Back in the Reagan "Star Wars" days, a general came up with a plan to protect America from Soviet ICBMs using existing and proven technology. He suggested they launch some satellites with radar and a shotgun, essentially. The radar would detect and track a missile and puff out a cloud of BBs, essentially, in its path. A missile traveling at 6000 mph or more colliding with a slow-moving cloud of BBs would be destroyed. Easy stuff! And it couldn't be threat to ground targets because the BBs could never reach the ground. Wonderful! "So," the government asked, "how much will it stop?" "Oh," the general estimated, "probably at least 90%." They turned him down. They didn't figure 90% was "effective."
Multiple researchers have done studies on masks. Mayo did a study in November of 2020 looking at both distancing and masks. They found that masks were effective in blocking both transmission and reception of the virus.
"No, they didn't," would likely be the response. "For instance, at 1 foot with the target masked, 38% made it through. See? Not effective." That's because we're not defining "effective" the same way. Mayo's test that showed that less than 0.5% of the virus made it through at 1 foot separation when both were masked. In this version of "effective," that does not constitute "effective" because it wasn't zero.
Sadly, we're once again back to the problem of language and definitions. Usually I've seen it on the Left, but this time it's the Right. When the Left does it, it's with ulterior motives. What are the ulterior motives of the anti-maskers? "We won't be told what to do." "I demand my liberty." "My face is the reflection of God's image." I don't know.
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I believe I've seen this study before, or something very similar. Too bad the link doesn't go right to the actual research. I'd love to see how they separate droplets from aerosols and how they can tell the latter has failed to be drawn in or blown out through any mask most commonly used. If I can find the study, I'll get back to you.
In the meantime, "effective" is still greatly in doubt. I say this due to all the studies already out there that state that rather plainly. One of my favorite pieces dealing with the issue is from a guy who works with biochemical research. His description of his job put me in mind of Nicholas Cage's character in the film, "The Rock" in which he deals with weaponized biochemicals. The author stated the length of training and knowledge on masks alone, given the ease with which a mistake could kill him. The mask he wears is light years more complex than what even surgeons use and it isn't used for more than four hours or so. He goes into great detail with regard to how small a virus is, and how dense a mask must be to block its travel from one person to another.
Far more than droplets, which are also more affected by gravity, aerosols can float around for quite a while. Droplets, even the tiniest of them, are less likely to hang about in the air, and the moisture that makes it a droplet will evaporate rather quickly. The aerosol particles are the greater threat and the mask does next to nothing to impede its ability to move from one person to wherever it ends up due to its minuscule size. The bug through a chain link fence is a great analogy. Two fences mean nothing. Neither does three. Imagine how many one would need to totally block a bug from passing through, and you'll have an idea of the effectiveness of a mask against aerosol particles.
Now think of the droplets. Someone speaks, laughs, sneezes, coughs...how often are we so close to each other that two people unprotected are likely to breathe in what each breathes out? There has to be some directness in how they face each other as well as proximity. Consistency of breathing is also a consideration. We don't all breathe exactly the same for each breath and each breath is affected by how we're speaking to each other, our emotional state while speaking. Each of us sighs and occasionally takes in and breathes out deeper breaths. Did Mayo actually simulate all these variables to get to their conclusions? Again, I'd love to find the study.
As to "ulterior" motives, did you purposely intend to suggest that people have some hidden reason for not wearing a mask, as if they have a problem revealing it? How in the wide, wide world of sports would that be? Look at your little list and add a few dozen other reasons and effectiveness is still the most rational and evidence based reason for choosing to forego a mask. Yet any one of them are good enough in my book as I value personal liberty quite a bit. And I'm referring to why others express that reason. But here's a few other rational reasons that make the mandate over the top, to say the least:
-Survival rate of those affected is over 99%. Even the aged are near that while being more vulnerable.
-Rate of infection is far less than the constant proclamations of "new cases" suggests. The truth, as you know, is those numbers simply reflected positive tests, which are not the same as "cases" of the illness.
-Most info states those without symptoms aren't passing it around.
-Those who are symptomatic are supposed to be isolating themselves. What are the chances there are tons of sick people moving about as if they aren't? I'll bet there's hardly any.
-There's little said about improving one's immune system, which would make it all a moot point if more people did so.
-Since about the first month of this scare, I've not worn a mask more than a couple dozen times for the briefest of periods. I've not worried about who else was or wasn't wearing one. Thus far it seems I can catch a break easier than I can catch this virus.
-It has been shown that areas with the most restrictions have the same results as those that have the least, so...
There's more, but you get the point. There's not a reason I couldn't come up with nor learn of through my own studies on the subject that I've any reason to keep to my self, so use of the word "ulterior" seems a bit...suspicious.
Plainly you and I have different priorities. Yours is your personal liberties; mine are not. No value judgment; just an observation. So I'll only comment on this:
"Those who are symptomatic are supposed to be isolating themselves. What are the chances there are tons of sick people moving about as if they aren't? I'll bet there's hardly any."
I guess you and I live in different worlds. People who know they're sick but go to work anyway are extremely common in my world. An elderly woman from church was being diligently cared for by her daughter and son-in-law so much so that she wasn't allowed out. The son-in-law went to work where his boss knowingly came to work with COVID because "I didn't have any more sick time, so I had no choice." He infected the son-in-law who infected his seriously isolated, aged mother-in-law who died of it a month later. I have not found that people are wise in keeping themselves out of the public when they're sick. That must be a different world than mine.
"What are the chances there are tons of sick people moving about as if they aren't?" Very, very high. Very few companies encourage employees to not come to work while sick. If they do encourage staying home, they don't likely enforce it. They are a business. Their goal is to make money. They can't make money by sending people home. People need money to pay for things. Most people I know will still go to work while sick because they need that paycheck. And the people I know will make fun of people for not coming in when they aren't on their death bed. We do not live in a country that allows people to properly convalesce. The moment you start feeling better, you need to get right back in it, even though you aren't fully healed. I'm a mechanic. I work with my hands. I had on open fracture on a finger and they still wanted me to work instead of take workers comp time, even if it was just doing paperwork time. And I'm middle class, not living paycheck to paycheck. The lower class is definitely going to work sick, and they are the highest population.
"I guess you and I live in different worlds. People who know they're sick but go to work anyway are extremely common in my world."
I would wager less so nowadays. A few anecdotal stories doesn't change that.
David makes a similar error. It's not a matter of companies baby sitting, but to be sure, here's my anecdote. I pass a company that stops each employee in the parking lot to monitor them. They have their lot set up so that all must pass the check point, which set up two shacks for those masked monitors to do the job.
Over the last seven years, I've been sick with severe flu symptoms only once...about six years ago. I came to work, but my job doesn't require close contact with anyone in any case. I finally bailed after two or three days because of how severe it was.
Now, with people constantly scolding those who don't wear masks, it's absurd to say no one enforces the encouragement to stay home. Nobody's mocking anyone these days who stays home out of fear of having the virus regardless of whether or not the symptoms indicate one does.
Companies are more concerned with fake claims of illness or injury and this concern...because it's as common as anything, especially where sick days are paid...is a legitimate concern for any business, especially those with narrow profit margins. My company doesn't have paid sick days, and that's why I worked when I was sick. But I wouldn't now because if I was seen as sick, I would be mandated to quarantine and lose far more days of work as a result. Yet, I'd try to come up with another reason for needing the time off than to say I was sick.
Since I already failed to stand by my word that I was done at the other mask post, I decided to bring response here, because it also ties in with the point. 30% effective is not effective to those who succumb to the virus. In my "fart" example, the point is easily illustrated. Two layers of "protection" do not keep the stench from being "enjoyed" by others in the room. Imagine if that was something a bit more deadly than mere flatulence. This virus is regarded as the Black Plague and a mask of such low effectiveness is to be held up as essential? I would expect better if the virus is as bad as advertised. The narrative suggests we're all threatened, but the data says otherwise. If I'm asymptomatic, I'm no threat at all according to the best data, and as such, anyone unmasked isn't in trouble and all those who are are wasting their time.
Again, this is not to say that those who truly feel they're better off should be mocked. But the difference is that I'm willing to allow them to do what they feel is best. The issue is not really a matter of mask efficacy, but of government force without regard for individual liberty OR that individuals might actually understand the problem better than government. Radical, right? I mean, how can I possibly be wiser than government?
The numbers offered by science say that masks wouldn't be effective at all if we were just talking about a virus that is 1/10the the size of the holes in our masks, but given that the virus comes out in globules, they block 90% of the virus leaving your mouth (where the globules are bigger) and 70% of the virus that gets to your mask from outside (since the globules have evaporated a bit. In crude numbers, then, my mask then prevents 90% of the people who would have been exposed from being exposed while your mask (assuming no mask) enables 100% of those people to be exposed. Again, my mask = 10% and your no-mask = 100%. That 10% still get it, perhaps, is not perfect, but it's better than 100%, and that's effective.
Your fart example isn't helpful because gas and virus are different things. If you're saying it has to block everything, you're saying it has to suffocate you and that's certainly not the best approach in any book.
Oh, and asymptomatic does not mean no danger. I was asymptomatic and positive. In that 10-day duration I could have passed it on without ever knowing I had it. I know I had it not because of symptoms, but because of 1) a positive COVID test and 2) a positive antibody test afterwards. And since more than 40% might be asymptomatic, that's a fairly large number who never know they had it while operating as Typhoid Mary types.
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