After researching this for another 40 minutes, I still don’t see where this claim comes from. All studies that I found are talking about adherence in the form of “was wearing the mask most of the time”, and I can’t find any analysis that wearing a mask is super complicated, and that people are wearing the masks in an ineffective way (many sources say that it’s hard to get people to wear the masks at all, but that’s a different issue).
When you gave a group of people a set of masks, the people who comply to the level of “are wearing the mask most of the time” appear to be experiencing a significant reduction in infection rates. This is true even if the masks weren’t fitted. Here is one of the variety of studies I found about this.
I currently don’t believe the “masks worn by people who aren’t trained to do so aren’t effective” claim. I also further believe that the effect of masks on untrained people is on the same order of magnitude as hand-washing (though definitely smaller, my gut says something like a 4th to a 5th as effective), and as such is not marginal. Though the latter claim is definitely not super well-sourced and I haven’t done the appropriate fermi estimates, and would greatly appreciate more evidence on the relative importance of these interventions.
I think it’s also worth pointing out that there just aren’t enough masks for what you are suggesting. That’s why my example was telling people to make homemade masks, not using N95 respirators. If they are following instructions for mask usage, people should be replacing masks multiple times every day and not reusing them—as soon as you remove the mask, you touch both the inside and the outside, moving droplets around. Suggesting widespread use of the types of masks you’re talking about, then, seems unhelpful in any case.
That’s a very useful data point, and I’m happy to see that I was pessimistic about how quickly factories could ramp up production. Hopefully we’ll see the supply crunch reduced in the near future, (without a collapse in quality,) and at that point I’d be very happy for people to advocate more widespread mask wearing using actual disposable masks.
After researching this for another 40 minutes, I still don’t see where this claim comes from. All studies that I found are talking about adherence in the form of “was wearing the mask most of the time”, and I can’t find any analysis that wearing a mask is super complicated, and that people are wearing the masks in an ineffective way (many sources say that it’s hard to get people to wear the masks at all, but that’s a different issue).
When you gave a group of people a set of masks, the people who comply to the level of “are wearing the mask most of the time” appear to be experiencing a significant reduction in infection rates. This is true even if the masks weren’t fitted. Here is one of the variety of studies I found about this.
I currently don’t believe the “masks worn by people who aren’t trained to do so aren’t effective” claim. I also further believe that the effect of masks on untrained people is on the same order of magnitude as hand-washing (though definitely smaller, my gut says something like a 4th to a 5th as effective), and as such is not marginal. Though the latter claim is definitely not super well-sourced and I haven’t done the appropriate fermi estimates, and would greatly appreciate more evidence on the relative importance of these interventions.
I think it’s also worth pointing out that there just aren’t enough masks for what you are suggesting. That’s why my example was telling people to make homemade masks, not using N95 respirators. If they are following instructions for mask usage, people should be replacing masks multiple times every day and not reusing them—as soon as you remove the mask, you touch both the inside and the outside, moving droplets around. Suggesting widespread use of the types of masks you’re talking about, then, seems unhelpful in any case.
Oh, I am not at all advocating for widespread usage of masks in this particular pandemic. I am just trying to figure out whether they are effective.
However, on a more object-level, see this comment for an estimate of the potential increase of global mask production in the next few months.
That’s a very useful data point, and I’m happy to see that I was pessimistic about how quickly factories could ramp up production. Hopefully we’ll see the supply crunch reduced in the near future, (without a collapse in quality,) and at that point I’d be very happy for people to advocate more widespread mask wearing using actual disposable masks.