Posted on 06/01/2020 11:34:13 AM PDT by dalight
The New England Journal of Medicine has published an article stating that wearing a mask outside health care facilities offers little protection from infection and assesses their true value as anxiety alleviation.
We know that wearing a mask outside health care facilities offers little, if any, protection from infection. Public health authorities define a significant exposure to Covid-19 as face-to-face contact within 6 feet with a patient with symptomatic Covid-19 that is sustained for at least a few minutes (and some say more than 10 minutes or even 30 minutes). The chance of catching Covid-19 from a passing interaction in a public space is therefore minimal. In many cases, the desire for widespread masking is a reflexive reaction to anxiety over the pandemic.
The calculus may be different, however, in health care settings. First and foremost, a mask is a core component of the personal protective equipment (PPE) clinicians need when caring for symptomatic patients with respiratory viral infections, in conjunction with gown, gloves, and eye protection. Masking in this context is already part of routine operations for most hospitals. What is less clear is whether a mask offers any further protection in health care settings in which the wearer has no direct interactions with symptomatic patients.
…It is also clear that masks serve symbolic roles. Masks are not only tools, they are also talismans that may help increase health care workers’ perceived sense of safety, well-being, and trust in their hospitals. Although such reactions may not be strictly logical, we are all subject to fear and anxiety, especially during times of crisis.
(Excerpt) Read more at legalinsurrection.com ...
“anxiety alleviation.”
That’s exactly how I’ve treated it. Not my own anxiety, but that of the Nervous Nellys that I may encounter over the course of a day. It’s not a big bother, and it helps keep them from unraveling in front of me.
When I went to my doctor a couple of weeks ago, he told me you’re not going to catch this outside. It’s not in the air, it’s not in the water, it’s not in the sand, sunlight will kill it; this is an indoor disease.
Considering that, it could be argued that the lock down helps transmission.
I have abandoned all COVID measures, and I do not intend to return to them, but if any business requests that I wear a mask, such as my dentist has, I will do so. Furthermore, I will not shame anyone for wearing a mask, excluding Joe Biden, nor will I shame anyone for not wearing a mask. Enough of this nonsense.
Remind any jerks complaining that you are not wearing a mask about this sentence from the New England Journal of Medicine. The Mask Mandate is about social control, not medicine.
I can’t wear the things. I shop online and have groceries delivered or I pick up. May be forced one when we go back to work...don’t know yet.
“The chance of catching Covid-19 from a passing interaction in a public space is therefore minimal.”
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I doubt you’ll find many in the health world who would claim they prevent someone from getting it - the rationale they use for masks is that it helps prevent a spreader from passing it on. i.e. it’s not about protecting the wearer from getting the virus, according to them.
I have a particularly comfortable one, but it makes me look like Hannibal Lecter. Oddly, that doesn’t seem to make people feel uneasy these days.
NEJM should tell this to all the non-healthcare companies that mandate mask-wearing.
What about non-healthcare companies making masks mandatory?
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“...but if any business requests that I wear a mask, such as my dentist has, I will do so.”
OK, I’ll bite. How the hell can a Dentist do anything if you’re wearing a mask?
I don’t know about indoors/outdoors but there are verifiable cases of transmission on public transit from passengers coughing or sneezing with no face to face interaction. Why bother to cover nose or mouth at all if masks offer no definite protection ?
It bothers me. I’m it wearing a mask and scaring my children to feed into someone else’s paranoia or moral posturing
i work in the health care field and most of us see it for the ridiculous posturing it is
Seems very rational. Good post!
cover your cough with a tissue or hour elbow the. wash your hands. It will do S much or more than a mask
Agreed. But if it only makes it safe for sick people to be around others.. then mask wearing should be done by those who think they may have been exposed and folks who know they are sick shouldn’t be walking about in public.
Its like these lockdowns where heathy people are destroyed without doing one bit of good at preventing the spread of the illness because folks are concentrated indoors.. the only place its really likely to spread.
Masks have their place, and I believe we will look more like the Japanese with a smattering of foiks wearing masks all of the time. Cool. But, edicts requiring them are bunk and the people doing this are merely Tin Pot dictators.
ROFL
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