Thread by @NemesisUnicorn

The farce that is #facecoverings & #facemasks against #COVID19 , a thread.

First up, #WHO, in latest ‘interim guidance’ of 1 Dec, on ‘potential benefits & harms’ of #masks: apps.who.int/iris/bitstream…. (note 1st ‘potential benefit’ is ‘reduced spread of respiratory droplets’ - which is not actually the same as reducing transmission, is it?)

But you’re convinced the benefits outweigh the harms and go for masking. I mean, forcing people to keep a piece of fabric/paper and plastic on their faces, how hard can that be, eh? Well, here’s the WHO’s most recent interim guidance again. It’s not as simple as it looks, is it?

And hold on, here’s Prof Robert West, member of the Scientific Pandemic Insights Group on Behaviour (SPI-B), which advises SAGE, to Times Radio’s Gloria De Piero a few weeks ago.

Bit crude, I know, but here’s my re-creation of the sort of thing he’s talking about, using an (aerosol) can of spray paint & a dustsheet. I know which makes me feel safer - especially when so many of the droplets/aerosols would be dispersed by any movement of air

And for a real-word example, here’s the US’s Masker-in-Chief at some victory rally or other just after he won the Presidency. I hope you sanitised those paws before you touched anything, or anyone, #JoeBiden!

He’s not the only culprit, tho. Here’s No 10 Downing St’s #AllegraStratton; #AlexSalmond & #UrsulavonderLeyen. Oh, and a #Korean #doctor extolling the virtues of masks.

That 1 Dec ‘interim guidance’ was update of guidance of 5 June, & it was rather more pro-mask than the June guidance. It was also published shortly after it became clear there was no way #Biden wouldn’t become President (altho that may just be me being a conspiracy theorist!)

Curiously, the WHO’s advice on gloves has been consistent throughout: they’re not recommended, partly because they allow the transfer of pathogens. What’s the difference between storing bugs on gloves and ‘storing’ them on a mask? Answers on a postcard, I guess...

Until June, the WHO had not been recommending the use of masks. #BBCNewsnight’s Deb Cohen reported in July that the WHO had been set to again not recommend masks but was ‘politically lobbied’ into supporting masking (altho’ she doesn’t say by whom) (bbc.co.uk/programmes/p08…)

Here’s what the UK’s EMG-SAGE group thought about face-coverings in June (from the minutes of their meeting on 4 June (assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/upl…)

In the interests of transparency, I should include this, minutes from EMG-NERVTAG meeting in September: assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/upl… Feel free to read them for yourself, but a couple of, er, inconsistencies struck me - pics

So far there’s been only 1 randomised control trial on masks & Covid19, #DANMASK, but re: masks protecting wearer, not those around them. Altho’ it found slightly lower incidence of C19 in wearers, it was still “not statistically significant” : acpjournals.org/doi/10.7326/M2…

“But just cos we’ve no proof masks work for Covid, we’ve got proof for other respiratory diseases, yeah? Like flu, for example?” Interestingly, ITV’s Robert Peston raised a similar point with Prof Neil Ferguson, epidemiologist & former UK Govt advisor.

Now, some have queried (putting it mildly) Prof Ferguson’s modelling on Covid, but when it comes to flu in the past, he could well be right. (Altho I was too lazy to look up vaccination rates etc, & imp to remember popln of Japan abt 120 million, abt 25% that of entire EU)

But then even in Japan, it appears people don’t wear masks properly: pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32899922/. Worth bearing in mind, too, that this was an internet survey, which attracted more affluent people who, apparently, are more likely to use masks properly than less-affluent ones.

But then even #MattHancock, himself may not be that sure on masks anyway. This is him in June, telling House of Commons he was making masks mandatory in shops. Note public confidence comes before ‘enhancing protections’.

And what does 'enhanc[ing] protections' mean anyway? You could make everyone take off their shoes on entering a shop and in theory that would ‘enhance protections’ (any bugs picked up on their shoes wld be kept out of shop) but would it actually stop anyone getting Covid?

But, well, why not go for masks anyway? Well, as the WHO itself has acknowledged, they're bad news for lip readers, people with autism, sensory disabilities etc. The thought of people with autism having to ‘train’; themselves to wear a mask makes my blood boil

And here's another issue. Here's the magazine of healthcare mutual soc Benenden, & then NHS’s own website. If you're going to use a/bs, at least make it for a good reason.

It's hard to disagree that masks work in theory, but their shortcomings are obvious to anyone who looks down their local street and sees how they're worn in practice.

Make them voluntary, tho, & people who choose to wear them are more likely to wear, handle and maintain them properly; not perfectly, maybe, but almost certainly much, much better than those forced into wearing them. #TakeOffYourMask

This thread seems to be getting a fair bit of traction, so I'm going to add this, a report on the only RCT so far on masks reducing transmission (by more than 9% apparently. But only if you're disingenuous; otherwise it's 0.07 of one percentage point): conservativewoman.co.uk/the-truth-abou…