To Mask or not to two - Mask Megathread cont.

I don't believe that you are "just interested" or else you would not have said "Do they have a professional interest in the topic?". Having a good go at my personality and activity in thread aren't you whilst not engaging with any of the post links.

You're right, I'm not going to get into a debate with someone questioning the medical opinion of HIQA, which was also reviewed by NPHET. Or are we not trusting the science now?

The HSE lead for IPC may well use that for an excuse in the future.

New plan sets out steps to end mass testing for Covid, starting with children.

It also notes that in addition to the impact on schoolchildren, the negative impacts of the current testing regime include delays in access to healthcare, undermining years of work encouraging self-care of viral respiratory tract infections, the uncomfortableness and inconveniences for many people of testing, the cost to the health service, and the environmental impacts of mass testing.

The overlooked conclusion from this French study which was not presented by the EAG to HIQA.

This data is sketchy at best, but a harmful picture is painted by the EAG none the less.

It's worth noting that 3% of injuries were attributable to falls secondary to bending over to pick up a dropped mask (all elderly patients, 150 in total).

Very young children will always stick things into bodily orifices just as the elderly will sometimes fall over when bending over.

Masks work to reduce transmission... even in remote Bangladeshi villages

Note that surgical masks here refers to the 'blue' disposable masks.

A voluntary scheme which did not reach majority levels of mask use led to 9 percent reduction in cases.

That seems significant - so if mask wearing had reached 60 or 90 percent would we see double or triple levels of case reduction? Or even more due to positive feedback loop?

Considering the cost and impact of masks versus other measures, other than vaccines, is there a better bang for buck measure than masks?

So masks work to reduce transmission - in Bangladeshi villages, in Arizona schools, in Australian cities... to cite some recent studies referenced on this thread.

Excerpt:

This ultimately tripled mask usage, from only 13% in control villages to 42% in villages where it was encouraged... The team found that the number of symptomatic cases was lower in treatment villages than in control villages. The decrease was a modest 9%, but the researchers suggest that the true risk reduction is probably much greater, in part because they did no SARS-CoV-2 testing of people without symptoms or whose symptoms did not meet the World Health Organization’s definition of the disease.

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-02457-y

No acknowledgement of the effectiveness of cloth masks from the study then? Does the Arizona study indicate what types of masks were used in the schools?

On the psychology and politics of wearing masks.

Throughout the covid pandemic, there has been a constant concern that the public would be the weak point in the response—either unwilling or psychologically unable to abide by the measures necessary to control the spread of infection. 

Sometimes, this concern has been expressed in specific (and racist) cultural terms. The freedom-loving British public, according to the government and others, would not wear the measures accepted by more conformist Asian societies. [1] In particular, we would not wear masks as (say) the Chinese are accustomed to do.....

All in all, then, the bottom line is that it is still wrong to use the growing, but still small minority who are refusing masks to obscure the large minority who are not, or to assume that public “fatigue” is a reason to abandon protective policies. It is not only wrong, but dangerous since, as I have previously argued and as ever more research shows, people’s assumptions about others mask-wearing (and adherence more generally) influences their own behaviour. Indeed, even if individuals believe in the importance of masks, they won’t wear them if they think others are not. .....

Perhaps most critically of all, policy and messaging are not separate things. Policy is messaging. It indicates the importance of a behaviour. That is why exhortations to wear masks in the summer of 2020 had little effect until legislation was introduced (leading, as we have seen, to compliance rocketing from some 20% to some 90%). But likewise, the removal of mask requirements sent a message in the opposite direction. If we want to enhance mask-wearing we need an alignment of government comms, government actions and government policy.....

What is more, these meanings have become highly politicised in some places. In an era of resurgent populism, the right have used masks as a core symbol of elite oppression. Masks become muzzles. [19] The requirement to wear masks becomes an act of silencing. The success of this narrative is reflected in the way that use of masks associates negatively with Trump voting in the US and with Brexit voting in the UK. [20,21].....

Well to be a bit closer to the truth lets say that every study has made claims that cannot be disproven since they refrain from making any concrete claims. In other words: Ye masks help or they should help, shouldn't they?, they couldnt actually make it worse, could they? so ye let's settle on 'they help'. (Shouldn't they?) But by how much or how little no one can say. So lets be on the safe side and not make any concrete claims but infer its obviously huuuuge.

The difference is that hand-washing, as well as being basic hygiene, is also basic decency after using the toilet.

I wasn't objecting to masks. My point is that the wearing of masks in non-medical settings has not been considered necessary in Western countries until recently. So why should it remain after vaccination of the general population is completed? Having said that, I consider that wearing a mask at an airport or on a plane or in a barber's shop (as well as in a hospital or a GP surgery) is something that can be lived with indefinitely.

Covid: Derbyshire school outbreak sees 18 teachers absent

It is unclear how many pupils, of which the school has about 2,000, are currently absent.

There has been a lot of madness during this but that is way out on its own. It's a piss poor manifesto and the Eire gives it away! Not right wing at all! They reserve the right to say it's your fault?! And why has it taken them till 3 weeks before we see some level of normality to "take action"?

Currently in the gym with about 60 other people. All maskless, all using the same equipment but if I want to stop at the shop on the way home I've to mask up.

Explain.

Absolute lol. Yeah ok.