Lots of early data, but this preceded the major outbreaks in places like Cali where masks and lockdowns were prevalent, so it's missing a major portion of the Covid data. That is what lead my back to older studies that seemed to indicate there was essentially no benefit for non medical grade masks. Initially it did seem like there was a good benefit, but as time has gone on and more data has arrived my intuition seems to feel like the benefit from the mask is more mental/behavior related than truly a major physical barrier impeding infection. My intuition is based off of watching people's behavior and the significant behavior differences between the groups of people who heavily adhere to masks and to those who don't. I'll keep looking for newer studies, but the issue I have with them as I am reading them is that some feel like they are biased and might not want to indicate if non medical grade masks have little benefit as in the case of the studies that were done prior to covid.
yup, the spreading of the virus among young people who want to party was unregulated once you close down the bars and clubs / restaurants . they'll throw massive house parties such as some were reported by Airbnb where some people rented for party houses. it's not like the 65 and up club are throwing Steve Aoki like parties throwing pies in people's faces. my 'sources' indicated there underground parties and gatherings because of the strictness. at least if you open up a bar with restrictions, they have to comply or get kicked out. young people don't care about political parties, they only care about real parties
Because of all the cross-currents - like you said, mask-wearers probably also are better in other areas of avoiding social contact - it will probably be years before we have any kind of detailed studies. But there's lots of anecdotal evidence that points to it. For example, while restaurants and bars have been identified as hotspots for spread, that doesn't seem to apply to restaurant or bar employees - and they just happen to be masked. Nor does it apply to other places with extended close contact but with masks (barbers, trains, airplanes, etc). And while mask wearing in public remains high, our major surges are generally correlated with periods where people spend a sudden increase in time around (1) people they normally aren't around (2) indoors (3) not wearing masks. Ie, holiday periods, when it first gets cold in different places, etc. I think as the pandemic has gone on, even people who are hardcore about mask wearing in public probably have decreased their mask-wearing around friends and family, just due to sheer exhaustion. And that's where Covid seems to be spreading the most now - so we have fewer of the super-spread public events, but we have lots more day-to-day non-masked personal contact. While the data from the studies may be suspect or not perfect due to all these other factors, there's not really any data looking at Covid spread that suggests masks *don't* help, and whatever data we do have suggests they do.
nope, don’t do that. “Cali” is a many-splendored thing. In SF, w harsher rules and adherence, masks, quarantines, and distancing really worked. Los Angeles? Very little adherence, and an outbreak. Same w Central Valley and many rural communities. As @malakas said over a year ago, it’s ultimately about the people in a community and not just the government guidelines.
There were also those studies in controlled lab environments with animal models showing similar effects of masks reducing viral spread. I think the science supports masks work. But you need people to wear a proper mask correctly, which too many don't.
Lol I'm not doing a thing. I was out in San Diego in early November 2020 and it was pretty much dead as a door nail. Pretty depressing walking in the Gas Lamp District with everything boarded up and drugged up homeless zombies everywhere. Little Italy and Crestwood wasn't as depressing at least. We went out there not knowing they had major curfews and restrictions. My friend who lives in SD told us everything was open and normal but forgot to include the part about curfews and restrictions . I can't speak for LA, but my friend who lives there said everything in the Malibu area was pretty much shutdown. We were in Dallas a month before that just to hang out for the Texas OU game and Dallas forgot covid existed. Minimal restrictions, no curfew, streets were packed, loosely enforced mask rules. I haven't been to Florida, but I'm guessing it was the Thunderdome. When we put it all together Cali, Texas, and Florida all roughly had equal (within 10%) outcomes in their covid experience but very different approaches overall.
https://carsonnow.org/story/04/05/2021/carson-city-arrests-woman-allegedly-threatens-shoot-husband-over-him-getting-vaccin Officers spoke with the husband who said the woman was angry at him for receiving the vaccination and started calling him names and throwing objects. He stated at some point the woman grabbed her pistol from a drawer, pointed it at him and threatened to kill him and threatened to kill herself. The man said he retreated to the backyard. A deputy attempted to gain further information about the incident and advised the woman of her Miranda rights. The woman told the officer to shove it up his ass and refused to answer any further questions. Bail: $20,000.
Maybe it's the lack of oxygen from wearing a mask everyday, but I am getting increasingly optimistic about the return to normal with more and more people getting vaccinated. I have been fully vaccinated since early January and I am looking forward to everyone else having that opportunity soon.
Eh, we may just agree to disagree. You seem pretty confident in the "it doesn't matter" conclusion, but lumping states together based on a couple of anecdotes doesn't sound that persuasive. I've been in NoCal, SoCal, and the Central Valley this year each probably more time than you had in San Diego. And they've had very different responses and outcomes in practice. I was in SoCal when the **** hit the fan and it was not a ghost town when I was there a year ago. People couldn't get the seriousness into their convenience-obsessed heads. Bay Area was a different, science-obsessed ball game. Anyway, let's take our anecdotes out of it. For data, compare two large urban counties that had fairly distinct approaches and different cultural responses to the pandemic. San Francisco County has suffered 488 total COVID deaths. Mask wearing and protocols have been mostly observed. Restaurants for take-out only until recently, etc. And people mostly followed these rules. Yeah, it was painful in practice, but it was also nice not to have many sick people. (That same death rate would mean about 300,000 fewer Americans would have died of COVID, for what that's worth.) Milwaukee County, (about 10% more than SF County population), much more lax in the pandemic about protocols, and they've had over 1300 deaths, 260% SF's total and more like the American average death rate per capita. I'm trying to make meaningful comparison if you want to argue a policy --> outcome link, because something the size of a state has a lot of variation in it. Why did the policies help people in San Francisco county? Luck? Lame variants? Because everyone was too busy OD'ing in the streets from fentanyl (maybe actually, cry out loud)?
You won't see Ted Cruz call that a Covid spreading risk. They aren't the ones he's worried about spreading Covid at the border.
Not an attack on you because I know you try to look at all this objectively which is way more than we can say for most people, but you wondered earlier in this thread why people criticize you and this is it. You want detailed studies showing mask effectiveness to support that argument and look for holes in the studies you find. But you'll rely on random anecdotes to support your "maybe masks aren't that effective" view. It just seems you're not as rigorous looking for data that supports your intuition or what you want to believe than the opposite.
We just had our first family gathering in over a year for Easter. Every adult was vaccinated, so we'll see how it goes.
