Real Data: Face masks dramatically reduce COVID transmission

runn wrote:

The whole political nature to any opposition to vaccines and masks is criminal.

The far right goes after intellectually vulnerable people and we have this ongoing pandemic.

In my county and the neighboring counties 0% of hospitalizations are vaccinated. Yes- 0%/ I always thought that was impossible.

It's a very small sampling- about 400 K people. But we DO have over 80% of over 18 year olds vaccinated.

Get the vaccine, wear a mask and we'll get through this.

Totally agree. I live in a pretty rural county where the vax'd population is barely above 50%. The local hospital is filling with Covid patients (again) and they share the data each day. Currently 88% of it's Covid patients are unvaxed. That number has been pretty consistent since this summer. It's interesting to me that the "Patriots" out there are proving to be the complete opposite, in refusing to wear masks or get vax'd.. and keeping the virus alive and moving through the communities. I see them strutting around the local stores as if they're proud to Not wear a "face diaper" until they land in the local hospital. FML

fell in love with a clown at a clown show wrote:

Not Real Data wrote:

None of those things are reducing the spread. Omicron is everywhere and everyone either has gotten it already (knowingly or not) or will get it. Prolonging the whole process only creates more time for more mutations to emerge that are evasive and problematic. Try accepting reality, do your best to stay healthy and move on.

your desparation to deny the effectiveness of doing absolutely anything to help society get through this pandemic is pathetic.

I wear a mask everywhere I am supposed to. I respect people's worries in my community in all ways. That does not change the fact the masks are ineffective and detrimental to the healthy development of children. It seems you choose to harm children for no reason. Your belief in fallacies is doing nothing except extending the length of this pandemic, something that could have ended 18 months ago

fell in love with a clown at a clown show wrote:

your desparation to deny the effectiveness of doing absolutely anything to help society get through this pandemic is pathetic.

We're all getting Omnicron. Even Fauci is admitting this.

And this is good = herd immunity =endemic.

Two years of this lockdown, mask wearing, vaccine passports and mandates BS and we're all getting it.

OMG!!! wrote:

Golrk wrote:

On Jan 5 I lost a friend to Covid. Maybe you could address this with his family?

One person died from the flu. One person died from a car accident. One person died from heart disease. Do you think that humans don’t die?

We're approaching 1 million Americans from Covid.. but of course you probably don't believe the statistics so there's no reasoning with people like you. I have 6 friends who have passed from Covid myself, so i know how impactful Covid has been. Also, our hospitals are filling again with Covid patients. Are you implying that this is all a show and they're really not sick with Covid?

carmine9 wrote:

fell in love with a clown at a clown show wrote:

your desparation to deny the effectiveness of doing absolutely anything to help society get through this pandemic is pathetic.

We're all getting Omnicron. Even Fauci is admitting this.

And this is good = herd immunity =endemic.

Two years of this lockdown, mask wearing, vaccine passports and mandates BS and we're all getting it.

Hmm...that's weird. Nobody in my house has gotten it. I've been going to gyms, running races, my kids are at school, we've gone to huge sporting events, the kids are doing activities...and we haven't got it yet.

We haven't been one of the cases in any of the spikes and waves. We haven't been the reason nurses are quitting and patients are left lying in hallways.

Wonder why that is.

Hmm.

Have not worn a mask for most of the last two years. No Covid until two weeks ago.

Wife and I got Covid over Christmas Break from some friends we had dinner with (at their house, would have never worn a mask no matter what at a friends house).

So no masks, no Covid for two years. Not scientific evidence of course.

Wife got tested and talked to doctor. Doctor says that the CDC just came out with new guidance. Cloth masks are less than 25% effective. It's really only the N masks that work.

So for two years people were suppose to mask up. CDC said so. CDC said the Science says it's true. They've been messing with their breathing, messing with how humans socially interact, storing up who knows what in those nasty petri dish masks they breath in all day. Then people come on here and preach how masks absolutely work, because they didn't get Covid. Not a scientific argument.

And now the CDC is quietly saying masks actually don't work, based on the Science, unless they are the higher tech, harder to find, more expensive N type masks. (which still don't work properly unless you are replacing them often)

The CDC also quietly came out with new data saying that more than 75% of all Covid deaths had four or more high risk pre-existing conditions. So the majority of Covid deaths have not been normal, relatively healthy people. Yet so many normal relatively people have been scared almost to death. Science.

Which brings us to this inane mantra of "Follow the Science!" You cannot put your full trust in Science. By its nature it is changing all the time. Much of the time Science is not fact. Maybe it is never fact. It is theory and hypothesis, being tested and then in some cases getting the best info available for now...until new research and discovery creates a new theory or hypothesis that resets everything. Like cloth masks that were supposed to be be highly effective against Covid that now are not. The Science you all want to trust absolutely is not remotely absolute. It is humans making guesses, sometimes testing those guesses to the best of their abilities and then providing guidance until something different is discovered.

carmine9 wrote:

fell in love with a clown at a clown show wrote:

your desparation to deny the effectiveness of doing absolutely anything to help society get through this pandemic is pathetic.

We're all getting Omnicron. Even Fauci is admitting this.

And this is good = herd immunity =endemic.

Two years of this lockdown, mask wearing, vaccine passports and mandates BS and we're all getting it.

The “everybody’s getting it” argument is moronic. Do you think it doesn’t matter if everybody gets in on the same day or if the case rate is slow? It matters. I’ve been in hospitals overwhelmed by Covid. There’s a lot of excess death and suffering that occurs, both among those infected and those with all other sorts of health issues. In addition, not only does vaccination attenuate the infection severity, so does masking. The dose of the virus you get matters too.

fell in love with a clown at a clown show wrote:

carmine9 wrote:

We're all getting Omnicron. Even Fauci is admitting this.

And this is good = herd immunity =endemic.

Two years of this lockdown, mask wearing, vaccine passports and mandates BS and we're all getting it.

Hmm...that's weird. Nobody in my house has gotten it. I've been going to gyms, running races, my kids are at school, we've gone to huge sporting events, the kids are doing activities...and we haven't got it yet.

We haven't been one of the cases in any of the spikes and waves. We haven't been the reason nurses are quitting and patients are left lying in hallways.

Wonder why that is.

Hmm.

Nurses are quitting over idiotic vax mandates. Your fault.

TL;DR:

"We didn't wear masks and got lucky until the virus started spreading faster, and then we were among the first people to get it, which makes sense, because we didn't protect ourselves at all, espcially around other people who had been exposed as well."

The results may very well be valid, but it's hard to tell when the study's methodology is summarized as looking at "empirical data". It's observational data, so you can't rule out confounding factors. People who mask are probably more likely to engage in other behaviors, like washing hands and sanitizing, that could lead to lower transmission rates. Plus, there's no info on the sample sizes within all those categories. I can't imagine there are many people who wear masks but still go to high occupancy, poorly ventilated gyms or karaoke bars.

It would be great to see an actual experiment on this where school districts, schools, or even classrooms within a given region are randomly assigned into different groups: no mask, crappy masks, (K)N95 masks and compare the results. If we're all about "following the science", let's put it to the test.

Wise Old Man wrote:

carmine9 wrote:

We're all getting Omnicron. Even Fauci is admitting this.

And this is good = herd immunity =endemic.

Two years of this lockdown, mask wearing, vaccine passports and mandates BS and we're all getting it.

The “everybody’s getting it” argument is moronic. Do you think it doesn’t matter if everybody gets in on the same day or if the case rate is slow? It matters. I’ve been in hospitals overwhelmed by Covid. There’s a lot of excess death and suffering that occurs, both among those infected and those with all other sorts of health issues. In addition, not only does vaccination attenuate the infection severity, so does masking. The dose of the virus you get matters too.

The longer it takes the more likely newer evasive variants will emerge. Most hospitals are fine. Large fractions of the "hospitalized" are people in the hospital for other reasons testing positive because they are forced to take a test.

Wise Old Man wrote:

carmine9 wrote:

[quote]fell in love with a clown at a clown show wrote:

your desparation to deny the effectiveness of doing absolutely anything to help society get through this pandemic is pathetic.

We're all getting Omnicron. Even Fauci is admitting this.

And this is good = herd immunity =endemic.

Two years of this lockdown, mask wearing, vaccine passports and mandates BS and we're all getting it.

The “everybody’s getting it” argument is moronic.

It's not an argument. It's a fact. And virtually nobody needs to go to the hospital for omicron. Vaccines and masks do not slow omicron's spread. Even Fauci has said this.

It's coming to an end. Unclear to me why this bothers you. Isn't that a good thing?

We're approaching 1 million Americans from Covid.. but of course you probably don't believe the statistics so there's no reasoning with people like you. I have 6 friends who have passed from Covid myself, so i know how impactful Covid has been. Also, our hospitals are filling again with Covid patients. Are you implying that this is all a show and they're really not sick with Covid?

The people are coming into the hospitals WITH COVID not because of COVID. Please learn the difference. Omicron is not very dangerous and we will all be exposed. Take care of your body, don't be a fat a$$, take your vitamin D and zinc often (especially if you are in northern cloudy states or you are a POC). Last but not least, stop watching the news and being concerned with COVID unless you have 4+ comorbidities or are elderly.

Cocoliso wrote:

The results may very well be valid, but it's hard to tell when the study's methodology is summarized as looking at "empirical data". It's observational data, so you can't rule out confounding factors. People who mask are probably more likely to engage in other behaviors, like washing hands and sanitizing, that could lead to lower transmission rates. Plus, there's no info on the sample sizes within all those categories. I can't imagine there are many people who wear masks but still go to high occupancy, poorly ventilated gyms or karaoke bars.

It would be great to see an actual experiment on this where school districts, schools, or even classrooms within a given region are randomly assigned into different groups: no mask, crappy masks, (K)N95 masks and compare the results. If we're all about "following the science", let's put it to the test.

The whole study is a model not based on assumed expected outcomes, not real data.

Not Real Data wrote:

Wise Old Man wrote:

The “everybody’s getting it” argument is moronic. Do you think it doesn’t matter if everybody gets in on the same day or if the case rate is slow? It matters. I’ve been in hospitals overwhelmed by Covid. There’s a lot of excess death and suffering that occurs, both among those infected and those with all other sorts of health issues. In addition, not only does vaccination attenuate the infection severity, so does masking. The dose of the virus you get matters too.

The longer it takes the more likely newer evasive variants will emerge. Most hospitals are fine. Large fractions of the "hospitalized" are people in the hospital for other reasons testing positive because they are forced to take a test.

The sooner we all get omicron the better

Not Real Data wrote:

Nurses are quitting over idiotic vax mandates. Your fault.

The ones who are quitting over mandates can go.

The ones who are quitting over 2 years of burnout because they keep dealing with idiot patients who wail away on message boards about how Covid is a hoax, until they get it and up on a ventrilator and beg for a vaccine, and then die?

Those are on you, buddy.

sorry..The whole study is a model based on assumed outcomes, not real data.

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real data wrote:

In study, unmasked groups showed triple the transmission rates:

https://www.denverpost.com/2022/01/12/where-how-catch-covid-risk/

Just stop the nonsense, misinformation peddling, like madman Fauci.

Day 1: Fauci laughs at people looking for masks

Then: Fauci laughs at people wanting N95 but says we need 10-cent masks

Now: Fauci laughs at 10-cent masks and says we need N95

Creep. Murdererous. Thug. Profiting off of your stupidity while making potions to slaughter our people and change them for ever.

fell in love with a clown at a clown show wrote:

carmine9 wrote:

We're all getting Omnicron. Even Fauci is admitting this.

And this is good = herd immunity =endemic.

Two years of this lockdown, mask wearing, vaccine passports and mandates BS and we're all getting it.

Hmm...that's weird. Nobody in my house has gotten it. I've been going to gyms, running races, my kids are at school, we've gone to huge sporting events, the kids are doing activities...and we haven't got it yet.

We haven't been one of the cases in any of the spikes and waves. We haven't been the reason nurses are quitting and patients are left lying in hallways.

Wonder why that is.

Hmm.

Grow up. Do you think you'll never get Omicron, or any virus ever again? Sorry if you were convinced you'll never get Omicron.