Wear a mask - it's airborne!

Until ventilation laws are enacted and building owners roll out change to increase fresh air, HEPA/MERV filter stale air and use CO2 monitors to gauge proximate transmission risks, your only way to be confident about protecting yourself inside shard-air spaces is to wear a mask. We realize that most people in 2024 are not wearing masks for protection at all. Understand that a few people still are, and that they ignore the comments they get.

There were lies about masks and respirators from the start of the pandemic. Ignore them, all masks work, but they vary from 10% protective up to 99.9%. Here’s the definitive study: Masks and respirators for prevention of respiratory infections: a state of the science review - Greenhalgh et al, 2024.

N95, FFP2, KF94, KN95 and CN95

If you can afford it, get N95/KF94 grade masks (that are not cloth or washable) for use when mixing with other in public. Citizen Scientist, Aaron Collins, reviews masks for filtration effectiveness and talks about KF94 masks quite a bit, but there are many standards now.

From the fall of 2020 onwards, Aaron Collins with the equipment he had at his home tests high-filtration masks he’s acquired for filtration and leakage. One of the stars of “masks for all” in the pandemic.

We have known since the start that masks would help slow or stop even the pandemic

Articles in the pandemic supporting masks utilization:

Wikipedia Maintains a long page on mask use in the pandemic here

Goddard’s Journal - listing the “masks work” studies

Goddard’s Journal was among the very first to gather the studies that proved masks work. The author did work that many governments did not, disproving the lies told about masks.

Goddard’s first video - March 2020

Timings from start of video:

Goddard’s second video - October 2020

This was a follow up to the first, as noted at the start of the video. Timings from start of video:

Anti-Masker activities

Anti Masker groups are motivated by politics, hatred of your group/country, bad science, their own bad breath and more. They link to things they claim can prove their case.

Their bogus talking points:

Raina MacIntyre’s work in particular

Study ‘MacIntyre et al, 2015’, figures quite a lot as an anti-masker “truth”. Goddard’s Journal went into this study above. Meanwhile, Raina C MacIntyre is disgusted with mis-representation by anti-masker groups. She has published more in the last eighteen months to further indicate her science that masks actually work and that we should wear them:

Pre-pandemic articles suggesting masks in particular would work

Studies about masks and respirators

Studies of the use of masks/respirators, thread 🧵. From https://mastodon.social/@jmcrookston/111689874254752367

1. Systematic and meta-analyses of masks and respirators

This summary should be accurate but double-check yourself. Don’t forget all the limitations of meta-anslyses.

The following studies found a statistically significant difference between the data relating tomMasks/respirators and not. This suggests the result (that masks work in the contexts of these trials) was unlikely to be due to random chance.

The followng studes did not find a statistically significant difference between the data relating to masks/respirators and not. All we can say is we cannot rule out random chance for these results. Authors’ comments are noted.

Barycka. ‘Comparative Effectiveness of N95 Respirators and Surgical/Face Masks in Preventing Airborne Infections in the Era of SARS-CoV2 Pandemic: A Meta-Analysis of Randomized Trials’. PloS One 15, no. 12 (2020): e0242901. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0242901.

Kunstler, Breanne, Skye Newton, Hayley Hill, John Ferguson, Phillipa Hore, Brett G. Mitchell, Kathy Dempsey, et al. ‘P2/N95 Respirators & Surgical Masks to Prevent SARS-CoV-2 Infection: Effectiveness & Adverse Effects’. Infection, Disease & Health 27, no. 2 (May 2022): 81–95. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.idh.2022.01.001.

Smith, Jeffrey D., Colin C. MacDougall, Jennie Johnstone, Ray A. Copes, Brian Schwartz, and Gary E. Garber. ‘Effectiveness of N95 Respirators versus Surgical Masks in Protecting Health Care Workers from Acute Respiratory Infection: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis’. CMAJ: Canadian Medical Association Journal = Journal de l’Association Medicale Canadienne 188, no. 8 (17 May 2016): 567–74. https://doi.org/10.1503/cmaj.150835.

Chou, Roger, Tracy Dana, Rebecca Jungbauer, Chandler Weeks, and Marian S. McDonagh. ‘Masks for Prevention of Respiratory Virus Infections, Including SARS-CoV-2, in Health Care and Community Settings : A Living Rapid Review’. Annals of Internal Medicine 173, no. 7 (6 October 2020): 542–55. https://doi.org/10.7326/M20-3213.

Bartoszko, Jessica J., Mohammed Abdul Malik Farooqi, Waleed Alhazzani, and Mark Loeb. ‘Medical Masks vs N95 Respirators for Preventing COVID-19 in Healthcare Workers: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of Randomized Trials’. Influenza and Other Respiratory Viruses 14, no. 4 (July 2020): 365–73. https://doi.org/10.1111/irv.12745.

Long, Youlin, Tengyue Hu, Liqin Liu, Rui Chen, Qiong Guo, Liu Yang, Yifan Cheng, Jin Huang, and Liang Du. ‘Effectiveness of N95 Respirators versus Surgical Masks against Influenza: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis’. Journal of Evidence-Based Medicine 13, no. 2 (May 2020): 93–101. https://doi.org/10.1111/jebm.12381.

Offeddu, Vittoria, Chee Fu Yung, Mabel Sheau Fong Low, and Clarence C. Tam. ‘Effectiveness of Masks and Respirators Against Respiratory Infections in Healthcare Workers: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis’. Clinical Infectious Diseases: An Official Publication of the Infectious Diseases Society of America 65, no. 11 (13 November 2017): 1934–42. https://doi.org/10.1093/cid/cix681.

MacIntyre, Chandini Raina, Abrar Ahmad Chughtai, Bayzidur Rahman, Yang Peng, Yi Zhang, Holly Seale, Xiaoli Wang, and Quanyi Wang. ‘The Efficacy of Medical Masks and Respirators against Respiratory Infection in Healthcare Workers’. Influenza and Other Respiratory Viruses 11, no. 6 (2017): 511–17. https://doi.org/10.1111/irv.12474.

Iannone, Primiano, Greta Castellini, Daniela Coclite, Antonello Napoletano, Alice Josephine Fauci, Laura Iacorossi, Daniela D’Angelo, et al. ‘The Need of Health Policy Perspective to Protect Healthcare Workers during COVID-19 Pandemic. A GRADE Rapid Review on the N95 Respirators Effectiveness’. PloS One 15, no. 6 (2020): e0234025. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0234025.

2. Studies (not meta-analyses)

After adjustment for under-testing, mask mandates emerged as highly effective. Community masking saved substantial numbers of lives, and prevented economic costs, during the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic in Ontario, Canada.

https://academic.oup.com/pnasnexus/advance-article/doi/10.1093/pnasnexus/pgae065/7606553

Radonovich, Lewis J., Michael S. Simberkoff, Mary T. Bessesen, Alexandria C. Brown, Derek A. T. Cummings, Charlotte A. Gaydos, Jenna G. Los, et al. ‘N95 Respirators vs Medical Masks for Preventing Influenza Among Health Care Personnel: A Randomized Clinical Trial’. JAMA 322, no. 9 (3 September 2019): 824–33. https://doi.org/10.1001/jama.2019.11645.

3. Narrative reviews

Schünemann, Holger J., Elie A. Akl, Roger Chou, Derek K. Chu, Mark Loeb, Tamara Lotfi, Reem A. Mustafa, et al. ‘Use of Facemasks during the COVID-19 Pandemic’. The Lancet. Respiratory Medicine 8, no. 10 (October 2020): 954–55. https://doi.org/10.1016/S2213-2600(20)30352-0.