Covid-19 Discussion

Originally Posted by Gorgonian
Mask mandates are generally useless because people won't wear masks consistently and correctly.

Mask usage is obviously beneficial and denying that is just dumb. Any quotes from any articles that say otherwise are just dumb and wrong. Data that purports to show masking doesn't work simply shows that mask mandates don't work. And the reason for that has already been explained.

Those are the facts.

If you have a particular study you'd like to examine in detail, I'd be happy to do that with you.

On Wednesday, Premier Jason Kenney apologized to Albertans for his decision to peel back protections. He reintroduced a state of emergency and several public health measures including a vaccine passport and mandatory work-from-home rules, unless an employer determines a physical presence is required.

Breakenridge: Haven't we learned not to be too hasty in easing Alberta's pandemic restrictions?

As the Kenney government resists efforts to further scrutinize its handling of Alberta’s fourth wave of COVID-19, one can at least hope that some lessons were learned through that ordeal, chief among them, the dangerous folly of prematurely declaring victory.

After some very difficult and painful weeks, Alberta has seen some steady improvement in our pandemic situation over the last month or so. The rate of decline seems to have levelled off somewhat, however, and there is still pressure on the health-care system, but we do still appear to be coming out of that fourth wave.

4.3. Cases studies on protection effective of masks
Mask effectiveness has been demonstrated in prevention of influenza and some other infectious diseases. Van der Sande et al. (2008) showed that the use of any type of ordinary mask may reduce the risk of exposure to viruses and infections. Some observational results confirmed that frequently using masks in a community can prevent spread of infection from sick and infectious people (Jensen et al., 2005; Rockwood & O’Donoghue, 1960; Srinivasan et al., 2004; Weaver, 1919). As a non‐pharmaceutical intervention to control virus transmission during the influenza pandemic, persistent use of masks significantly reduced the risk of influenza‐like‐illness‐associated infection (Cowling et al., 2008; Maclntyre et al., 2009). Masks were shown to have protective efficacies in excess of 80% against clinical influenza‐like‐illness (Macintyre et al., 2008). Sung et al. found that requiring people who have direct contact with patients to wear surgical masks can considerably reduce respiratory virus infection (Sung et al., 2018). A face‐to‐face interview suggested greater protective effect of medical masks than the cotton masks (Yang et al., 2011). Masks and hand hygiene may reduce respiratory diseases in shared living environments and mitigate the impact of pandemic influenza A (H1N1) (Aiello et al., 2010; Jefferson et al., 2008). Wearing masks can also reduce the risk of avian influenza infection (Wiwanitkit, 2006). Some studies explored the impact of mask use during influenza by establishing a population transmission model from an epidemiological perspective. The results showed possibility of delaying the pandemic by wearing masks nationwide (Brienen et al., 2010; Chan & Yuen, 2020).

6. SUMMARY
The current research results have shown that COVID‐19 is mainly transmitted via droplets in the air. There is a potential risk of airborne transmission in an indoor environment with poor ventilation. The distance of droplet transmission can extend up to 4 m. Based on this data, the recommended social distancing range of 1–2 m (CDC, 2020; WHO, 2020) may not necessarily guarantee the epidemic prevention. Therefore, wearing mask in public is essential as its effectiveness has already been well established by the current studies. For exhalation isolation, both surgical and N95 masks are shown to be effective in reducing the spread of respiratory diseases, but the former is more accessible and comfortable to wear compared to the latter. For inhalation protection, air filtering respirators such as N95 masks can filtrate contaminants, bacteria and other matters from reaching nose and mouth, and are more efficient in virus penetration inhibition than surgical masks.

Three major filtration mechanisms are identified, namely, interception, inertial impaction and diffusion. While interception takes place for nearby particles, inertial impaction is mainly dominated by some large particles. Diffusion mechanism primarily applies to small particles with diameters around 0.1 μm. A mask design needs to consider all these mechanisms in order to increase the filtration capacity for all particle sizes. As a result, the air filtering respirators are designed to prevent both airborne transmission and the droplets, and highly recommended for the indoor area especially in the high‐risk environment. Based on these studies, all people, regardless of physical conditions and professions, should wear masks at all times in prevention of COVID‐19. In this regard, inhalation protection via masks is particularly important in order to reduce the transmission of viruses that are potentially carried by droplets and aerosols. The mask requirement has already been proved to be effective, and recently mandated in all states of the United States (Does Your State Have a Mask Mandate Due to Coronavirus?). Considering limited resources in some regions, the home‐made masks are shown to have comparable filtration efficiencies compared to the medical masks. A conclusion can be reached based on the current studies: correctly wearing masks of all kinds, despite their different designs, functions and effectiveness, will to a large degree reduce the overall risks of COVID‐19 infection and enhance general protection from coronavirus.

The mortality rate for children and teens in the United States surged in 2020 and 2021, driven not by deaths from Covid-19 but from fatal injuries from things like firearms, drugs and cars, according to a study published Monday in JAMA.

Infants are the only age group that did not see a significant increase in mortality, but most of the surge was due to deaths among older children.

For those ages 10 to 19, injury mortality increased 23% between 2019 and 2020 – including homicides that jumped 39% and drug overdoses that more than doubled.

In terms of US county-by-county arrival of this Excess Non-Covid Natural Cause Mortality, the heaviest concentrations of this death group has been in the most highly vaccinated counties in the US. In the dynamic analysis shown in Chart 3c below, one can see that this Excess Non-Covid Natural Cause Mortality both begins solely after the rollout of the vaccine nationwide, and as well bears its heaviest impact in those counties which are most heavily vaccinated. One cannot use state level data for this because of Hope-Simpson effect during the Delta variant timeframe (a competence flag in those showing such regressions) hitting south border states most heavily. This serves to impart a misleading Yule-Simpson effect in the state level data. Only county-level data is salient.