Support NeoGAF

[BadBurger]

Face masks considerably reduce COVID-19 cases in Germany

Mitigating the spread of COVID-19 is the objective of most governments. It is of utmost importance to understand how effective various public health measures are. We study the effectiveness of face masks. We employ public regional data about reported severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus...

www.pnas.org

Research article originally posted 12/03/2020: https://www.pnas.org/content/early/2020/12/02/2015954117

Imagine the good Biden's proposed 100 days of mask wearing could do alongside the rollout of vaccines.

 

[SlimySnake]

everyone here is already wearing face masks. I havent seen a stranger's face since March.

But then again i dont go to bars and restaurants. those should be closed. just do carry out like we did back in March. its impossible to eat with a mask on and impossible to hook up with a mask on.

 

[TrafalgarLaw]

It's a shame there is so much opposition to face masks by dumb hicks and facebook ghouls.

 

[INC]

It's a shame there is so much opposition to face masks by dumb hicks and facebook ghouls.

Its a minor inconvenience at best for me

Only use it to fill up my van with fuel, its 2mins of my time.

Hardly a muzzle lol

 

[H4ze]

That's why we are called efficent. But unfortunately there are more and more dumbfucks, trying to protest the use of masks, even in Germany.

 

[Dr_Salt]

BuT mUh MURicAn FReeDomS!!

 

[diffusionx]

More gaslighting. The key point of this "study" is that masks work because people believe they work.Like I said, masks are a talisman of the covid religion at this point. The article also just basically says, well any reduction in case counts is due to masks, because the government didn't mandate anything in addition to masks. Well sorry that is ridiculous.

We find statistically significant and sizeable support for the general perception that the public wearing of face masks in Jena strongly reduced the number of incidences.

Everyone has worn masks in New York, which is corona bootlicker central, for eight months at this point. Cases are going up. Now, if they want to describe some specific behavioral differences to explain this, or why, for example, Los Angeles saw exponential case growth *after* the mask mandate went into place, they can do so. It happened in many different regions and places. Because that's what they need to explain instead of just banging the same drum over and over. This is ridiculous at this point.

 

[Magenta Mage]

I've honestly been really surprised at how widely adopted masks have been here in the US. At the start of this thing I really expected that most people wouldn't bother, but it's really rare now that I see people not wearing them when I go out.

 

[Stiflers Mom]

Hmm, I am not convinced.
There was also a massive lockdown going on back then.
How do you even measure that.

Also, everybody is wearing masks right now and infection numbers are exploding.

I don't say that masks don't work, just that I don't see how they deducted this.

 

[diffusionx]

I don't say that masks don't work, just that I don't see how they deducted this.

Obviously you can't run observe two universes, where one side has masks and the other side does not. So what they did was look at this one city or region, Jena, where they imposed a mask mandate (and only a mask mandate) and then constructed a control based on other regions. And then looked at infected cases based on that as well as predicting where the cases would go in the first region based on exponential growth. They then assumed the mask mandate was the reason for the discrepancy between the other regions and the modeled numbers because that they surmised that was the only change (this is the key flaw of their approach IMO).

Here seems to be the website for Jena, it looks like it is in English (can't do much research past that because I don't speak German), and it looks like they are dealing with increased COVID case counts right now, in spite of the mask mandate, almost like it's flu season and the virus is spreading like the flu. The numbers are very small but the question always comes back to who are they testing. They're probably only capturing 1-10% of total actual COVID infections.

Coronavirus

The health department Jena informs about the coronavirus.

gesundheit.jena.de

 

[Shubh_C63]

Wait. Did it took this long for them to bring awareness about Masks or even making them mandatory ?

 

[Lionel Richie]

I don't say that masks don't work, just that I don't see how they deducted this.

Have you ever asked that question in reverse? Like how you deducted that masks don't work? (assuming that is the case of course)

 

[Hudo]

Except for my neighborhood, where the people are behaving like wearing a goddamn fucking mask is the hardest thing one could do and generally is a faschist tool that our dictatorship uses to turn our country in a police state. Those are the same people who threatened to molest children on their way to school to talk to them about not wearing a mask in school. Fuck each and every one of these people.

 

[Maxwell Jacob Friedman]

More gaslighting. The key point of this "study" is that masks work because people believe they work.Like I said, masks are a talisman of the covid religion at this point. The article also just basically says, well any reduction in case counts is due to masks, because the government didn't mandate anything in addition to masks. Well sorry that is ridiculous.



Everyone has worn masks in New York, which is corona bootlicker central, for eight months at this point. Cases are going up. Now, if they want to describe some specific behavioral differences to explain this, or why, for example, Los Angeles saw exponential case growth *after* the mask mandate went into place, they can do so. It happened in many different regions and places. Because that's what they need to explain instead of just banging the same drum over and over. This is ridiculous at this point.

what other restrictions do they have right now in NYC?

 

[mcz117chief]

Pure nonsense. We have mandatory masks for almost a year now and cases always go and down regardless.

 

[Stiflers Mom]

Have you ever asked that question in reverse? Like how you deducted that masks don't work? (assuming that is the case of course)

My assumption ( and I am completely unscientifically talking out of my ass here, but I think it's something I heard that german virologist Professor Drosten said) is, that masks don't keep Covid from spreading, but that the amount of viral shit you get if you are infected is much lower.

And that seems to be a factor in how severe you get this or not.

Mind, again, this is my little unscientific opinion.

 

[Batiman]

I’ve said many times before. Masks legit stopped an outbreak at my workplace. We had cases rising and rising until we had about 35 and one death. This was the beginning of the pandemic before masks were easily available. When we made masks a rule, our cases slowly started going away. Now we’ve only had 2 cases in the building ever since.

 

[Batiman]

Pure nonsense. We have mandatory masks for almost a year now and cases always go and down regardless.

Just because people are wearing masks doesn’t mean everything. Looking at America in the news makes me think they feel 100% protected just by a mask. MAGA rallies, BLM protests and just about everything else I’ve seen makes me not surprised masks aren’t doing shit.

 

[V4skunk]

Face masks considerably reduce COVID-19 cases in Germany

Mitigating the spread of COVID-19 is the objective of most governments. It is of utmost importance to understand how effective various public health measures are. We study the effectiveness of face masks. We employ public regional data about reported severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus...

www.pnas.org

Research article originally posted 12/03/2020: https://www.pnas.org/content/early/2020/12/02/2015954117

Imagine the good Biden's proposed 100 days of mask wearing could do alongside the rollout of vaccines.

Masks don't do a thing. They are designed to stop facial hair and spittle. Corona is supposed to be air born.
The only effective way to stop a virus is with a filtered mask like an military spec NBC mask.

 

[mcz117chief]

Just because people are wearing masks doesn’t mean everything. Looking at America in the news makes me think they feel 100% protected just by a mask. MAGA rallies, BLM protests and just about everything else I’ve seen makes me not surprised masks aren’t doing shit.

There have been no rallies or protests, everything has been closed and cases still go up and down constantly. People in isolation for months are catching the beer bug and nobody knows how and I am just walking around empty streets doing a great Risitas impression as everybody around me is shouting "the end is nigh" while nothing happens.

 

[poppabk]

I think inferring anything about there actual usage based on when mask mandates went into effect is pointless - mask usage is enforced more by store workers than it is by the state.

 

[GeorgPrime]

People love my mask.... and i love my mask too.

 

[Super Mario]

Imagine thinking the solve is "hey what if we made everyone wear masks?"Brilliant idea.

Here, I am, a fucking idiot out in public not wearing a mask, just like everyone else, who didn't know it was a thing. Brand new thinking.

 

[Liu Kang filing his 1040]

Everybody has been masking for months. Literally haven't seen anybody in any store without one since April.

 

[Hydelol]

Fake news. Everything was fine in summer and suddenly "cases" go up in september / october while everyone did behave exactly the same.

 

[Hulk_Smash]

everyone here is already wearing face masks. I havent seen a stranger's face since March.

But then again i dont go to bars and restaurants. those should be closed. just do carry out like we did back in March. its impossible to eat with a mask on and impossible to hook up with a mask on.

Here’s a casual “fuck you” for suggesting bars and restaurants should close.

 

[StreetsofBeige]

Government statement day 1: We got to shut down many stores so people aren't spiderwebbing around town spreading covid

Government statement day 2: But we're going to allow big box stores to remain open even if that means giant lines outside Costco and Walmart that wrap around the building where it's sardines inside because putting on a mask means it's a free for all

That sure makes sense.

 

[SlimySnake]

Here’s a casual “fuck you” for suggesting bars and restaurants should close.

not forever. just until we are all vaccinated. only a few more months.

restaurants can remain open for carry out. and you can always buy your own alcohol.

 

[Hulk_Smash]

not forever. just until we are all vaccinated. only a few more months.

restaurants can remain open for carry out. and you can always buy your own alcohol.

“No economic impact” is what the article suggests. Let’s go for that. That means keeping everything open.

 

[JORMBO]

They are required here and have been. A lot of things are closed or at limited capacity. A lot of people are living in fear and not going outside anyways. Cases are rising despite all that.

 

[TrafalgarLaw]

Here’s a casual “fuck you” for suggesting bars and restaurants should close.

Close to dining in, learn to fucking read. Across Europe restaurants are doing takeaway and delivery only. The only ones that are at risk are the dumbasses that didn't have to foresight to setup a takeaway business. You probably live in the USA so corona is only going to get worse. Take the necessary, hard measures right now so you have room to breathe later. Not much of your economy will be left if people keep dying left and right.

 

[Hulk_Smash]

Close to dining in, learn to fucking read. Across Europe restaurants are doing takeaway and delivery only. The only ones that are at risk are the dumbasses that didn't have to foresight to setup a takeaway business. You probably live in the USA so corona is only going to get worse. Take the necessary, hard measures right now so you have room to breathe later. Not much of your economy will be left if people keep dying left and right.

We’ve taking “hard measures” for 9 months now and where’s that got us.

You act like Europe is somehow special. Like they’ve figured it all out. Like we haven’t been doing the same thing in the USA.

 

[Deleted member 801069]

everyone wears face masks in Los Angeles and we just went back to March level restrictions

something ain’t working

 

[arkhamguy123]

everyone wears face masks in California and we just went rolled back to March level restrictions

something ain’t working

Yes. Peoples inability to refrain from meeting with friends and family in private. No shame. We all just want to live our lives and socialize so we don't slip into depression. But the public health measures are taking heat from what is ultimately the fault of the individuals in privacy. This is obviously hypothetical and could never happen, but if everyone stayed in their rooms for 2 weeks. Only leaving to get groceries or for any medical emergency, then poof. No more coronavirus. But that is inhumane. Our own nature is prolonging our catastrophe.

 

[TrafalgarLaw]

We’ve taking “hard measures” for 9 months now and where’s that got us.

No you didn't. Your government barely acknowledge(d) the existence of corona and the thousands of deaths daily as a result of it. You have anti-maskers and conspiracy theorist running amok and the general people not wearing masks. Your people didn't do dick and "look where that got us?". It got you 283k deaths.

 

[Deleted member 801069]

No you didn't. Your government barely acknowledge(d) the existence of corona and the thousands of deaths daily as a result of it. You have anti-maskers and conspiracy theorist running amok and the general people not wearing masks. Your people didn't do dick and "look where that got us?". It got you 283k deaths.

You realize the USA is made up for multiple states, all of which are handling this differently, right?

California has gone beyond the required restrictions from the beginning. What would you have done differently in California?

Blanket statements like the one you just made makes you come off incredibly ignorant

 

[arkhamguy123]

No you didn't. Your government barely acknowledge(d) the existence of corona and the thousands of deaths daily as a result of it. You have anti-maskers and conspiracy theorist running amok and the general people not wearing masks. Your people didn't do dick and "look where that got us?". It got you 283k deaths.

We were doomed here from the start. I knew as soon as I was still seeing the snap stories of parties from friends and such in summer this would happen. It actually does make for an interesting case study on our society and behavior. No country is perfect, and we are sure as hell not the only ones to butcher this. But a culture more on the collective, the group, like eastern countries, China, South Korea, whatever. Have been able to do what is necessary to suppress this virus. Where as I hear people outside my apartment screaming and partying in mass as we hit our record number yesterday. The disparity is interesting.

 

[Darkmakaimura]

More gaslighting. The key point of this "study" is that masks work because people believe they work.Like I said, masks are a talisman of the covid religion at this point. The article also just basically says, well any reduction in case counts is due to masks, because the government didn't mandate anything in addition to masks. Well sorry that is ridiculous.



Everyone has worn masks in New York, which is corona bootlicker central, for eight months at this point. Cases are going up. Now, if they want to describe some specific behavioral differences to explain this, or why, for example, Los Angeles saw exponential case growth *after* the mask mandate went into place, they can do so. It happened in many different regions and places. Because that's what they need to explain instead of just banging the same drum over and over. This is ridiculous at this point.

As I mentioned in other threads, masks have been mandatory and strictly enforced for MONTHS in my city.

You have people outside businesses to enforce it.

Everything indoor was at 50 percent capacity.

Everyone is complying, above and beyond what is being asked.

Yet our cases are supposedly going up and our governor just further instituted stricter policies, mainly 25 percent capacity in restaurants, bars, etc and reservations required at all bars and restaurants.

 

[TrafalgarLaw]

We were doomed here from the start. I knew as soon as I was still seeing the snap stories of parties from friends and such in summer this would happen. It actually does make for an interesting case study on our society and behavior. No country is perfect, and we are sure as hell not the only ones to butcher this. But a culture more on the collective, the group, like eastern countries, China, South Korea, whatever. Have been able to do what is necessary to suppress this virus. Where as I hear people outside my apartment screaming and partying in mass as we hit our record number yesterday. The disparity is interesting.

When COVID19 is done with you guys, your nation is the one going to need a Marshall plan to recover. I don't think people fully realize the gravity of the situation. Mass evictions are happening as unemployment has reached critical mass, funds dried up and protections against evictions ran out. Can't social distance when people are living on the streets as well. People can't afford food, shelter or health care so they'll turn to crime. And you still have dumbasses that are trying to 'defend' their crumbling economy.

 

[Kev Kev]

i swear to god its like some of you want to wear masks the rest of your lives

 

[Hulk_Smash]

No you didn't. Your government barely acknowledge(d) the existence of corona and the thousands of deaths daily as a result of it. You have anti-maskers and conspiracy theorist running amok and the general people not wearing masks. Your people didn't do dick and "look where that got us?". It got you 283k deaths.

I guess 6 weeks of phase one lockdowns didn’t exist? And I guess it’s 48 states that are not under some form of lockdown or mandate and only 2 that are and not the other way around.

But hey you’re not American, so here’s another casual “fuck you” on the house.

 

[arkhamguy123]

When COVID19 is done with you guys, your nation is the one going to need a Marshall plan to recover. I don't think people fully realize the gravity of the situation. Mass evictions are happening as unemployment has reached critical mass, funds dried up and protections against evictions ran out. Can't social distance when people are living on the streets as well. People can't afford food, shelter or health care so they'll turn to crime. And you still have dumbasses that are trying to 'defend' their crumbling economy.

Yeah. Its really sad. Im embarrassed on every level there's really nothing to say. It'll just have to run through us for another month or two and die down in spring like the Spanish flu and then we can look back and hopefully take some valuable lessons from this.

 

[diffusionx]

what other restrictions do they have right now in NYC?

Schools are closed is the big one. Bars are mostly still closed. Limits on social gatherings. Stuff that is open is very restricted capacity wise. I also think we are also in this "sweden zone" where people are voluntarily choosing to isolate, not go to restaurants, not go to malls, not go to gyms, even if some are open. Just based on my observation.

In any case, it doesn't matter with regards to this, because the mask tyrants have been saying this entire time if we just wear the mask we don't have to lock down and shut down and close everything. And that's obviously not true because stuff is still restricted, people are still wearing masks, and bogus PCR counts are still increasing.

No you didn't. Your government barely acknowledge(d) the existence of corona and the thousands of deaths daily as a result of it. You have anti-maskers and conspiracy theorist running amok and the general people not wearing masks. Your people didn't do dick and "look where that got us?". It got you 283k deaths.

Where are you guys getting your version of reality. Our country sprung to action immediately. We closed the border with China and began efforts to bring in adequate PPE immediately and also began implementing “operation warp speed” to bring a vaccine to market as fast as possible with government funding. The feds also worked with the big hot spots to bring in more hospital capacity.

Our actions were not different from Europe’s in any appreciable way.

 

[diffusionx]

Yes. Peoples inability to refrain from meeting with friends and family in private. No shame. We all just want to live our lives and socialize so we don't slip into depression. But the public health measures are taking heat from what is ultimately the fault of the individuals in privacy. This is obviously hypothetical and could never happen, but if everyone stayed in their rooms for 2 weeks. Only leaving to get groceries or for any medical emergency, then poof. No more coronavirus. But that is inhumane. Our own nature is prolonging our catastrophe.

Well I dispute that would happen after two weeks, I think people mostly did that over the spring, remember all the talk about zoom happy hour and shit, now people are saying fuck it, understandably it’s been 9 months of this unending misery for an illness they will almost certainly (99.99%) get over in a few days. Even the Europeans who supposedly did so much better than we did ended up with a spike this fall yet we get shit on endlessly despite being on the same boat.

Ultimately what is worse for a 30 year old, a virus that will give them a fever and a cough for a week or unending depression and loneliness which leads to substance abuse and a drug addiction? Because that’s not really theoretical,governments are imposing the latter to save him or her from the former. All the data we are getting on mental health is a total train wreck and will have massive consequences for decades.

 

[Clear]

All the data we are getting on mental health is a total train wreck and will have massive consequences for decades.

While I don't disagree with this point, I have to wonder about how fragile people have become that this is a major issue. If people freak over Covid, how'd they handle say a world war? Blackouts, air-raid sirens, rows of houses being flattened in a flash when bombs or missiles land at supersonic speeds?

Mental strength, discipline and fortitude are important.

 

[diffusionx]

While I don't disagree with this point, I have to wonder about how fragile people have become that this is a major issue. If people freak over Covid, how'd they handle say a world war? Blackouts, air-raid sirens, rows of houses being flattened in a flash when bombs or missiles land at supersonic speeds?

Mental strength, discipline and fortitude are important.

What do you mean by fragile? Human interaction is part of being human. We are a social species. There is a reason jails punish people with isolation. Isolation is inhuman. It goes well beyond some stiff upper lip bullshit, everyone gets affected by this disruption of their normal lives and the inability to interact with people in a normal way.

People respond to amazing calamities of the sort you describe actually very well, and they do it by BANDING TOGETHER. The exact thing we are told we are not allowed to do during this non-calamity.

 

[Maxwell Jacob Friedman]

While I don't disagree with this point, I have to wonder about how fragile people have become that this is a major issue. If people freak over Covid, how'd they handle say a world war? Blackouts, air-raid sirens, rows of houses being flattened in a flash when bombs or missiles land at supersonic speeds?

Mental strength, discipline and fortitude are important.

Bingo, Im also sorry are these people actually suffering mental health or are they just throwing jargon around and hope it sticks. Much like my students they say "im depressed" when you actually talk to the son-a-bitches turns out they arent depressed they just had a bad night and arent feeling 100% happy, spoiler alert no one is actually 100% happy all the time. With life comes stress, responsibility etc. Depression is an actual diagnosed problem with chemical imbalance, not because your feeling down for one day because you had a bad night or your feeling down because youc ant go as you please, thats not depression or mental health, thats just your body reacting to a shitty timeline.

People need to stop throwing the D word around constantly, from my stance especially someone who actually has suffered and was diagnosed with ACTUAL depression people need to toughen up and stop using the D word as a crutch to coast by. "oh well your student is depressed", no the fuck they aren't, they had a break up with their gf/bf, thats not depression thats a shitty situation. More and more people are using the improper terminology and its increasingly irritating the hell out of me. People need to toughen the fuck up.

 

[Ionian]

Where are you guys getting your version of reality. Our country sprung to action immediately. We closed the border with China and began efforts to bring in adequate PPE immediately and also began implementing “operation warp speed” to bring a vaccine to market as fast as possible with government funding. The feds also worked with the big hot spots to bring in more hospital capacity.

Our actions were not different from Europe’s in any appreciable way.

Ahahahaha, sure it did.

First case reported - Dec 2019

Borders closed ro China - Feb 2020

Operation Warpspeed - May 2020

 

[Ionian]

Europe was very very different in it's approach, it's simply undeniable.

 

[ipukespiders]

As much as I hate masks, they have worked here in Nova Scotia and we adopted them early on.