My wife is Japanese and I’ve spent considerable amounts of time there. I’d say it is “pretty cultural” in that I distinctly remember the first time I was there I saw people wearing masks A LOT. That said, they do it for different reasons. Pollution in Tokyo was pretty bad 20 years ago when I was first stationed there. Allergy season is miserable there and, to be honest, any effort to mitigate it is worthy. Hell, I wore one for a while during allergy season on bad pollution days. It did help some, I think.
There is also the illness factor. My wife always puts a mask on when she gets sick. She says it’s just a polite thing to do, and to be honest, until COVID-19 I always appreciated it and never thought much of it. I guess there really wasn’t a reason to do so.
Hmm, is it just me, or is anyone else getting a distinct whiff of anti-semitism drifting across the Atlantic from the UK?
Come on Rip... this video is a joke. Even though he cited SCIENCE in all caps. I only made it through the first half of the video, so I can’t comment on whatever he said about homemade cloth masks. He might be right about them.
He cites several studies of N95 masks in flu, says they are “all RTCs [sic]”. None of them are RCTs, they are all meta-analyses. He says they say that N95 masks don’t reduce the risk of influenza, BUT all of these studies compared N95 masks against surgical-type masks. None of them compared masks vs no masks. It’s bad enough that he just shows a couple lines from the abstracts, but it’s worse that the lines he shows undercut his point entirely. It’s entirely possible that N95 masks and surgical masks provide the same non-zero level of protection against flu. Note that N95 masks are recommended to be used in conjunction with gowns, gloves, and face shields. It’s been my observation that full PPE does provide protection against covid. But nobody is recommending that the general public wear full PPE.
He also cites a study (really another meta analysis) that warns that “improper mask usage” may increase risk of transmission. This suggests that proper mask usage is superior to improper mask usage, ergo masks provide some benefit. This analysis itself, in the text he shows, reports that most of the studies it looked at were of poor quality. That’s the real problem here. The data isn’t great.
You can’t credibly rail against “scientism” if you then promote it when it supports something you agree with. The science on masks is in fact somewhat unclear, but this guy is missing the boat entirely.
Interesting. Looks like the flu can also have long-term consequences. I'm bookmarking that paper so I can pull it out when I need to.
Another of my worries is that influenza will develop the same notoriety as covid in the future. I wouldn't be surprised to see the press try and make a bunch of noise about the upcoming flu season and try to stir up some more panic, especially if covid ever dies down. I wouldn't be surprised to see regional lockdowns and mask mandates become the norm in certain areas from November-March every year.
Japanese tend to wear face masks during the flu season and hay fever season. However, how effective they are for reducing the spread of flu is questionable since we always seem to have yearly flu epidemics. The masks worn here are the loose fitting disposable surgical masks that fog up your glasses because the air travels around the sides.
Having lived here for 25 years I can tell you that the Japanese are not the paragons of hygiene that they are made out to be. I do a daily commute on the rail and subway system. Commuters are very tightly packed together, sweating, breathing and coughing over each other - and freely sharing their germs. The conditions are ripe for an epidemic, so why the virus hasn't yet spread so explosively is a good question, but I doubt very much its due to wearing ill fitting disposable masks. Something else is at play to make such large difference.
ONCE AGAIN, JF, just because I post something doesn't mean I'm endorsing the analysis. Usually the post makes an interesting point. Surely you've seen things on ABCNBCCBSCNNFOX that were complete bullshit, far worse than this, that you didn't have the opportunity to refute. That's why we're here, giving you this forum. The point (I think) he made pretty well was that if N95 masks by themselves in a clinical/lab setting do not provide protection against viral infection, what is the point of pulling your T-shirt up around your face/wearing a bandanna like Jesse James/buying a cloth mask with a badass skull on it and pretending that you're participating in an effective Public Health initiative? Masks are signals of either virtue or obedience, and that's all -- that is my point, not his.
Did you read the post by Megan Watkins yesterday? What did you think of that? And what about this, that has some interesting things to say about the cost of this fucking enormous hoax to society?
Video: Screeching Woman With Tape Measure Lectures Others For Not Social Distancing – Summit News
So can the "CrossFit Cough."
Indeed. The downside of pointing out that we have never before behaved this way in the face of similar circumstances, has the possible side effect, given the way people have now been primed for fear and risk avoidance at any cost, of leading to future rules and restrictions every flu season. Of course our goal in pointing this out is to change attitudes so as to remove those restrictions now. But if that doesn't work, it could just as easily be used to put them in place every flu season, or even all the time. Oh man, we've been barbaric not masking and having NBA and NHL games and concerts during flu season!!! If it saves just one life, right? I'd also guess that many of the same people who think such a thing reasonable now, would have scoffed at the suggestion a mere 3-4 months ago.
Just to play the Devil’s Advocate... The Japanese economy is in dire straits and the rescheduling of the Tokyo Olympics was a massive blow.
It wouldn’t surprise me if they were doing the exact opposite of what the US did... That is, they are probably seeking to downplay it as much as possible. There’s no evidence of this as far as I know, but it wouldn’t exactly be earth shattering news to hear of a government lying about COVID-19 numbers to suit an agenda.
I stand corrected. I just dug this up... These are COVID-19 confirmed hospitalizations (not deaths) per 100,000. Let's assume for the sake of argument that everyone hospitalized had some sort of lifelong/chronic condition.
• COVID-19 hospitalization rate by age group U.S. June 2020 | Statista