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posted by Fnord666 on Saturday June 13 2020, @04:38PM   Printer-friendly
from the every-little-bit-helps dept.

Face masks don't even have to work especially well to be effective:

Advice on whether or not to use face masks to limit the spread of the pandemic has varied from country to country, even differing by location within countries. These policies have had to balance whether there were sufficient supplies for medical personnel to divert some to the general public. And the whole issue was decided without a clear idea of whether face masks were actually effective against SARS-CoV-2.

But there has been reason to think masks would at least be somewhat affective, based on studies of the spread of droplets of material we expel while coughing or sneezing. And a recent analysis suggested a large group of individual studies collectively pointed to their effectiveness. But that analysis left a large degree of uncertainty about how effective they'd be at the population level and how face mask use would interact with other policy decisions.

The situation left us needing population-level modeling, which a group of UK scientists has now provided. The group's model indicates that face masks don't have to be especially effective to slow the spread of SARS-CoV-2 and can even bring benefits if they make people more vulnerable to infection. But to really control the pandemic, they will have to be combined with a lockdown if we want to see the total infected population shrink.

[...] Right now, we just don't know enough about SARS-CoV-2 and protective gear to evaluate which of these models best reflect reality. But the models do set some reasonable bounds about what we might aim for. For example, they indicate that masks don't need to be especially good if we get enough people wearing them and couple their use to other policy initiatives.

Journal Reference:
Stutt, R., Retkure, R., Bradley, M., Gilligan, C., and Colvin, J. A modelling framework to assess the likely effectiveness of facemasks in combination with lock-down in managing the COVID-19 pandemic, Proceedings of the Royal Society A (2020) (DOI: 10.1098/rspa.2020.0376)


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  • (Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 13 2020, @04:59PM (9 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 13 2020, @04:59PM (#1007479)

    A cough can travel as fast as 50 mph and expel ~3,000 droplets. Sneezes can travel up to 100 mph and create ~100,000 droplets.

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  • (Score: 1, Disagree) by fustakrakich on Saturday June 13 2020, @05:05PM (8 children)

    by fustakrakich (6150) on Saturday June 13 2020, @05:05PM (#1007480) Journal

    One of the reasons we cough and sneeze is to expel the demon virus, amongst other bits of dust and plastic, out of our bodies as far as possible. Do you really want to keep re-breathing them? Let's not make masks a permanent thing. Use them in close quarters when necessary.

    --
    La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
    • (Score: 3, Funny) by takyon on Saturday June 13 2020, @05:10PM (6 children)

      by takyon (881) <reversethis-{gro ... s} {ta} {noykat}> on Saturday June 13 2020, @05:10PM (#1007481) Journal

      We should wear some kind of funnel that amplifies outgassing events into a coronavirus cannon.

      --
      [SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
      • (Score: 1, Troll) by fustakrakich on Saturday June 13 2020, @05:24PM (4 children)

        by fustakrakich (6150) on Saturday June 13 2020, @05:24PM (#1007486) Journal

        In reverse, a megaphone, and be upwind.

        Now, watch the silly people go out and buy a bullhorn

        --
        La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
        • (Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 13 2020, @08:12PM (3 children)

          by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 13 2020, @08:12PM (#1007533)

          Troll

          How funny! Democrats attack even when nobody is talking about them!

          Three in a row. That's quite a grudge you're carrying there :-)

          • (Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 13 2020, @09:18PM (1 child)

            by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 13 2020, @09:18PM (#1007556)

            Poor victim!

            • (Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 14 2020, @12:07AM

              by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 14 2020, @12:07AM (#1007607)

              Poor democrats!

          • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 13 2020, @10:05PM

            by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 13 2020, @10:05PM (#1007567)

            If the shoe fits my stupid caricature of Cinderella.

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 13 2020, @06:03PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 13 2020, @06:03PM (#1007497)

        It's already proven that feces carries the virus. Just eat beans or taco bell and you'll charge the cannon dispersal system.

    • (Score: 3, Insightful) by c0lo on Sunday June 14 2020, @08:18AM

      by c0lo (156) Subscriber Badge on Sunday June 14 2020, @08:18AM (#1007702) Journal

      Let's not make masks a permanent thing.

      On the contrary, let's make them permanent.
      We could even start fashions - like the more eyes [theguardian.com] the less likely face recognition AI will detect you.

      --
      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford