med.stanford.edu/news/all-news/2021/09/surgical-masks-covid-19.html

Executive Summary

In a recent 8 week study by Stanford and Yale Universities, involving 350,000 participants, half of the study participants were un-masked for those 8 weeks, and lived their lives. Half were masked, and with masks similar or better than those used throughout the world.

Over the eight weeks, at some point, 8.6% of the un-masked had “Positive” symptoms for Covid. Most of these were 60 years of age or older.

In this massive Stanford/Yale study, of the fully masked participants, 7.6% also showed “positive” symptoms over the same period. Once again, the positive symptoms were mostly attributed to adults 60 or older.

40% of the positive symptoms consented to testing.

“The researchers found that among the more than 350,000 people studied, the rate of people who reported symptoms of COVID-19, consented to blood collection and tested positive for the virus was 0.76% in the control [un-masked] villages and 0.68% in the intervention [masked] villages.”

Not ruled out was the possibility that the difference between un-masked (8.6%) and masked (7.6%) might be wholly or partially due to additional social distancing amongst those wearing the mnemonic of a mask.

Symptoms:

• 8.6% un-masked
• 7.6% masked

Tested positive (see above quotation for clarity):

• .76% un-masked
• .68% masked

All the Stanford/Yale data presented suggests the value of masking over no masks lies somewhere between 0% (if the acknowledged additional social distancing was the true driver, rather than the mask), and 12%.

The actual numbers of positives, masked or un-masked, were extremely low, and were shockingly similar in magnitude, masked or un-masked.

Refer to the article study itself (link above) for further detail.

Always “Follow the Science”

 

PhD Biologist: “I think early on, public health officials didn’t have many options. They didn’t want to admit they were clueless and powerless, so they latched on to the mask idea, because that was something they could actually tell people to do, and it sounded authoritative and proactive. The protection turned out to be very small, and the social/emotional/relational downside probably outweighed it. But they couldn’t back down once they had taken a stand. Once better treatment and prevention options were on the table, they couldn’t bring themselves to walk back on the masks.”

“They’ll do it again next time. Remember when we were in first grade and they had atomic bomb drills where we sat under our little desks with our heads between or knees? Same principle.”