Mask🧵
If you’re citing the Cochrane review to claim “masks don’t work,” you’re already wrong.
Cochrane’s Editor-in-Chief publicly clarified that the review was inconclusive, marred by low adherence and design limits and does not support anti-mask claims:
cochrane.org/about-us/news/…
If you’re citing the Cochrane review to claim “masks don’t work,” you’re already wrong.
Cochrane’s Editor-in-Chief publicly clarified that the review was inconclusive, marred by low adherence and design limits and does not support anti-mask claims:
cochrane.org/about-us/news/…
RCTs are powerful when the intervention is controllable.
You can’t blind masks, enforce perfect adherence, or standardize fit - so many mask RCTs are structurally biased toward null results.
That’s a methods problem, not evidence that masks fail.
You can’t blind masks, enforce perfect adherence, or standardize fit - so many mask RCTs are structurally biased toward null results.
That’s a methods problem, not evidence that masks fail.
The “chain-link fence vs mosquito” argument fails because respirators are not sieves.
NIOSH-certified N95/N99 respirators use electret filter media - dense non-woven fibers with electrostatic attraction - to capture ≥95% of the hardest-to-filter aerosols (~0.3 μm).
NIOSH-certified N95/N99 respirators use electret filter media - dense non-woven fibers with electrostatic attraction - to capture ≥95% of the hardest-to-filter aerosols (~0.3 μm).
Airborne pathogens aren’t free-floating - they’re carried by aerosols captured by respirators.
This is basic aerosol science used for decades in industrial hygiene, TB control, and cleanrooms.
If N95s “didn’t work,” healthcare and semiconductor manufacturing wouldn’t exist.
This is basic aerosol science used for decades in industrial hygiene, TB control, and cleanrooms.
If N95s “didn’t work,” healthcare and semiconductor manufacturing wouldn’t exist.
A '24 rigorous review in Clinical Microbiology pulling from aerosol physics, virology, and epidemiology details how bias, low adherence, and design flaws undermine many mask studies - without ever contradicting the finding:
Masks work when used correctly.
journals.asm.org/doi/10.1128/cm…
Masks work when used correctly.
journals.asm.org/doi/10.1128/cm…
A controlled human exhaled-breath study in the Lancet directly measured viral emissions from infected people and found that all masks reduced airborne virus - N95s by ~98% even without fit training.
thelancet.com/journals/ebiom…
thelancet.com/journals/ebiom…
Infection risk isn’t binary - it’s dose-dependent.
Reducing the amount of virus you inhale lowers the probability and severity of infection. That’s why partial filtration still matters, and why respirators outperform loose masks.
This is basic infectious disease biology.
Reducing the amount of virus you inhale lowers the probability and severity of infection. That’s why partial filtration still matters, and why respirators outperform loose masks.
This is basic infectious disease biology.
• • •
Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to
force a refresh
