Travel distance plays a role for droplet infection, sure, but a significant share of covid transmission is aerosol-based - and I don't see a reason why travel distance should play a role for aerosol clouds.
For example, this article from the June 2021 edition of Science describes how the efficacy of masking depends on how virus-rich or virus-limited the environment is:
https://science.sciencemag.org/content/372/6549/1439

Here's a chart from the article to illustrate the effect:

P_inf = probability of infection, N_v and N_v,mask = number of viral particles inhaled without or with a mask.

So the idea that certain viral conditions exist in which mask-wearing has a decreasing effect is not some weird fantasy of mine.


I appreciate the effort, but just for the record: I have a postgrad degree in a STEM-field - no need to explain this stuff to me like I'm a HS dropout. Also, what you just said is plain false, see the discussion below.






Going back to the Science article from above, here is perhaps the most relevant chart:


The x-axis shows the baseline infection risk, i.e. whether we are in a virus-rich or virus-limited environment. As one can see in the top right chart, the relative risk reduction achieved by surgical masks decreases the more virus is circulating in the air.

The shaded region shows the baseline unprotected infection risk the study authors derived from various viral metrics like the base reproduction number. See the article for details. The key point is that they were using an R_0 estimate of 2-4, which represents the original strain or the lower end of the spectrum for Alpha. Delta's R0 is estimated to be between 6 and 7, so the region of the chart that's relevant in practice would shift signifcantly to the right in the chart above, right into the region where the relative risk reduction of surgical masks starts to budge. In particular, we are moving even further to the right on the chart in settings where people have lots of contacts, like, e.g. events or schools.

The authors conclude:


This post was edited by Black XistenZ on Aug 31 2021 01:43am

coming from the guy who ignores everything to focus one "gotcha" line. consistently.

i actually like the analogy used here, and will play off it.

even when we lived in the detroit area, we have never owned an alarm system.
my father obviously loves us and has spent his life providing. an alarm system "could" prove helpful under circumstances, but we have decided the risk too small to ever bother installing one. further more, we have never forced someone to buy a security system to keep our "neighborhood" safe either.

according to the graphs you showed me, cloth masks are about ~30% effective in blocking breath.
every hospital setting with "known aerosolization" used for studies on cloth masks, have shown them to be ineffective if not harmful to use. i've already pointed a couple of those out over a spread of time. because time does not change that fact.
to keep things straight despite your constant attacks on my personality... i'm aware you have linked some studies with contradicting results compared to "every hospital study". the barber shop, i.e.
i'm just waking up and will be working soon, so i can't get into the study until later. so i'll just have to ask you for now...
which is the outlier? the hospital studies or the barber shop? perhaps there are other factors involved for the barber shop. if not... we should just move our covid-wings to barber shops. they take the same circumstances with masks.... hospitals find them 0% effective, barber shop finds them 100% effective.

30% effective on a millions wide population causes drastic mitigation.

frankly we fucked up by not overhauling n95 or equivalent masks in the onset of the virus. cloth home made masks never should have become a thing, industry did its thing and made patterned shitty cloth masks then sold billions of dollars worth.

then again if someone asks "if ur vaccine works why isnt it working" they're already too stupid or blind to bother with, d2jsp sheriff badge or not.

This may be the most intelligent post ever, in the d2jsp political forum.

30% effective does not mean 30% mitigation. according to hospital studies... 30% effective gives you 0% coverage in aerosolized settings. that = 0 mitigation.

about the comment on does the vaccine work or not.... when the vaccines started rolling out, we were told we had to get the jab so we "didn't have to wear masks". that comment lasted about a week before the white-coats in "political" circles flip-flopped. now it's a jab and 2 masks? and get the kids too?
what data justifies masking and vaccinating children on a massive scale? why do these studies not take into light the fact that at least 30%(conservative number) of USA already have a better natural defense?

Thor is claiming the vaccine to be 95% effective in preventing hospitalizations. if i take those numbers without looking through the individual data.... that's only 5% of the population that wouldn't be covered "if they chose to take the vaccine". it would be safe to assume that the majority of that 5% have other outliers, like drastically old age or very complicated health issues.
we now acknowledge that the disease kills less than 1%, most of those deaths coming from old age and other health issues. so 99% of the population already need not fear the reaper according to data. 95% of that 99% are predicted to not even be hospitalized with a jab.
that seems rather promising on it's face... so why force everyone to wear cloth masks, that have been proven to not work for aerosolic virus? i'll again admit there is contradicting data on that with some studies, but until i really get into them, i believe them to be outliers.

my issue is with people pretending the 99% is the 1%. since when did "herd immunity" not include people who have built an immuno-response with antibodies?

What percentage of the population is routinely in the hospital.
What percentage of the population is routinely getting their haircut.

That should tell you which is more applicable to mitigation of community spread.

and like I already explained to void in the "What happened to the flu" thread, if you block 30% of spread that results in a 95% reduction in cases because it's an exponential rise.

I like how you totally ignored the important part of the analogy, that you want to have layered protection. Once again, you are actively distorting information so you can fit a narrative.


The fact of the matter is that masks work and we have a massive collection of data at every level to support this. You can nitpick individual studies, but that doesn't change the conclusion because, again, we have massive amounts of data at every level and it all comes to the same conclusion.

Unvaccinated People Are 29 Times As Likely To Be Hospitalized For COVID-19: CDC

https://news.yahoo.com/unvaccinated-people-29-times-likely-201851130.html?fr=sychp_catchall

Conservatives should be forcibly given the live virus and left to pray for each other with no hospitals allowed. After that’s done we can get back to normal.

This post was edited by inkanddagger on Aug 31 2021 12:05pm

yes and it's also nifty that you refuse to focus on "specific studies" unless it's a complete outlier study.... which i've read up on now.
this is the study link to the hair-salons are you are referring too.

https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/69/wr/mm6928e2.htm?s_cid=mm6928e2_w


i am still interested in this study, but among the 4 limitations they publish, i can think of a few more just from the top of my head that are relevant.
1. there were multiple stylists in said location, i am not noticing a separation of clients between the different stylists on the dates in question. as far as i can tell, it is just an assumption that the infected stylists directly did anything. (knowing they were sick, it would have been sensible to do other work and let the non-infected stylists work in direct contact. but did they?)
2. this adds a bit to the last limitation published. when you wash someone's hair for a hair-cut, you are also washing your hands at the same time. and i would imagine frequently.
3. how well ventilated was the location. were the doors open or closed and was their circulating air. (imo this matters most)

i do understand that transmission can raise exponentially. that was why we agreed to lock down for 2 weeks, (when we thought the death ratio was closer to 5%...) to "flatten the curve, and relieve stress from hospitals". that statement has gone completely out the window to now mean... "flatten the curve to zero" (which is theoretically impossible)
anyway, to your second comment. stopping 30% of particles "IS NOT" stopping 30% of spread. through all these studies i'm reading... the key to me seems to be ventilation. which is why most transmission seems to come from apartment buildings, where the air gets cycled around from unit to unit.

This post was edited by tagged4nothing on Aug 31 2021 02:32pm