Danish Study Shows That Face Masks Provide Only Limited Protection Against COVID-19
Also, the FDA just authorized the first at-home COVID-19 test.
Last month, I reviewed the many reasons why mask mandates won’t work. In a nutshell, it is because those mandates’ success relies on humans to use and maintain those masks at all times…which, of course, dooms it to failure.
However, data on masks’ actual effectiveness has not really been persuasive for or against them. A Danish study has found face masks provide the wearer with only limited protection against COVID-19 infection.
In the study, which was carried out in April and May when Danish authorities did not recommend wearing face masks, 6,024 adults were divided into two groups, one wearing face masks and one control group.
After one month, 1.8% of the people wearing masks had been infected, while 2.1% of the people in the control group had tested positive, Copenhagen University Hospital said in a press release.
“The study does not confirm the expected halving of the risk of infection for people wearing face masks,” it said. “The results could indicate a more moderate degree of protection of 15-20%, however, the study could not rule out that face masks do not provide any protection.”
The media rushes to insists that masks must be worn anyway. The study’s authors were less than impressed by a mask’s effectiveness.
“Our study gives an indication of how much you gain from wearing a mask,” said Dr. Henning Bundgaard, lead author of the study and a cardiologist at the University of Copenhagen. “Not a lot.”
Dr. Mette Kalager, a professor of medical decision making at the University of Oslo, found the research compelling. The study showed that “although there might be a symbolic effect,” she wrote in an email, “the effect of wearing a mask does not substantially reduce risk” for wearers.
The Danish finding is also consistent with evidence from a study conducted by Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in cooperation with the Naval Medical Research Center. This research sought to test lockdowns, testing, and rigid isolation with 3,143 new recruits to the Marines.
The program was titled CHARM – COVID-19 Health Action Response for Marines. The testing conditions were rigorous and noted in the New England Journal of Medicine article.
All recruits wore double-layered cloth masks at all times indoors and outdoors, except when sleeping or eating; practiced social distancing of at least 6 feet; were not allowed to leave campus; did not have access to personal electronics and other items that might contribute to surface transmission; and routinely washed their hands. They slept in double-occupancy rooms with sinks, ate in shared dining facilities, and used shared bathrooms.
All recruits cleaned their rooms daily, sanitized bathrooms after each use with bleach wipes, and ate preplated meals in a dining hall that was cleaned with bleach after each platoon had eaten. Most instruction and exercises were conducted outdoors. All movement of recruits was supervised, and unidirectional flow was implemented, with designated building entry and exit points to minimize contact among persons. All recruits, regardless of participation in the study, underwent daily temperature and symptom screening.
The virus still spread despite all of these precautions:
The virus still spread, though 90% of those who tested positive were without symptoms. Incredibly, 2% of the CHARM recruits still contracted the virus, even if all but one remained asymptomatic. “Our study showed that in a group of predominantly young male military recruits, approximately 2% became positive for SARS-CoV-2, as determined by qPCR assay, during a 2-week, strictly enforced quarantine.”
In fact, when comparing the infection rate to Marines who did not undergo the COVID-Prevention regimen, nonparticipants actually contracted the virus at a slightly lower rate.
Clearly, masks and social distancing don’t work. However, early detection paired with the new and effective treatments will help. It turns out that the Food and Drug Administration just authorized the first at-home COVID test, which will help people make sensible isolation and social distancing choices.
The agency announced the authorization for the all-in-one test kit late Tuesday in response to a request by Kelly Lewis Brezoczky of Lucira Health, the California-based company that developed the test.
In a letter to Brezoczky, the FDA said the test meets the criteria for an emergency use authorization as there are no available alternatives and the product’s benefits outweigh its known and potential risks.
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Comments
The Reuters article you cited actually confirms and supports the reason for the policy. Masks are about source control, not personal protection. If the infected wear a mask, it reduces transmission greatly.
Basically, it’s like this:
-If you see a person not wearing a mask, they are only modestly increasing their risk of getting infected.
-However, if you see lots of people not wearing masks, they are collectively greatly increasing everyone else’s risk in their vicinity of getting infected.
I explained this with less detail when the CDC report about mask wearers getting infected came out and said I wasn’t surprised.
You are correct that it is doomed to failure because it is too reliant on faith in other humans. When one person who is hesitant to wear a mask sees others without, they pull the whataboutism of taking their own mask off. This spreads and makes entire areas unsafe.
This is why distancing has always been the more effective policy anyways (because the benefit is more obvious). The Marines study likely failed to support a stronger effect of distancing because despite metric distancing, the air they share in many environments is often not sufficiently refreshed.
The weakness of your argument is that the rate of infection of the Chinese Death Kooties is pretty much the same regardless of whether you wore a mask or not.
Or put another, more scientific way, wearing a mask does fuck all to ward off the Chinese Death Kooties.
Why its almost as if there are other mechanisms at play that weren’t affected by your determination to be a compliant sheep wearing a mask for the spread of the Chinese Death Kooties.
Mask DO NOTHING but prevent from spitting out you Jr.Mint into the surgical patient.
Seinfeld Clip – The Junior Mints
https://youtu.be/MwJqkorGam8
Or maybe to celebrate your pet turkey.
Richard Grenell
@RichardGrenell
6 people are allowed for Thanksgiving, but 30 are allowed for a funeral.
So I will be holding a funeral for my pet turkey that will pass away on November 26th.
Refreshments provided.
No, we don’t understand how CV19 is transmitted. You can’t say – wear a mask because it “reduces transmission greatly” because there is zero evidence this is the case. That’s in the study, it’s in every reputable study that’s ever been done about this virus.
The Danish study was a real-life look at how thousands of people interact during a pandemic, and the results clearly show that wearing a mask doesn’t give you a protection advantage at all over those who don’t.
Also, you don’t need a study to understand that a blanket “wear a mask” edict doesn’t do squat to greatly reduce transmission. Show me anywhere in America where mask mandates have greatly reduced transmission? I live in DFW Texas, where mask mandates have been in effect since the early summer. Cases are skyrocketing.
The Mayo Clinic just said that 900+ staff members have gotten CV19. Aren’t these people supposed to understand how to properly protect themselves, unlike the general citizenry?
The mask nonsense has people wearing them on bikes, outside alone, in cars alone. The fear put into people is absolutely disgusting and dehumanizing.
Please provide a URL to vendor documentation that any mass produced mask available to the public at large is certified for medical use and is certified to stop the transmission of diseases.
because if you’re not using a proper mask certified for the job you may as well just strap a strainer to your face and tin foil to your head. It’ll be just as effective.
And to the water droplet fetishists: airborne viruses, such as Winnie the Flu, don’t need water vapor to spread.
Nice job, completely ignored the study of the Marines wearing double masks. Didn’t even try to point out any flaws in the study just pretend it doesn’t exist.
healthguyfsu has been promoting the mask BS for months.
Let’s just refresh ourselves:
No actual study has ever indicated any reasonable effectiveness to wearing a mask regarding virus transmission in either direction.
Not one. Many studies prior to the chinaVirus have been done, many on the CDC website, and they all say the same thing. No use.
I agree that people who are suffering symptoms definitely should wear masks. Not only would the mask do a decent job of containing their coughs and sneezes, the mask would serve as a flag, warning others that the person is ill and should be avoided.
Otherwise, CDC (IIRC) states we have about 80%+ compliance with public wearing of masks. If they worked to much of any degree at all we wouldn’t be having Socialist/Communist Party controlled states, and some others, going to lockdown again because of significant increases in new infections. How “cases” are counted and whether the counting is accurate is another story. Elon Musk claims that he was tested four times and the result was two positives and two negatives. May I say he isn’t a fan of test accuracy?
And then there are the face rags. Anywhere from one to three layers of cloth of varying density, most rarely sanitized properly (if at all). Tie a handkerchief around the mouth and nose and call it having a mask on is a joke. I’ll grant that there is more efficacy if everyone was wearing a US standard N-95 Mask and either changing it out daily or following what was claimed to be a sterilizing regimen of running the N-95 through a microwave (don’t recollect how long). But we know that isn’t going to happen. Speaking of mouth and nose, wearing a face rag under the nose is 100% not effective. Nor is under the chin wearing the face rag in any way effective.
I am no longer young (Quid Pro Joe has me by two years). I know I will die sooner than later, so I choose freedom over obedience to any stupid rule which has little to no proven efficacy. If I get the Wuhan ChiCom flu, I get it and will either survive or not. But in the meantime I will live what remaining life the Lord grants me to enjoy. I’m not going to hug strangers (She Who Must Be Obeyed would not be happy if I go around hugging strange women and I generally don’t hug males not our children/grands/great-grands) and I don’t crowd people (never did before this Flu, why would I start now?). Living in a rural area and retired gives me much more latitude than those who must go to work each day.
When the “Pandemic” broke out and Democrat Leaders stopped telling people to dance in the streets of their cities’ Chinatowns, all of the world’s health organizations told earth’s population that there was no benefit and possibly harm from wearing face masks by nonhealthcare personnel in the general population. Many scientific studies were provided by these organizations to convince the public of the futility of face masks against a viral pandemic.
Since the No-Mask proclamation, I am unaware of a single scientific study that contradicts the original science studies supporting the No-Mask decree, however we are aware that the #techgiants are currently censoring any and all specific Covid-19 scientific studies supporting the original No-Mask decree. As far as the body of scientific studies is concerned nothing has changed since the original No-Mask decree.
This is one of the studies that I recall reading when reviewing the original No-Mask Decree: (Searching the study name in your browser will yield html & pdf links for this exact study)
Here, we review the evidence base on the effectiveness of nonpharmaceutical personal protective measures and environmental hygiene measures in nonhealthcare settings and discuss their potential inclusion in pandemic plans. Although mechanistic studies support the potential effect of hand hygiene or face masks, evidence from 14 randomized controlled trials of these measures did not support a substantial effect on transmission of laboratory-confirmed influenza. We similarly found limited evidence on the effectiveness of improved hygiene and environmental cleaning. We identified several major knowledge gaps requiring further research, most fundamentally an improved characterization of the modes of person-to-person transmission.
Nonpharmaceutical Measures for Pandemic Influenza in Nonhealthcare Settings—
Personal Protective and Environmental Measures
Jingyi Xiao,1 Eunice Y. C. Shiu,1 Huizhi Gao, Jessica Y. Wong, Min W. Fong, Sukhyun Ryu, Benjamin J. Cowling
Please remember this mask edict when the commies decide that economy needs to be destroyed because of green reasons.
Masking-up:
1. provides minimal Coroner Virus protection and maximal symbolic protection;
2. does not prevent Coroner Virus infection but does slow the spread increasing the infectivity timeframe.
Masking-up does very little good and ensures the C-19 virus and fear will be with us for a very long time.
Nice.
I’m sure our learned and thoughtful superiors, such as the esteemed governor Cuomo, will study this result carefully and then devise the perfect solution (for everyone but themselves): Since wearing a mask doesn’t work, from now on all Plebes will be required to wear TWO masks, at all times.
Also two pairs of gloves.
“The Reuters article you cited actually confirms and supports the reason….”
****
This? “..but said this should not be used to argue against their widespread use to prevent people infecting others.”
If so, not much confirmation….Last CDC mask update that I saw basically said same thing; masks don’t protect user but prevents spread. I have not seen any studies that support this assertion.
Recently read a short summary on my MGH news feed of a multi-country data base of health care providers. No surprise that they had 3 times infection rate compared to general population and PPE used didn’t seem to offer protection.
The reason you don’t see such studies is for that to be true a mask has to stop outgoing but not incoming virus transmission. That’s nonsense, there’s nothing about a mask’s physical composition that would create such an asymmetry.
I’d bet social distancing, of the kind being pushed to stop covid, is similarly flawed. If you’re in line at a store you walk through potentially contaminated air created by the person in front of you. To stop this phenomenon you would have to wait some unknown period of time for any contamination to either settle or be whisked away by airflow (preferably not in your direction!). Nobody does this, you step forward immediately, because lines are painful enough as it is without stupid separation markers on the floor.
I’d say, not so fast, when it comes to testing being effective. In fact, that was the primary determination of the Marine study. All recruits underwent the same quarantine, same cleaning, same distancing, etc. The difference between the study group and the control, was that the study group was tested in the middle of the quarantine, and the control only at the end. Those in the test group who tested positive were removed from the dorms to limit exposure to others. The researchers were directly testing whether learning of covid cases sooner made a difference.
It didn’t.
So masks don’t work, anyone with a functioning brain already knew that. It’s akin to using chain-link fence to keep the mosquitos out of your yard.
Have only wore a face shield all summer, been to a super spreader Trump rally once and working every week, still healthy and know no one who had it.
Flip a coin, but be sure to follow protocol. Also, don’t forget your goggles. The eyes are window to contagion.
Also:
Postoperative wound infections and surgical face masks: a controlled study
Masks have an intuitive appeal, with varying degrees of efficacy in time and space, in construction and wear, in different environments, with submicron and larger particles, with transmission modes.
Oh, well, when in Rome, I suppose. That said, beware of petri masks.
Effectiveness of Adding a Mask Recommendation to Other Public Health Measures to Prevent SARS-CoV-2 Infection in Danish Mask Wearers
Observational evidence suggests that mask wearing mitigates transmission of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). It is uncertain if this observed association arises through protection of uninfected wearers (protective effect), via reduced transmission from infected mask wearers (source control), or both.
…
A total of 3030 participants were randomly assigned to the recommendation to wear masks, and 2994 were assigned to control; 4862 completed the study. Infection with SARS-CoV-2 occurred in 42 participants recommended masks (1.8%) and 53 control participants (2.1%). The between-group difference was −0.3 percentage point (95% CI, −1.2 to 0.4 percentage point; P = 0.38) (odds ratio, 0.82 [CI, 0.54 to 1.23]; P = 0.33). Multiple imputation accounting for loss to follow-up yielded similar results. Although the difference observed was not statistically significant, the 95% CIs are compatible with a 46% reduction to a 23% increase in infection.
OK, I am really getting tired of the shell games. So, “Observational evidence suggests” is sufficient science to require us to all wear masks.
As I recall “Observational evidence suggests” was insufficient science for Hydroxychloroquine to be subjected to a meaninful study. Especially since we all know it causes heart problems, except for rheumatoid sufferers that have been using for decades.
The Danish Mask study very simply did not look at, measure, or test whether masking protected others from an infected wearer. The only evidence they gathered was on the infection rates of their masked and control cohorts.
Any conclusions or observations within the study, or drawn from the study of such effects are not based at all on this experiment itself.
“Limited protection”? The difference between the control group and the treatment group was not statistically significant (P = 0.33), so it’s hard to see how they can be categorized as having any effect whatsoever.
For those who are not stats nerds, the lower the p-value (which is between 0 and 1), the greater the likelihood that observed differences between treatment & control groups are not due to chance…meaning the greater the p-value, the more likely it is that any differences between treatment & control groups is random (and thus cannot be ascribed to the treatment). A p-value of 0.33 is certainly high enough for anyone to laugh at claims of efficacy.
Everyone WEAR A MASK!!!
Wear it in your car.
Wear it to bed.
Wear it in the shower.
But most important,
make sure it is ALWAYS worn snot side in!
I pretty much lost confidence in Federal Health Bureaucrats during the AIDS hysteria. First, we were told it would be the end of the world. That it would spread through heterosexual non-drug abusers. Oooops, Fauci was wrong.
Then we were told that we were homophobes if we were worried about our dentist or food preparer having AIDS. At the same time hospitals were using infectious hepatitis protocols for AIDS patients.
One thing I have learned is that Fauci is essentially turns out to be wrong. I think Trump’s biggest failing was not firing more incompetents and liars. He got crap from the Democrats and their propaganda organs no matter what he did, so he should have just fired these people. Comey, Mueller, Fauci, Birx and a ton of other frauds.
Did the study publish the number of amplification cycles used by their qPCR test? The UK’s new quick PCR tests recommend 40, which is brainlessly stupid.