Do cloth masks do anything?

[mikewhitney]

I couldn't get over the overwhelming desire to suck my floor...

I know. One of those unexpected side effects. But all our homes are cleaner now.

[Mountain Man]

People who still don't understand how masks work by now are willfully ignorant.

Or, rather, how they DON'T work.

[oxmixmudd]

Source: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4420971/

Main outcome measure
Clinical respiratory illness (CRI), influenza-like illness (ILI) and laboratory-confirmed respiratory virus infection.

Results
The rates of all infection outcomes were highest in the cloth mask arm, with the rate of ILI statistically significantly higher in the cloth mask arm (relative risk (RR)=13.00, 95% CI 1.69 to 100.07) compared with the medical mask arm. Cloth masks also had significantly higher rates of ILI compared with the control arm. An analysis by mask use showed ILI (RR=6.64, 95% CI 1.45 to 28.65) and laboratory-confirmed virus (RR=1.72, 95% CI 1.01 to 2.94) were significantly higher in the cloth masks group compared with the medical masks group. Penetration of cloth masks by particles was almost 97% and medical masks 44%

Conclusions
This study is the first RCT of cloth masks, and the results caution against the use of cloth masks. This is an important finding to inform occupational health and safety. Moisture retention, reuse of cloth masks and poor filtration may result in increased risk of infection.

© Copyright Original Source

What say you?

I say it's a study related to the use of cloth mask by Health Care Workers. Everybody already knows cloth masks are next to useless in that setting. The point in wearing cloth masks is not to prevent virus from getting TO the wearer, the purpose of wearing cloth masks it to prevent droplets that are much larger than any pathogen but containing the virus from getting ejected forcefully FROM the wearer into the surrounding environment. And I've already posted many studies that show clearly they are effective for that purpose.

[Whateverman]

I say it's a study related to the use of cloth mask by Health Care Workers. Everybody already knows cloth masks are next to useless in that setting. The point in wearing cloth masks is not to prevent virus from getting TO the wearer, the purpose of wearing cloth masks it to prevent droplets that are much larger than any pathogen but containing the virus from getting ejected forcefully FROM the wearer into the surrounding environment. And I've already posted many studies that show clearly they are effective for that purpose.

It's like talking to a brick wall with some of these people...

[mikewhitney]

It's like talking to a brick wall with some of these people...

We need no-mask-required zones for the intelligent people. The other people can remain quarantined or can go to a few mask-required zones.

[Ronson]

Source: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4420971/

Main outcome measure
Clinical respiratory illness (CRI), influenza-like illness (ILI) and laboratory-confirmed respiratory virus infection.

Results
The rates of all infection outcomes were highest in the cloth mask arm, with the rate of ILI statistically significantly higher in the cloth mask arm (relative risk (RR)=13.00, 95% CI 1.69 to 100.07) compared with the medical mask arm. Cloth masks also had significantly higher rates of ILI compared with the control arm. An analysis by mask use showed ILI (RR=6.64, 95% CI 1.45 to 28.65) and laboratory-confirmed virus (RR=1.72, 95% CI 1.01 to 2.94) were significantly higher in the cloth masks group compared with the medical masks group. Penetration of cloth masks by particles was almost 97% and medical masks 44%

Conclusions
This study is the first RCT of cloth masks, and the results caution against the use of cloth masks. This is an important finding to inform occupational health and safety. Moisture retention, reuse of cloth masks and poor filtration may result in increased risk of infection.

© Copyright Original Source

What say you?

It makes sense that an infected person wearing a mask isn't going to be spraying any virus as far; when coughing, sneezing and even talking.

I've gotten used to wearing one now and don't mind it. I sometimes forget I am wearing it (it's a flimsy cloth one).