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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)
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 13 2020, @08:35PM (3 children)
With proper social distancing masks should be enough to get us to a limited re-opening, but that will always be a risk. Simple fact is there are a lot of idiots who think COVID is no big deal and the mortality rste is low enough that they don't think it could kill them. I've met multiole people who think the masks are stupid and who wanted to shake hands, hug, whatever.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 13 2020, @10:25PM (2 children)
> I've met multiple people who think the masks are stupid and who wanted to shake hands, hug, whatever.
Where do you live? Nothing like that going on around here, everyone is tip-toeing around each other in grocery stores and other shops that are starting to open. This is western NY State (a few hundred miles from NY City).
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 14 2020, @03:38PM (1 child)
Smallish semi-rural California town. Most people are taking it seriously or at least being considerste to those who are, but there are still some trying to behaveike nornal. They usually lighten up when I point out the mask does little to protect me and more to protect others. They can't really argue when "liberal pussy" doesn't fit.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 14 2020, @05:55PM
Pretty similar experience in Michigan - the majority of people are wearing masks and distancing when indoors, but outside all bets are off.
Personally, I like the masks and distancing, because they keep chatty people quiet.