I must say, the presentation of data by our government is very poor. Compared to, eg, the UK, US, Australia and Singapore. In the UK a private magazine has way better presentation than ours. And yet, for a few months now, if you watch any YouTube vid that is anything to do with Covid, they’ll direct you to the HK government website, which as I say, is poor.
Anyhoo, it got me thinking about assessment of Risk, and why the government is mandating mask wearing outside, even in our Country Parks.
I did the calculations (we’re all epidemiologists now).
The bottom line is that not wearing a mask outside, here in the Discovery Bay Park Siena, where we have fresh northeasterly breezes all the time, the increased risk for not wearing a mask is 0.000000024. or 24 in 100,000,000 or 0.24 in a million. So, if I don’t wear a mask outside in fresh northeasterly breezes, where people are naturally socially distanced, I’m increasing their chance of getting and dying from Covid by about ten times less than the chance of killing myself or them with my bicycle. Not to mention cars, for which death rates are around 1/9,000, or 465 times more likely to be killed every time you go for a drive, compared with the likely hood of being killed by someone not wearing a mask.
That’s the risk assessment there. And if the response is “well, may as well wear the mask; it can’t harm”, I respond, in turn, that I’m seeing pressure for permanent wearing of masks, “just in case” and to stop flu, and whatever, and you know what on this? I don’t like it. I just don’t like it. And many people don’t. Neither do kids. So enough of this “hygiene theatre”, which is harming kids and all of us by distancing ourselves from each other, for no good, no sound, not scientific reason. Or else: you wear a mask if it makes you feel better. Don’t mandate everyone to wear it when the effect on transmission, especially outdoors, verges on Zero. An earlier Yale University study I posted, reported that clots masks had exactly zero effect: “no statistically significant”.
ADDED: Efficacy and practice of facemask use in general population: a systematic review and meta-analysis, Pre-print in Nature, 1 February 2022.
Previous studies including two meta-analyses on the efficacy of facemask use for preventing transmission of pandemic influenza [14, 15] also provided inconsistent conclusions, while a recent meta-analysis including 14 randomized controlled trials did not support a substantial effect on transmission of laboratory-confirmed influenza. [14] A meta-analysis suggested that disposable surgical masks or reusable 12–16-layer cotton masks were associated with protection from viral transmission in non-healthcare setting. [3] However, it did not differentiate the evidence of surgical masks and general cotton masks, especially in the non-health care setting including multiple settings of community, household, and family contacts. [3] Recent two studies (a rapid review on COVID-19 and a meta-analysis) demonstrated that facemask use could reduce the risk of respiratory infections transmission [16, 17]. However, these studies included some of the clinical trials using the hand sanitizer and facemask as intervention instead of only facemask, which might overestimate the efficacy of facemask use. Thus, more convincing evidence of the efficacy of wearing facemasks in general population is urgently needed.
PF comment: other studies show that effectiveness of masks outdoors is reduced by between 10 and 56 fold. The breezier the outdoors, the less impact of mask wearing on transmission.
