Only disposable paper surgical masks (actually disposed of after single use!) worked (if the definition of worked was "reduced the transmission of at least droplets when coughing"), or real masks like KN95 or N95 certainly worked.
Those cloth masks that were reused every day did far more harm then good, especially if they were not washed. They did nothing against the pressure race of a cough, and most transmissibility was via aerosol anyway, not droplets.
The politics simply distorted the science, like when we saw Executive staff wearing logoed blue cloth masks more as a fashion statement than any real science, while subjecting the wearer to reduced air flow, exacerbating things like asthma or cardiac issues, and trapping some virus and random bacteria in a cess pool of saliva in a cloth mask that got saturated within minutes.
It's a real shame that people who knew better didn't say, "these masks work and these other masks are worse than no mask at all."
Politics took over and both sides were trapped by the nuance, and the result is a stain on the history of science and public health.
> Led by researchers from the University of Maryland School of Public Health (SPH), results showed other masks also performed well, blocking at least 70% of viral particles from escaping from the source – an infected person’s exhaled breath.
> Cloth masks also outperformed both KN95 and surgical masks. Milton theorizes that cloth masks with greater coverage, wrap around the face and give a better seal than either KN95 or surgical masks. With cloth mask filters, flow resistance is also lower, allowing breath to pass through the filter and not leak out the sides of the mask.
It sounds like those cloth masks are not the style or not worn the way 99.9% of people did. And your quote doesn’t say how often they need to be washed or material or thickness
> It sounds like those cloth masks are not the style or not worn the way 99.9% of people did.
What in the studies are you basing this on?
> And your quote doesn’t say how often they need to be washed or material or thickness
Everyone I know washed theirs at least daily. Perhaps we should've done better "how to wear/wash" education, but we generally don't need regular PSAs to remind people to wash their underpants.
Only disposable paper surgical masks (actually disposed of after single use!) worked (if the definition of worked was "reduced the transmission of at least droplets when coughing"), or real masks like KN95 or N95 certainly worked.
Those cloth masks that were reused every day did far more harm then good, especially if they were not washed. They did nothing against the pressure race of a cough, and most transmissibility was via aerosol anyway, not droplets.
The politics simply distorted the science, like when we saw Executive staff wearing logoed blue cloth masks more as a fashion statement than any real science, while subjecting the wearer to reduced air flow, exacerbating things like asthma or cardiac issues, and trapping some virus and random bacteria in a cess pool of saliva in a cloth mask that got saturated within minutes.
It's a real shame that people who knew better didn't say, "these masks work and these other masks are worse than no mask at all."
Politics took over and both sides were trapped by the nuance, and the result is a stain on the history of science and public health.