The Science is Conclusive: Masks and Respirators do NOT Prevent Transmission of Viruses

Research.net ^ | 4/20/2020 | Dr. Denis G Rancourt, PhD

[MayflowerMadam]

Rush reported about a doctor’s wife who had WuFlu symptoms. She was diagnosed with Covid, without being tested. Hubby was told to see her so, basically, they could say their goodbyes.

Her hubby insisted that they test for everything. Turns out, no Covid. She had Legionnaires Disease — as a result of wearing her mandatory, and oh-so-scuzzy, mask. She was “cured” and home in one day.

[glennaro]

You would have to prove negligence on the part of the business owner or individual AND prove that the business or individual was the proximate cause of you contracting the flu ... very difficult to prove. THEN you need to have actual monetary damage to have a chance to collect anything. Taken together, not a tenable position (or a valid argument to support mandatory face-diaper wearing that does nothing to stop the virus germs.

[PLMerite]

"They wear masks to prevent spreading relatively large pathogens such as bacteria, not viri which are so small they cannot be seen with an optical microscope."

Do the viri come out as individuals or in great big globs?:

[Outlaw76]

I like that one a bunch also.

[Grandpa Drudge]

The following is straight from the FDA

https://www.fda.gov/media/136702/download

downloads a PDF titled:

FDA COMBATING COVID-19 WITH MEDICAL DEVICES

And in the masks section is the following statement:

Currently, there are no FDA-cleared or approved barrier protection devices that are available for use by HCPs when caring for or performing medical procedures on patients who are known or suspected to have COVID-19 in healthcare settings to prevent HCP exposure to pathogenic biological airborne particulates.

https://www.fda.gov/medical-devices/personal-protective-equipment-infection-control/face-masks-and-surgical-masks-covid-19-manufacturing-purchasing-importing-and-donating-masks-during

Face Masks and Surgical Masks for COVID-19: Manufacturing, Purchasing, Importing, and Donating Masks During the Public Health Emergency

Q: Is there a difference between a mask and a respirator?

A: Masks and respirators both cover a wearer’s nose and mouth, but they differ in several aspects.

Masks are loose fitting and may not provide full protection from breathing in airborne pathogens, such as viruses.

Face masks (non-surgical masks) may not provide protection from fluids or may not filter particles, needed to protect against pathogens, such as viruses.

They are not for surgical use and are not considered personal protective equipment.

Surgical masks are fluid-resistant, disposable, and loose-fitting devices that create a physical barrier between the mouth and nose of the wearer and the immediate environment.

They are for use in surgical settings and do not provide full protection from inhalation of airborne pathogens, such as viruses.

[moehoward]

Bookmark

[palmer]

The vast majority of viruses don't infect you. Most are defective and can't infect you, some die in the open, many die as they contact your warm body. That's why your body runs a fever, to more efficiently kill viruses. The only way to get infected is for enough viruses to survive and replicate in your cells to start to overwhelm the numbers that die.

That's why it takes a 1000 or more particles to get infected. You could easily get all 1000 in a small droplet that reaches you, but most won't be viable. It takes many small droplets full of viruses to get infected. Exposure over time is critical. The choir praactice (socially distanced without masks) lasted two hours. One asymptomatic person infected over 80% of the antendees. Contrast that with the salon where nobody got infected from the two salaon workers. Everyone wore masks and the one infected salon worker infected the other because they spoke at length without masks.

It could wekl be that there was insufficient time in the salon by each customer to achieve an infection. About 1/2 hour versus two hours of singing (singing produces lots of droplets and requires deep breathing which gets more droplets into the lungs.

In short, the masks stop some droplets. The don't stop virus partcles and nobody claims that they do. They stop some of the droplets containing thousands or millions of virus particles. The larger the droplet, the more particles, the more likely the mask will stop it. The mask stops some of the outgoing droplets, not just some incoming. We don't know the percentages but in some cases it appears to be a sufficient percentage to prevent infection.

On the flip side, of which there are many studies, there are studies showing that intermittent mask use is worse than no mask at all. But the same study showed that consistent mask use was better than no mask. However that study and most other studies only evaluated masking the uninfected. Masking the infected people (including asymptomatic) is rarely studied.

[Grandpa Drudge]

Well, palmer, there seems to be no end to your persistence.

I have presented well documented, scientific, facts and conclusions, as well as cautions of well known problems and health issues for some from wearing masks.

I will leave it to other readers of this thread to judge whether any of your latest reply meets that standard.

[palmer]

In comment 145 you basically repeated "may not provide full protection" a bumch of times. I agree completely. Masks don't provide full protection.

[Grandpa Drudge]

Well, that wasn't me, that was copied directly from the official FDA guidance.

So why do you keep insisting that masks must be worn for protection, yet you provide exactly ZERO scientific evidence regarding how much protection they provide? "Pseudo-science" ranting and speculation is what got us into this fear mongering and pandemic panic in the first place.

Let me remind you, once again, what the real scientific evidence is, as in my previous reply to you (post #126, above).

"Results: Between September 23, 2008, and December 8, 2008, 478 nurses were assessed for eligibility and 446 nurses were enrolled and randomly assigned the intervention; 225 were allocated to receive surgical masks and 221 to N95 respirators. Influenza infection occurred in 50 nurses (23.6%) in the surgical mask group and in 48 (22.9%) in the N95 respirator group"

The pretty obvious fact is that even the more effective N95 respirator did not provide any better protection from influenza viruses than surgical masks, and the simple fact that in that 10 week test 23% of both groups got infected with influenza indicates any protection from viruses by masks is very minimal, at best.

[nanook]

Well said brother.

[palmer]

Influenza infection occurred in 50 nurses (23.6%) in the surgical mask group and in 48 (22.9%) in the N95 respirator group

Here's what some other scientists said about that study and others they looked at in https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6993921/: "We found no evidence that the more expensive, irritating and uncomfortable N95 respirators were superior to simple surgical masks" which is what you said.

Just before that they said: "Implementing barriers to transmission, such as isolation, and hygienic measures (wearing masks, gloves and gowns) can be effective in containing respiratory virus epidemics or in hospital wards. "

Your suggestion that " 10 week test 23% of both groups got infected with influenza indicates any protection from viruses by masks is very minimal, at best." may be true, but it doesn't say anything about what would happen without masks which is up to 50% infection according to my paper.

[Grandpa Drudge]

Well, palmer, you insist "what would happen without masks which is up to 50% infection according to my paper."

It would really be nice if you could point to ANY scientific (not pseudo science speculation) to support that.

See if you can find something like this: (Similar to the actual test I cited for my posts)

Design, setting, and participants: Noninferiority randomized controlled trial of 446 nurses in emergency departments, medical units, and pediatric units in 8 tertiary care Ontario hospitals.

Set up a test between September 23 and December 8, don't use masks, and see how many nurses get infected with influenza in those 10 weeks.

If your speculation that masks would have prevented 50% of the infections, then this test would result in 196 infections (46%) in the 446 nurses on those 10 weeks (twice as many as the 98 (23%) that were infected in the masked test.

You say 196 without masks. I say less than 105. Wanna bet? (it was 98 with masks)

As I've pointed out before, there currently is NO scientific data (that the authors of this article or me could find) available today that indicates anything like that.

I have seen a scientific study that indicated well fitting respirators "might" reduce virus penetration in the neighborhood of 2% to 5%, which is nearly insignificant.

[palmer]

One problem with using emergency room nurses is they have a lot more exposure. The second problem is blinding the trial, using masks with holes so the wearers think they are wearing masks. Nor would the doctors testing for illness know which are which (double blind).

/ What usually happens instead is they choose a group from a hospital that uses masks and a group from a hospital that does not, as a matter of routine. But then there are many other differences that confound the results. The biggest one is that different hospitals have different amounts of exposure from different patient mixes.

But suffice to say there are many studies of mask versus no mask. Here's one: https://academic.oup.com/jid/article/201/4/483/860983 where:

Participation in both the FMHH and FM-only groups resulted in significantly fewer episodes of ILI than the control group, during weeks 4–5 in the FM group and weeks 4–6 in the FMHH group. The lack of protection against ILI earlier in the study period is of interest

In other words masks and masks plus hand washing worked later in the study but not early in the atudy. They believe that's because after a couple of weeks the subjects actually got serious about wearing the masks. They also cite the study you cited whch says the type of mask doesn't matter.

Note that the study is studing "household" mask use, not community use where there is briefer contact among strangers. But it would probably apply to salons, churches, and other situations where people are talking to each other for longer periods. The posit that the college dorms in the study are similar to the exposures that nurses get.

[Grandpa Drudge]

Where better to test than where the exposure is obvious and easily measurable? Furthermore, there is no "blinding" involved in the test I proposed, simply measuring the degree of infection in a particular environment in a specific period.

And before you object, I will note that the proposed environment is NOT artificial or unusual, it exists today as described, in many places.

And "masks with holes"!? Where does that nonsense come from? There was NO such nonsense in the scientific test I refer to, nor the test I proposed to you.

The study you referenced here is simply more of the same "pseudo-science" as in your previous posts.

For the benefit of other readers of this thread I point out that focus on "pseudo-science" is one of the most effective tools used by "political scientists" to influence public opinion, and in the case of this pandemic create fear and misguided perceptions to support their political bias.

[palmer]

The point of blinding is to get a better experiment. That's why people getting a treatment or a placebo don't know which they got. In double blinding, the doctor evaluatong them doesn't know either. Double blind with random assignment is the gold standard. That's why masks with holes have value.

Your assertion that the experiment they did on the college students is "pseudoscience" is not specific. What makes it pseudoscience, and what changes would make it not pseudoscience?

As for political bias there is certainly a lot of that around and people promote the science that supports their bais and ignore the rest. I don't have much counter evidence in my profile so I'll have to add Al Asmary:

Furthermore, we found that intermittent use of surgical-type masks was actually associated with more than a 2.5-fold greater risk of infection. It is possible that once a facemask is worn in the presence of an infected patient, the mask could become contaminated with infectious material and touching the outside of the device could result in hand transmission of the infection to the respiratory tract during nose-rubbing. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S120197120600124X

I think that study's conclusions are probably sound, that regular mask use was not statistically significantly helpful, and intemittent mask use was worse than no mask. That applies in some cases here, and not in others. It depends on how people handle contaminated masks.

[Grandpa Drudge]

Palmer, your blubbering has nothing to do with any of my points, and I will waste no more time trying to help you understand that.

Instead, I'll just drop this example of pseudo-science on you, and let you figure it out for yourself.

Updated: The Miserable Pseudo-Science Behind Face Masks, Social Distancing And Contact Tracing

https://www.technocracy.news/the-miserable-pseudo-science-behind-face-masks-social-distancing-and-contact-tracing/

[palmer]

They use a WHO Dr as an authority on the science? Becxause she backpedalled on her statement that masks don't stop sources? That's pretty lame. The guy is a conspiracy promoter. Then he says:

In a recent Technocracy News article authored by highly-respected neurosurgeon Dr. Russell Blaylock, MD titled Face Masks Pose Serious Risks To The Healthy, he concluded, “there is insufficient evidence that wearing a mask of any kind can have a significant impact in preventing the spread of this virus.” (Blaylock represents real science.)

I read the linked article: https://www.technocracy.news/blaylock-face-masks-pose-serious-risks-to-the-healthy/ The article is basically an argument against wearing masks, not against source control. The author, Blaylock, states:

As for the scientific support for the use of face mask, a recent careful examination of the literature, in which 17 of the best studies were analyzed, concluded that, “None of the studies established a conclusive relationship between mask/respirator use and protection against influenza infection.”1

He refers to a paper. Here's the paper: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1111/j.1750-2659.2011.00307.x which states:

None of the studies we reviewed established a conclusive relationship between mask ⁄ respirator use and protection against influenza infection. Some useful clues, however, could be gleaned. Subanalyses performed for one of the larger randomised controlled studies in a household setting found evidence of reduced rates of influenza-like illness if household contacts consistently wore the mask or respirators

Note the difference in the bold text. In short Blaylock is not telling us the whole story. And the guy who quotes Blaylock (your link) is a conspiracy promoter. You need better sources.

[Grandpa Drudge]

Palmer, it amazes me how you can quote a bold statement such as “None of the studies established a conclusive relationship between mask/respirator use and protection against influenza infection.” and then continue to cherry pick pseudo science conclusions that suggest it is not correct, and that instead masks DO somehow protect from viruses.

You have yet to provide any link to any "scientific" evidence supporting any proof of benefits from rules that masks should be worn by all.

And I'm pretty sure you won't, or can't, because no one else has done so either.

Put up or shut up.

[palmer]

When I bolded two statements in my previous comment, I was highlighting the difference between the two. The first stops short. The second is the full statement from the study. The full statements includes some benefits of masks..

You have yet to provide any link to any "scientific" evidence supporting any proof of benefits from rules that masks should be worn by all

I linked to this one: https://www.mm.dk/misc/maskermv.pdf Take a look at figure 1. There's not much benefit to masks or masks + hand washing over no masks. But there is non-zero benefit.

Also science doesn't provide proof. There is evidence for mask benefits in some studies. Others like Al-Asmary show that intermittent mask wearing is worse than not wearing a mask. None of these are proof, only evidence for and against. How that evidence applies to our case is a little uncertain. Are we more like a college dorm? Or more like the Hajj. Also the Hajj study doesn't include source control, so it is less applicable.