I didn't make any claims about the laws the government makes.
I didn't make any claims that the government even follows science.
I'm trying to tell everyone that if you want to discredit masks, you should do it the right way. The article in the OP is weak.

Although, I believe the mandates were lenient with the type of mask because they know not everyone is going to do it and they wanted to make it convenient enough so that it would encourage more people to do so. The issue you brought up has nothing to do with the topic in this thread though.

Why is the assumption that they must be discredited? You claim to know science, so you must know that the burden of proof lies with the one making the claim (in this case that masks work). We are not making a claim, we are just poo-pooing the claim of maskcels and pointing out their lack of evidence.

I was originally just fukking with maskcells, but this has been a fun argument.

I'm not suggesting any of those things. I'm just saying the people wearing masks can still get it. Let me just break it down to you like this. Masks are supposed to prevent spread, and not contraction. The test needs to be done like this:

Group A: masks
1 person is sick, give him mask.
100 people not sick, no masks <- count how many get sick.

Group B: no mask
1 person is sick, no mask
100 people not sick, no masks <- count how many get sick.

Look, you need to test spread and not contraction. This study tests contraction. In this study, both groups were exposed to the same thing. The mask group got slightly more sick. It could be random chance. The conclusion is something we already know: masks do not prevent contraction. Great, let's do the right thing and test spread instead.

Why wear masks when its all about the ventilation. Was it really th ventilation, or just everyone staying the fuk away from other people?

https://www.cnn.com/2020/11/19/us/gy...rnd/index.html

(CNN)A Virginia gym owner thought she had a nightmare scenario on her hands when she learned that 50 athletes were potentially exposed to Covid-19 particles by one of the gym's coaches. But not a single member ended up contracting the virus, thanks to the extra safety precautions and ventilation measures she put in place.

Velvet Minnick, 44, is the owner and head coach at 460 Fitness in Blacksburg, Virginia. Like many gym owners across the nation, she was forced to shut down the facility in March due to coronavirus. They rented out equipment and held Zoom classes, but it wasn't long before members were burned out.
As the state entered Phase 2 of reopening in June, Minnick was allowed to have athletes back inside her facility. She knew one member, however, who could help her get people back while keeping them safe.
Linsey Marr, 46, is a professor of civil and environmental engineering at Virginia Tech and joined 460 Fitness about two years ago. She has an expertise in airborne transmission of viruses, air quality and nanotechnology.
When gyms closed in March, there was a lot of talk in the CrossFit community about the mental health benefits of working out and some owners were lobbying for their gyms to stay open. While that didn't work, it did get them included in the early phases of reopening. And it kick-started this gym's reopening plan and safety procedures.
Minnick consulted Marr on ventilation as well as strict hygiene and distancing protocols to keep athletes as safe as possible while they were working out.
"I knew the virus was transmitted mainly through the air so I thought it was really important to have good ventilation so everyone wasn't able to breathe it," Marr told CNN.
Minnick created athlete stations near the bay doors that gave each one 10 feet of space. The stations are marked on the floor with orange tape and have all of the necessary equipment located inside. There's no traveling about the gym or doing partner workouts while sharing equipment.
The gym&#39;s new layout allows for proper airflow.
The gym's new layout allows for proper airflow.
"Ten feet of space has always been my mantra," Marr said, which is more than the recommended six feet because people in the gym would be working out and breathing heavily.
Because Minnick built the facility, she had the engineering and HVAC documents to share with Marr.
"I did the calculations on how big the space was, what the typical wind speeds were in the area and if the doors were open what would the resulting ventilation be?" Marr said.
She found that the space provided far more fresh air than required by the professional organization, American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air-Conditioning Engineers, which gives recommendations for ventilation. Looking at other research and studies, Marr talked with experts on what ventilation rate is necessary to really cut down the risk of transmission indoors.
"We don't see outbreaks above a certain threshold," Marr said. "And the gym with the open doors was way above that."
The gym uses this carbon dioxide detector.
The gym uses this carbon dioxide detector.
Marr said they are now actually able to close the doors a bit more than they initially thought and still meet that ventilation standard using a carbon dioxide monitor to track indoor levels.
"Carbon dioxide is exhaled breath and is a good indicator of how much viruses might be building up in the air," Marr said.
Depending on the weather and the comfort level of the athletes in the gym, they may open the doors more or less. And athletes always have the option of taking their equipment outside.
In September, when Minnick learned that one of her coaches wasn't feeling well, she wasn't initially worried. While he thought it was just allergies, he soon lost his sense of smell and taste, Minnick said, so he got tested for coronavirus. She asked him to quarantine until he received his results.
When it came back positive, they first determined that he contracted the virus outside of the gym at another environment where he was indoors. Then, she ran a test in the system to see who he had coached prior to getting sick.

Minnick personally contacted all 50 athletes and checked in with them for a two-week period. A few people decided to get tested, but not one member developed symptoms.
"I contacted all of my members on a Monday," Minnick said. "And then the ... health department contact tracers. They did not even notify me of the direct exposure until Wednesday. With something like this, it's so important to know right away."
Even after a potential exposure and with dropping temperatures as winter approaches, the gym remains diligent with its procedures and athletes continue to adjust.
There are no sweaty post-workout hugs and no high fives. Often the class has a conversation about if the doors are staying open or closed. If they want them closed to stay warm, every member must wear a mask.
"Members are willing to go that extra mile, to be cold, to be wet, to endure, just so that they can be safe," Minnick said. "They'll do whatever it takes to have the benefits of exercise."

Literally this. "I'm wearing my visual compliance so I'm good". In fact people are going out of their way to post public mask selfies to demonstrate their imagined virtue.

Brb, need 101 volunteers for group B

Every outspoken lib on my ******** now has a self-righteous selfie of them wearing a mask.

This is the problem with a great deal of questions with science. The design needed to really get the answers you are looking for ends up with a requirement that violates ethics standards.

We should have the ability to volunteer for unethical studies for the advancement of knowledge.

Can confirm brah. When this first started, we were going through hand sanitizer and sterilizing things like crazy. Now that everyone has masks on, no one is washing doorknobs, no one is using hand sanitizer as much.

Lmao

Lmao, they needed ANOTHER study to show this? Seems like we already had 30 years of old meta-data they could have used.

Its all about visual compliance. Everyone being reasonable about COVID-19 understands the list of risk factors but there is only 1 that gets attention, the visible one.

Always do that chit in the gym myself hehe

Brb sanitize and wipe down the equipment superficially

As if that does anything. I'm not cleaning every plate, the clips, the knobs on machine weights.

In my gym they made it a rule everyone has to do the wiping down, which meant everyone touched the exact same sanitising spray bottle which never itself got wiped down. SMH.

Different virus. This one can get through 2 layers of face mask, but not three.

Can travel 5'-11" but not 6'

On a single spit particle, but they have to swab your brainstem to detect it.


New normal brah.

cliffs:
social distancing works better than mask

also this study seems like b.s.

It’s was obvious that wearing mask would increase transmission
You’re wearing a humid piece of cloth on your face touching it removing it
Touching your environment, your whole face is humid where outside droplets can come in
Like your whole face becomes a favorable place for germ and virus to ferment

Leave the articles to the STEM bros tradie.

Your welcome. lol

But who was rustling jimmies then?

If you can pull that off, that would be very interesting. You need group A to compare your results to, you can't just do one.

Also, regarding your ventilation article, we don't know how many viruses the coach was shedding. we don't know what "exposure to covid" really means in the article. Was he coughing and wheezing, was he actually sick with covid or sick with something else but had some covid in his system, or was the coach asymptomatic? If he's asymptomatic, the spread is decently low, then maybe that's why nobody else got sick.we should probably stay on topic... if you insist you don't like my wording, then I'll change it. You can't argue with: The OP said masks are useless. but he brought up an article that isn't all that useful to the claim. It appears useful at face value and that's where it gets most people.

No, it was clearly the ventilation. The article said so.

The inefficacy of masks in preventing contraction obviously implies their inefficacy in preventing spread. The claim they're somehow unidirectional is pure maskcel cope.

Id be curious to know why they only work one way as well. I mean, I get that they prevent you from goobering everywhere, and that is clearly a benefit. But they should also help stop airborne particles from entering your lungs.

And the article in the OP found that they do not help at all in terms of keeping an individual from contracting it. Shouldn't they have helped to SOME extent?

Why is it so black and white? Why do they prevent others from contracting it with incredible effectiveness, but (according to the study) do nothing at all, or actually increase your odds of catching it?

I would expect SOME prevention. After all, you wear masks for dust, and although some gets by it helps in a big way.

This what Ninshark said before:

"you're looking at it in a very narrow way. You're only looking at it as the virus particles traveling through the mask material, but you should also consider imperfect fit and the direction of air flow. If the droplets are already in the air, then they'll go through the holes due to imperfect fit and the mask-wearer probably would still catch the virus."

Now he should explain how people breathe out and not in, giving only one direction of air flow, and how droplets can only go in via imperfect fit but not out.

He also still hasn't answered why masks must be disproven rather than proven to work, in either direction.

The truth is people have been propagandised to think that masks work, so that is seen as the default position when there is no proof of it. Maskcels seize the unfalsifiable hypothesis that masks work to stop spread.

Physicians shouldn’t wear masks because cloth isn’t unidirectional. You should win the Nobel Prize for this.

droplets do go IN and OUT due to improper fit, yes it occurs both ways. But it could be the case that due to the proximity of the mask to the mouth and the shape of the mask, that the amount of droplets that goes OUT is reduced because some of the droplets are caught by the mask material.

If it can be shown that the mask catches a significant amount of droplets, then the mask does prevent spread because there are less particles going out.

As for particles going in, if you think about the gentle inhaling motion (much gentler than exhale), I wouldn't be surprised if most the air goes around the mask and in through the holes due to improper fit. Since exhaling is a stronger motion, esp coughing or sneezing, then some of the exhalant air goes out through the mask (hopefully catching the particles) while the rest of the air goes backward out through the holes of improper fit.

It might just be like at a restraunt, you have to take the mask off when you need to use it, but otherwise; it stays on.

Surgical masks are used to prevent bacterial contamination of open wounds, or of the surgeon's mouth/nose. How is this relevant to the fact that masks can't be shown to prevent viral transmission in either direction?

Very, very weak 'gotcha'.