A Public Service Post
Wearing masks as a public health practice has been accompanied by much disapproving hullabaloo and shouting by some private citizens.
Some politicians, seeking to curry favor with voters, have added their voices to this protest.
In an effort to dilute ignorance with a dose of rationality I offer the following re-post: ¹
Concerning The Effectiveness Of Masks
This sign, displayed in a local food store, seems worthy of consideration:
” A Food and Drug Administration (FDA) analysis of the flu indicates
that if 50% of the population uses a mask, virus transmission would be cut in half.
If 80% of the population uses a mask, the virus would essentially be eliminated.” ²
¹ beewhatyouiz.com, 09/02/2020, Ref: Covid19, Flu, and Similar Annoyances
² (Yang, Jin, et al. Modeling the Effectiveness of Respiratory Protective Devices in Reducing Influenza Outbreak. Wiley Online Library, Risk Analysis, 19 September, 2018. onlinelibrary.wiley.com/do/full/10 1111/nsa13181.)
Note the year of publication—2018—two years before the emergence of the covid-19 pandemic.
At that time, no one was interested in bending the public mind in any direction regarding covid-19.
The study deals with flu, caused by a virus.
To state the obvious, covid-19 is also caused by a virus.
To my layman’s mind, if a mask, worn correctly, is effective at blocking transmission of a flu virus, it is effective at blocking transmission of a covid-19 virus.
If, as some claim, masks are useless / dangerous to wear, then why are surgeons, surgical nurses, and anesthesiologists required to wear masks in operating rooms round the world, a present-day practice dating from a point in time far back into the last century?
For a thorough discussion of masks, with no hype, see the following:
https://www.usatoday.com/in-depth/news/2020/08/16/face-masks -what-makes-some-better-than-others-against-covid-19/5535737002/
beewhatyouiz 