will start to settle down.

I suspect we're going to see a rapid increase in cases for a while once all restrictions are removed and then hopefully it will settle down.
If we can then get through the winter without major issues and into next Spring without a major resurgence then I think we can start to properly put this behind us.
 
Amity Island said:
I still can't believe they brought mask wearing in. Like you say, it's being indoors, breathing in shared air with infected people where the risk lies. I too have been saying this from the very beginning. When they brought the masks in last year, cases soared.

Now "they" are soon to be letting us breath again without masks. Something which should never have been taken away to begin with.

It does make me wonder what "they" can get the public to do which has no scientific reason or justification. How far can they go in getting the public to follow baseless acts? It's been like a mass hypnosis. We've left all reason behind. We've been prevented from thinking and acting for ourselves.

Like you said @pm133 why has scientific reason been ignored? As I have said before, why have the opposition been silenced throughout this pandemic?
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That second sentence is the precise reason why covid waves keep hitting us despite obsessive mask-wearing. It's shared air in poorly ventilated areas.

Why has scientific reasoning been ignored?

Two reasons in my opinion.
Firstly, they don't trust Joe Public to observe social distancing without being reminded there's a pandemic around.

Secondly, the government scientific advisors are dominated by behavioural experts. The latest fad is this "nudge" theory nonsense. Good luck trying to change anyone's mind once they start believing things like this. There's this idea that you can manipulate people towards what you have in mind for them at low or zero cost. Masks absolutely serve that purpose - a visual reminder to socially distance. It's deeply insulting but most people don't know this is what is happening.

You also asked about the opposition? Everyone is in the same boat. They're all scared of being seen to make a mistake. Politically they have no better idea about how to overcome covid than the Tories. Same with the SNP in Scotland. Same with Labour in Wales and same with the coalition in Northern Ireland. No country has managed to get anywhere with covid. Each wave is bigger and longer than the last. Vaccines are, in my opinion, the only route out short of going for full herd immunity and taking the hit. No opposition is ever going to advocate that.
 
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Amity Island said:
Yes very important. It's been very devicive. We shouldn't be judging or assaulting others who prefer to breath naturally, as we were designed to do. Its incredibly worrying that those who we trust to be honest and truthful to be acting with integrity, to be acting in our best interest are doing anything but that.
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People don't know how to debate AI. They don't get taught in school and so they learn only from the internet. This is something rich people are much better at. Because people don't know how to debate, they see every question about their views as a challenge to them personally. You're not defeating their argument, they see it as though you are crushing, demolishing, slam-dunking, annihilating etc. them personally. The view is that in arguments, people are not taking an oposite view to you, they are idiots, bigots, scum, filth. Rather than attacking the ideas, the person gets attacked. And so people get ultra-defensive. That then provokes a similar response and you then have polarisation over everything. You only need some of that to spill out from Facebook and Twitter into a pub at closing time amongst drunks and you have violence on your hands. During the Scottish Independence and the Brexit referenda, families actually broke up over this type of thing. Incredible really.

Politically, certainly in my lifetime, there's never been a period where the choice of available leader of the country was so poor.
Are we seriously supposed to believe that the best two people to choose from to run the UK out of 65 million people was either Boris Johnson or Jeremy Corbyn? I suspect there has never been a worse choice than that for Prime Minister.
 
Docb said:
Come back to my point. Much of this sort of argument continues because nobody thinks about quantified risk. So, all issues are either black or white. The probability of something happening is either 1 or zero. The world just does not work like that except perhaps in the minds of PR merchants and PPE graduates from Oxford.

What I would like those involved in this debate to do is to provide estimates of the probability of getting infected under any given set of circumstances and how then demonstrate how that probability would be affected by the wearing of a mask. I would also like to know the level of error in those estimates. That way I could make my own mind up and not have to listen to all the bull pooh being promulgated by the various factions in the powers that be trying to score points off each other.
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Ideally the side mandating a legal requirement for something would have provided this evidence to justify inconveniencing everyone but that didn't happen in this case.

Personally, I have to say that I'm only interested in giving my opinion, hearing others opinions and having a bit of to-and-fro discussion. I'm not in the game of trying to change others opinions, force my opinions on them or hold anything against them for having a different view.

Some of us have a background which enables us to make more informed judgements about masks than others but everyone else, in the absence of full information, should just make their best judgment and act accordingly.

Best of luck to everyone in England tomorrow. Everyone else is watching with bated breath and crossed fingers to see how it goes.
 
Interesting @Bruce Stephens

It certainly doesn’t seem to be a straightforward or easy question. And as that Trish Greenhalgh twitter thread explored, standard RCT models don’t really apply.

This graph of observational data from early on caught my eye though. Not necessarily causative. But certainly interesting.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1414294302314930178

By the time we eventually brought masks in, I suspect the horse had bolted and the graphs were already poised to soar.
 
According to this report only FFP3 face masks protected the staff 100% against covid - this level of filterstion is what you need when handlijg asbestos. Not sure what the tweet above from the professor is based on. If you want real protection for yourself from the virus - I’d buy a certified version of these and nothing else. My pack is on order.

www.bbc.co.uk

Covid: Masks upgrade cuts infection risk, research finds

Wearing a high grade FFP3 mask can almost entirely protect health workers from Covid, research finds.
www.bbc.co.uk
 
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