New Covid wave has begun and masks should be worn again, scientists warn
Spread of new variant could cause extreme pressure on NHS and cause more damaging long-term health problems, Sage expert says
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Our track record dealing with covid shows us that our approach was largely unsuccessful. Masking must be enforced, not suggested. This is the only effective solution.
I tend to agree, but realistically who is going to enforce it? You've got to take into consideration the impact the constant stream of conflict has on low level employees who end up responsible for this enforcement. For those who want to protect themselves, N95 masks are highly effective when used properly.
You also need to wear eye protection. Even just regular, prescription glasses showed a 30% reduction in infection rates. Masks don't protect if other people wont also wear them.
I hate this
I'm struggling to understand how glasses work wear a mask wouldn't. I'm not saying glasses won't help prevent people spitting Covid into your eyes. But how can you believe that and think wearing a mask won't help at all?
Right, it's not going to be accepted by the public or broadly enforced by anyone. The only thing we can do is wear effective masks to protect ourselves. That's basically been the reality of it the whole time.
who is going to enforce it?
In an ideal world, the community. In our current world, the government must require businesses to require customers to wear masks and social distance, and threaten them with suspending their business if they do not comply.
the impact the constant stream of conflict has on low level employees who end up responsible for this enforcement
It will not be constant. Places where this was enforced strictly did not have that trouble. It is the wishy-washy enforcement that empowered people to do this. It will be a short lived protest that dies out quickly, and the suffering will be far easier than that of covid deaths.
For those who want to protect themselves, N95 masks are highly effective when used properly
From my understanding, it is not enough. A person sharing a public space with you and not wearing a mask poses a threat, and this threat is massive if they are carrying the virus (even if non-symptomatic).
People must not have the freedom to cause the death or others by spreading respiratory viruses due to childish irresponsibility because their favorite youtuber said so.
Make good paying security jobs whose sole purpose is covid enforcement (joking) (maybe) (people who refuse to mask make me angry as fuck. It's such a low effort way to save lives)
You mean like in China?
And then read this (the follow-up to this widely misinterpreted study)
Love seeing your dumb ass post the same redacted study over and over and over again.
It’s not redacted you dumb ass.
Read it. Then read it again.
You need to reread it more carefully.
“I know you are but what am I.” Ok. Maybe try posting something substantive that argues towards something useful.
People were such dimwits about it though. Even if you had a security guard at the entrance to every shop challenging people to wear properly fitted n95s, I'm certain heaps of people would remove it after they walked past just on principle.
The American culture is uniquely garbage because of the unique history of having a frontier for self serving pieces of shit to murder a patch of land empty for themselves and assert their right to tell everyone to fuck off. When the frontier was exhausted the homestead became the small business. When the small businesses were absorbed, "you can't tell me what to do" became having a big truck and eating hamburgers with the motivation of spite.
We're also uniquely garbage because our nation was founded by a bunch of religious zealots who pissed off everyone in Britain with their dickishness so much that they were told to fuck off and be assholes somewhere else.
You clearly haven’t read anything about the American revolution. Stop spewing your bullshit in an attempt to elevate your holy thank everyone mantra. Have you heard of taxation without representation? The stamp act? Freedom of expression?
If you think the British had it right and the American colonies were in the wrong, you are clearly ignorant. The constitution of the US, once it was formed, reshaped the entire world in a more positive way.
I don't think (s)he was talking about the revolution so much as the founding of certain colonies. Massachusetts, for example.
The pilgrims were very different from the puritans
The pilgrims were Puritans. Not sure where you got the idea that they weren't.
Ah, you are upset it isn't authoritarian enough for your tastes?
The most expansive police and military state that's ever existed? Are you high?
And this is why I'm glad we're still federated.
Huh
I enjoyed their comment. If I was on lemmy.world I'd never have gotten to read it.
You people are such weird babies. It's a piece of cloth.
Yeah it was a shitshow, all because of how politicized it became. No one in 2018 would have thought that asking people to wear a face mask would become such an embarrassing ordeal.
But trust me, it's easy to catch a mask less person in a store. It shouldn't take more than a couple incidents before they learn their lesson and make an example for others.
We also need lockdowns where people are supported in staying home long enough to eliminate the virus, regular and updated testing, updated vaccines, free high quality accessible healthcare, and changes to make workplaces safe - like letting people work from home; changing in-person work to be socially distanced, and unlimited paid time off so people can get medical care when they need it.
The number of big babies who huffed and puffed at being asked to not stand on other people's feet. Unreal. As if keeping 6ft distance from complete strangers in the supermarket is a major request. Like, why do you need my body heat we don't even know each other.
And I want free food delivery, too!
Wow...
And we can concentrate those who refuse in special camps!
This but unironically
Remember 1984 where they all had to wear masks?
We can tell them to make a real argument or expect no acknowledgement
You people need to be stopped, you are insane autoritarians. The crisis is over, we are but fin to wear mask forever. You had your time in the lime light, now it's back to normal. Continue to abuse this position and you will not get the population to mobilise again to alleviate the situation.
Stop spitting on everyone around you gross person
Who let you out of your bubble wrap ? Get back inside !
I'm literally touching grass while writing this
I wish the "touch grass" thought terminating cliche could be retired; it seems to be the go-to for "normalcy" obsessed treatbrains that want to go back to brunch with no restrictions.
The crisis is over
That’s the thing. It isn’t.
It will never ever be under your criteria
your criteria
you mean, science?
Oh YOU are "Science" now ?
No, but the criteria are determined by science. You should check it out, that science stuff is real neat if you haven't heard of it before.
I prefer to believe the planes stay in the sky because of the druid rituals on the solstices.
A perpetual crisis is like a perpetual revolution, they are both temporary.
Once again we see the abled throwing tantrums over the idea of having to suffer a mild discomfort so as to protect the lives of the disabled, especially the immunocompromised.
I have an aunt whose immune system has to be medicated into nonexistence at all times so it doesn't wreck her body, and she is still fucked up from covid, months after "getting over" it and with multiple vaccine shots beforehand. How many people have you killed or left permanently ill, and never realised, in your selfish ignorance?
If there were any divine justice in this world, idiots like you would be smote with horrible autoimmune diseases or total organ failure, forced to go on anti-rejection drugs for the rest of your lives, and live with the same fear you force on others, the fear that any "harmless" disease could be the death of you.
Your aunt would have to protect herself covid or no covid. Do you think microorganisms only appeared in the last 5 years?
Your last paragraph shows your true self and how "caring" you truly are.
Stop bringing up imaginary malingerers to make your point, it's as ridiculous as your magical man in the sky delivering justice
imaginary malingerers
People exist outside of your suburban bubble, you laughably sheltered liberal ghoul.
your magical man in the sky delivering justice
Out of nowhere you just voluntarily announced you're a
style New Atheist with all the baggage of unearned arrogance that comes with.Are you stupid?
Protecting other people from death and disability is authoritarian.
we are but fin to wear mask forever
Guy there are better vaccines and anti-virals out there. Literally NO ONE is asking you to "mask forever".
Masking must be enforced
How authoritative. Personal responsibility is the answer. Not forcing others to your level. If your threat level is that high, ok that is your choice. However everyones threat level to this thing should take into account that not everyone in your community will be on the same page as you.
Unless you want another trucker convoy emerging, I suggest not forcing any mandates. Enforce any mandate on yourself, but only yourself.
No one must have the freedom to cause the death of other people by spreading lethal respiratory viruses, only because they failed to comply with every one of the million warnings about covid-19 and masks. Just because your favorite youtuber told you masks are bad does not give you the right to murder people. This behavior must be stopped at all costs, and I do not care what you think of it.
The CCP has entered the chat
Based
You are an absolute virus factory, you should never be allowed outside again. You stay home forever, we'll bring your food don't worry. We can't take the chance of your germs getting out again.
Hehe fun story. Anyways where's the argument? A
By going outside and interacting in the world will always have the risk of danger, injury, illness and death. The modern world is the most safest envoriment that have ever existed.
If restrictions do return, it will only cause more division and more protests. The trucker convoy that started in Canada was a response to the government overreach in Canada and across the west since politicians and the media were treating the population at large like children.
We are adults (And I assume you are also an adult), and therefore we can make our own decisions. You can wear a mask. Your kids if you got any can wear a mask. You can refuse to spend time with others who do not wear masks, you can refuse to work at a job that makes masking optional, you can refuse to shop at places that refuse to enforce a mask policy.
This behavior must be stopped at all costs, and I do not care what you think of it.
Alright, but many people do not care what you think and will disregard your strict stance on the matter. Not because they are "murderers" which is quite a claim to make, but because everyone has their own threat level. My advice is, include the fact many other people do not care about your threat model and not force your threat model onto every one else. The world does not revolve around anybody.
Personal responsibility is the answer if the question is, 'Would you like to contribute to millions of unnecessary deaths and further countless suffering?' It clearly doesn't work as a public health strategy.
There is no need for a public health strategy. This idea that we all must bubble wrap the world is insane. Germs and viruses will always exist. Do what is best for you stop getting mad at others who have different threat models than you.
I wish everyone used Linux, but I know that will never happen. I use Linux and will help anyone that wants to use linux and thats were it ends. I move on and am happy being a Linux user. I do not expect the government to force the population to use Linux to make a more digitial secure and private society, that will be insane and will piss off most of the population. Mandates are no different.
If we took this approach to those other germs and viruses that you mention, quality of life and life expectancy would plummet as fast as infant mortality shot up. There's nothing special about Covid in that regard except that it needs more respect than many other issues.
Edit: I edited my comment because I was a bit rude. I apologise for that.
The world will always have a hint of danger, and germs and viruses are included in this mix. Life expectancy did not increase due to public compliants to health measures, it increased due to things like soap, showering/bathing every day or two instead of every few months and the standard for hygeine in factories like meat plants. And medicine has come a long way to cure old nasty diseases.
Edit: I edited my comment because I was a bit rude. I apologise for that.
Don't know what you said but I do appreciate the apology.
I know what you're saying. But basic hygeine, etc, work against some illnesses while other health scares require different strategies (as well as good hygeine). I think we may be talking at cross purposes, working with very different models of the world and of what's possible.
If COVID was as bad as it was advertised. We would of seen the results in the world, and therefore people would voluntarily take the appropate percautions. No need for state intervention. If the pandemic was bad and the state did nothing about it, except maybe advise some caution which is how Japan mostly handled the pandemic, people will do what is nesissary.
Why does politics have to get involved? Because the government got so involved in the pandemic, that why it became politicial. Sometimes ignoring a problem like a virus you cannot really control is the best course of action and it will take care of itself in a grassroots sort of a way.
One of the smartest ways to win in the game Plague Inc is to make your virus have mild acute symptoms that are easy to dismiss or confuse as other things, and then really fucked up chronic symptoms later on. Symptom severity is not the same as underlying disease severity. The immune system doesn't always enter the panic mode entailed by a fever, in some cases because the virus has outsmarted it. HIV is a virus that starts as a cold, and then does all its damage silently. Judging a virus by its acute symptoms is one way to fuck around and find out
That's a good read, thanks. It's scary (a) how scary Covid is and (b) how bad public science/mathematics/health education is to lead so many people to confidently misunderstand the very basics of infection, disease, and statistics.
For one Plaugue Inc is a game. And most of the models that were made to project the outcome of COVID were way off.
Again, why does the state had to get involved? The government did not ban sex, needles or go on a hardcore ban on drugs back when HIV was the scare. HIV does still exist but has not wiped out the human race. COVID or any virus is no different. If we have like HIV 2.0, do what you want for any precautions as a personal threat model. There is no need to enforce it on others.
Yeah, we're definitely working with different models.
You are very, very wrong.
Read this review. https://www.cochrane.org/CD006207/ARI_do-physical-measures-such-hand-washing-or-wearing-masks-stop-or-slow-down-spread-respiratory-viruses
People like you shouldn’t live in the west. Fuck forcing people to wear a face rag when the science is far from clear on its effectiveness.
People like you shouldn’t exist in a functioning society that values human life, and you should feel lucky that the west is so backwards, violent and bloodthirsty that people like you are allowed to have a voice
For all non-plague rats, here’s cochrane’s follow up to this widely misinterpreted study
Listen, we went along for two years. Now we do said no. Don't ask again.
What are you gonna do, cry and shit your pants like you did last time?
Round up statists and love them very much
So another white, western temper tantrum? Very original, haven’t been dealing with that for 500 years straight or anything
statists
Libertarian that probably knows the ages of consent all across the prefectures of Japan detected.
libertarianism is a fake ideology to trick children and people with a child's brain into supporting fascism. Quick, I need to laugh, tell me what you think of nato.
It must be cool to be on the side of death & disability for the largest human catastrophe in your life time. Also one million percent you were not lockdowning and masking for two years straight.
Actually I was shuttng down anti maskers during the pandemic and now I have no problem shutting down the crazies who push in the other direction of insanity.
shutting down the crazies
Brunch-focused liberal ghouls stop being ableist to those that disagree with them challenge.
Difficulty level: social distancing and masking during a pandemic and maybe skipping brunch.
Hell yeah bro keep making sure people needlessly die. I personally like to fire a gun wildly in the air, but your shit works too.
Pandemic ain't over just because your lord and savior Biden said so.
removed, we ain’t asking
Well if you removed yourself from the situation then we're good. You're not there, therefore, there is no problem.
“I’m not on the side of death I swear”
“Uh maybe you should kill yourself and we won’t have a problem”
Really proving your point here huh
put on the fucking mask I don't want to see your wet hole
Don't ask again.
Okay.
Put the fucking mask on.Lol. Nah.
See Ukraine for how tankies will be dealt with from now on
By losing? Lol
Go step on a Russian land mine
did you just threaten to get your ass whooped
and you should feel lucky that the west is so backwards, violent and bloodthirsty
You really need to travel outside of your bubble sometime
I love people like you who will travel around the world, experience different cultures, talk to different people, and then somehow manage to have it just reinforce your biases and western exceptionalism. Do you really, honestly think that my opinions have been wholly formed by sitting on my ass in front of my computer?
I didn’t realize there were so many tankies on Lemmy. Go live in your dystopian land. I’ll enjoy my personal liberties and high standards of life. Thanks!
What you are linking was penned by Karla Soares-Weiser. That’s one fucking person against all the folk that actually wrote the article. Karla is just covering her ass because all the people like you are mad that the biggest and most respected journal came out saying that they don’t think masks make a different.
Also, take your hyperbole shit and stick it up your ass.
Except what she point out, as multiple people have, is that all the rct’s that that study look at are really only studying adherence to mask mandates, not mask themselves. They combined studies where people wore masks infrequently with ones where mask mandates were more complied with. Not to mention it ignores all mechanistic evidence, all of which points to masks working
It’s literally just the conservative thing that has been done throughout the whole pandemic, where they refuse to wear masks, and then when Covid continues to spread exponentially, they throw their arms up and go “look, masks don’t work!” I’d say it’s the lack of compliance that’s the issue
Your argument is tired and juvenile. It’s the classic “if only we masked up harder!”
Look at places like Japan. COVID spread there like wildfire. I guess they didn’t mask hard enough? Haha. No. Masks didn’t make a fucking difference in the most compliant place in the world.
Also, it’s not conservative versus liberal. Somehow masks got tied up in political theater, and now people like you use the mask to express your political affiliation. You love the mask because it expresses left wing to you, and you think that right wing is evil, so you become obsessed with masks. Maybe if we all recognized that one or the other side is not evil, and has no intrinsic connection to masks, we’d be better off.
Okay glad to see you’ve stopped trying to defend the Cochrane stuff.
Also what the fuck are you talking about? Japan was widely touted as a Covid success story. Including by conservatives who liked the fact that they never imposed a mask mandate.
I am not stopping a defense of the Cochrane review. It’s the best current study we have and it announces that it’s not clear if masks work. If we don’t know if they work, why should governments keep mandating them? They shouldn’t. Full stop.
Regarding Japan, here’s an article by the NYT: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/24/opinion/japan-covid.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare they talk about Japan’s success. Notice how masks do not feature heavily in the article.
Here’s another one that places your claim in doubt: https://www.cfr.org/in-brief/japan-covid-19-pandemic-response-restrictions-two-years
Finally, the total number of deaths in Japan and the US differ widely in large part because the two populations are, broadly, very different. COVID disproportionately effects overweight people. Ask anyone that worked in the hospitals during peak waves. The simple fact is that fat people don’t do well with Covid. Now ask yourself, is there an equal number of overweight people (%) in Japan to the US? No. People in Japan are far less overweight than people in the US. It’s no wonder, therefore, that the US fared worse because it’s population is move overweight.
I am extremely confused as to what you intended to prove with those two links. Masks were not mentioned by either, the second link barely discussed Covid and seemed to focus on foreign relations, and both agreed Japan’s response was a success, which contradicts your implication that it somehow wasn’t. And the first guy says he was supportive of the government’s guidelines, which included masks. So unless there’s something else against masks that he said, I’m gonna extrapolate that he is not anti-mask.
Ok, I’m gonna just skip over the whole blaming overweight people part and ask you - do you believe overweight people are more likely to spread Covid? Because we’re discussing spread, do masks work to combat spread. Japan had lower deaths but they also had lower cases. Was it also due to overweight people that Covid cases, not deaths, were higher in the usa. And maybe a lower case load has something to do with the lower deaths in Japan, more than overweight people. Japan’s mask usage was always extremely high, even without a mandate, and remains so.
And if you want to continue the Cochrane stuff-it’s not a study. It’s a meta analysis of a bunch of studies, all of which were pretty well-known prior to the Cochrane study, and the problems with them were already recognized by those studies’ authors. So the Cochrane study just lumps a bunch of poor quality studies into one poor quality meta analysis that even the Cochrane study authors write is inconclusive and probably would not have made the splash it has if it was not done by a bunch of brownstone institute anti-maskers who decided to go on a press tour saying their study said something that it didn’t.
Not to mention we have mechanical filtration studies proving the physics of mask wearing, so unless there’s something mystical about Covid, these studies still apply.
The point of those links is to show that masks are not the answer.
Ultimately, we are concerned about COVID causing deaths and serious harm. It does this for overweight people. Other people don’t suffer nearly as badly and COVID typically presents as a mild to mid level cold or flu. Consequently, it’s really not as big of a deal as we’ve been making it out to be.
COVID sucked mostly because of poor policy. I lived in a Canadian city with a strict masking policy and high compliance. The spread of COVID was massive. The hospitals in Canada were full and fucked way before Covid, so a few extra admissions completely broke their fucked up system.
I’m no longer convinced the whole world had to shut down and mask up. COVID policy fucked over the economy and people’s’ well-being. It has especially negatively effected those most in need.
Ultimately, I think people should wear masks if it makes them comfortable. I find masks to be uncomfortable, ugly, and ultimately anti-human, because I think the face is an important part of humans. Some people don’t seem to think this, however, so I understand I might be among a minority.
Finally, isolated physical tests on masks don’t represent well what happens in the real world. I don’t know about you, but I sure as hell wasn’t hermetically sealing the masks to my face and I didn’t see anyone else doing it either. The real-world usage simply wasn’t effective. It was political.
yeah, and I'm asking you how those links show that masks are not the answer. They don't even mention masks once. If you're telling me masks are not the only answer, then I agree. But masks are part of the answer.
Yes we are concerned about stopping deaths from covid. How do we ensure that covid deaths do not happen - by stopping the spread. Again, skipping over the whole conversation about "overweight people," I'm sure you agree it was not and was never only overweight people dying from covid. And even if it was, are you saying these people deserve to die? "Well, overweight people will die, but for everyone else it's just the flu so we shouldn't do anything."
Except it was never only overweight people dying, and even those who got covid and it only presented as a "mild flu" have dealt with long post-viral illness afterwards. Some people still dealing with post-viral illness from being infected in the first wave. So you also have to decide that you're okay with that.
I know nothing about Canada, but I don't understand your reasoning.
The hospitals in Canada were full and fucked way before covid, so a few extra admissions completely broke their fucked up system.
Okay, so you blame masks and lockdowns for that? That's exactly what lockdowns were supposed to mitigate - stop the spread so covid does not put more stress on an already overstressed system. We were dealing with the same thing here in the USA. So you admit covid stressed an overstressed system, but your solution is to...let covid spread more? Wouldn't that put more stress on hospitals. Or, as you say, well it only presents a mild flu for some. Okay...then why did it put so much stress on the hospitals in 2020 if it's not a big deal?
isolated physical tests on masks don’t represent well what happens in the real world.
Except those real world studies were all inconclusive. So we have mechanistic evidence that shows without a doubt that masks work, versus inconclusive rcts that need to be stretched by ideologues, beyond the conclusions of the authors, to maybe sort-of support that masks don't work.
I sure as hell wasn’t hermetically sealing the masks to my face and I didn’t see anyone else doing it either.
I did not have a mask that fit my face until just before the omicron wave. This was not a failure of masks. I argued to someone here (maybe you) that any mask is better than no mask. However, yes, some masks are better than others and if you're walking around in a loose fitting cloth mask you're getting very little protection, especially when no one else is taking any precaution. But, at least here in the US, we were first told that masks were unnecessary, then told we should wear a cloth mask, and then finally the baggy blue surgical masks were promoted, which was better but still inadequate. I don't know what it was like in Canada, but for us this was a failure of policy. There were contradictory statements, no real push to get people educated about masks, and of course poor masks were promoted. So you'd walk around seeing people wearing surgical masks below their nose, upside down. Then of course there was the issue where people were selling counterfeit masks, including n95s, that didn't work, so you had people also walking around with fake masks. And of course the whole issue at the start of the pandemic where we had a shortage of PPE.
There were a whole lot of policy disasters, many of which predated covid, but to blame masks and make the charge that they don't work because of those policy disasters makes no sense. Just in time manufacturing should never have been used to supply PPE, masks should have been promoted from the start (and "the start" should have been at least by early January, not March 15), and n95s should have been made easy to acquire with an education campaign to get people to wear them correctly. Instead we were all left on our own to try and sort through all the contradictory statements of the CDC and misinformation on the internet, fight with people at stores to even get a mask, do intensive research at home to figure out if your mask was even real, and then even once you did all that many people didn't even understand how to wear them. When I got an n95 finally it was late 2021 and I was working in a nursery school. As kids and teachers wearing loose fitting masks that they were extremely lax with began dropping like flies, I was getting tested weekly (because I was constantly exposed) and never got covid once. Masks work.
Curb your pseudo science. Use a real source.
Cochrane is a real source.
The report is being entirely misinterpreted. It does not make the claims regarding masks being ineffective that people think it does.
Here's a statement from them to that effect: https://www.cochrane.org/news/statement-physical-interventions-interrupt-or-reduce-spread-respiratory-viruses-review
Look at the date you dumb fuck. Then recognize that the Cochrane review is highly respected when it comes to public health science.
You people are ridiculous.
You ever gonna respond to people telling you your posts are a misrepresentation or are you just gonna call people dumb fucks? Kinda hard to trust someone posting like this.
I’ll happily respond to someone that refutes the Cochrane review in a logical and substantive way.
I know you're being combative so it's unlikely, but did you actually read both sources? One is a review of around 70 studies, before and during the pandemic, sonme unpublished. The other is a review of 5000 articles which found statistically significant results..
The responded article says this:
A total of 6 studies were included, involving 4 countries, after a total of 5,178 eligible articles were searched in databases and references.
They literally typed some shit into the journal search database that had that many articles. They didn’t study all of those articles. Their study is founded exclusively from 6 studies. The Cochrane review’s approach is far more comprehensive and goes into considerably more depth in many more studies.
So, maybe you didn’t read the articles? Or maybe you don’t understand population level, public health study methods.
Fair point, I did misread that. But it seems you're acting in bad faith with just one source again. Any search amongst published articles provide evidence for the efficacy and cost effectiveness of masks as a adjunct preventative measure. It seems rather like cherry picking to trust the one place that goes against the grain, no?