For Kristi’s stocking, actual science saying that face masks reduce the spread of exhaled coronavirus-bearing droplets by over 99%:
Face masks reduce the risk of spreading large COVID-linked droplets when speaking or coughing by up to 99.9 percent, according to a lab experiment with mechanical mannequins and human subjects, researchers said Wednesday.
A woman standing two meters (yards) from a coughing man without a mask will be exposed to 10,000 times more such droplets than if he were wearing one, even if he is only 50 centimeters away, they reported in the journal Royal Society Open Science.
“There is no more doubt whatsoever that face masks can dramatically reduce the dispersion of potentially virus-laden droplets,” senior author Ignazio Maria Viola, an expert in applied fluid dynamics at the University of Edinburgh’s School of Engineering, told AFP [Marlowe Hood, “Masks Block 99.9% of Large Covid-Linked Droplets: Study,” Phys.org, 2020.12.23].
The coronavirus vaccines are great, but they aren’t going to throttle infection rates until spring. Get 95% of Americans to put on those droplet-stopping masks through the winter, and we could save 55,000 lives over the next four hard months, says the Seattle-based Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation:
The Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) at the University of Washington’s School of Medicine released new forecasts today that incorporate expected rollout of a COVID-19 vaccine for all countries. The projections show that even with expected vaccine rollout, the United States is forecast to see 539,000 deaths by April 1. Especially in Northern Hemisphere countries currently experiencing a winter surge, continued vigilance to control the spread of the virus will be necessary for several months.
“Mass scale-up of vaccination in 2021 means we have a path back to normal life, but there are still a few rough months ahead,” said Dr. Christopher Murray, IHME director. “We must be vigilant in protecting ourselves at least through April, when, as our projections indicate, vaccines will begin to have an impact.”
The forecasts now include scenarios of rapid vaccine rollout, expected rollout, and no vaccine. A rapid vaccine rollout is forecast to reduce the death toll to 528,000 in the US. The forecasts show that if mask-wearing increased to 95%, combined with expected vaccine rollout, approximately 66,000 lives could be saved, compared to a vaccine rollout scenario with current mask-wearing levels remaining the same. Even with a vaccine, if states do not act to bring current surges under control, the death toll could reach 770,000 by April 1 [Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation, “Despite Vaccinations, Covid-19 Death Toll Likely to Increase to April,” 2020.12.03].
Mask up, stay home, and for Pete’s sake, don’t get your science from Kristi’s tweets!
The other day I read the statistic that SD is third in DUIs per driver in the US (twice the national average). DUI is a choice. Drinking is a freedom. Combining the two is deadly.
I see the absolute correlation to our current mask debate in the roots of these DUI statistics. We live in a state where the individual freedom from minor inconvenience trupms public health and safety.
I have railed before that the whole Second Amendment freedom tracks the same lines.
Let’s not use surviving the COVID infection as this Festivus Season’s feats of strength.
Hey Cory, Kristi has finally got South Dakota ahead of Oregon with 41 deaths today. Thats an achievement since Oregon just has so many more people and the virus hit there early. Way to go kristi! Way to go South Dakota!
Per capita, SD is still worse than California.
California is 1 in 20 has had the virus, SD is 1 in 9.
CA is 1 in 1671 has died, SD is 1 in 615.
Ms. Fisher, are you saying South Dakota will achieve herd immunity first?
Northern Mississippi has the mentality of a herd of lemmings and noem is the lead rodent.
Mr. Grudznick, Herd immunity is impossible to achieve without a vaccine. Smallpox raged through the world for over 3000 years – instead of achieving herd immunity, every year there were as many as 50 million cases, 1 in 7 died, and the survivors were often scarred for life. It wasn’t until a vaccine came along that smallpox was contained.
Polio has been around since ancient Egypt – herd immunity was never achieved. Only the Salk and Sabin vaccines contained it.
Sweden has admitted that the “herd immunity” approach failed. It certainly has in the US.
South Dakota will not attain herd immunity, we will simply have more people dying or suffering long term consequences from the virus.
I went to Christmas Eve mass with my wife (I still make that concession at Christmas and Easter). It feels that year after year, the sermon focuses on the theme of what Christmas REALLY means. Annually we are chided that Christmas is not the presents, the office parties . . . Christmas is the birth of the Savior. That seems the right course. (Maybe the Puritans had it right banning Christmas celebrations in the New World.)
This year the sermon focused on how awful 2020 has been — the disruption of Christmas traditions we all have – that it feels like Christmas has been taken away as so many other things in our lives have been taken from us.
I thought this odd. This horror of a year SHOULD be the time for us to see that all the trappings of Christmas have been stripped away by COVID, that this would be the time for religion to stand tall and say, “NOW folks can focus on what Christmas is REALLY all about” — not join in the lament of the loss of the trappings railed against in years past.
The church was a fraction of the normal Christmas capacity, but the majority of parishioners did not wear masks (I suppose masks are not needed now that The Supreme Court ruled that you cannot catch COVID at religious gatherings). I would have thought that church, Christmas mass in particular, would be the time to demonstrate concern for your fellow man.
Only 1129 covid deaths registered yesterday, nationwide.
O, I agree with you – as my grandparents would have sent, these times (like all times) are sent to try us, and these last 9 months have certainly showed everyone what we are made of. (The ones who really came through with flying colors were and are all the health care workers and front line workers, who knocked it out of the park. And are still knocking it out of the park. We can never thank them enough.)
The interesting thing to me is that here we are, in the land of Laura Ingalls Wilder, and if you read her books (especially The Long Winter), they were stripped of all the traditional festivities, etc. But they didn’t complain, or not much. And they followed the rule that “what can’t be cured must be endured” – with as much cheerfulness, bravery, charity, etc. as they could muster. Which was a lot more than some these days…
Thought provoking post, O! Thanks!
I’m watching some disturbing data on viral and bacterial load in masks contributing to pneumonia.
The real tragic part of what’s happening now kind of comes out of left field for a lot of folks.
The oldest of the boomers – a huge generation of Americans – is around 80. We’re going through a lot of loss, folks, and political and medical grifters seem to be making lots of hay.
John, you’ve got to stop watching things on the Internet. It’s all bunk. ;-)
But this meta-analysis of 21 studies shows that wearing face masks reduces the risk of respiratory infection by 80%.
Back in June when a Florida candidate for Congress claimed that “Excessive use of face masks causes fungal and bacterial pneumonia,” AP quickly pointed out that no evidence exists to back that claim:
So it appears there’s more danger that someone will get sick from listening to your false statements than there is that they’ll get cooties from wearing a mask.
Besides, if you have the good sense to protect yourself and your neighbors by wearing a mask, you’ll likely have the good sense not to wear a moldy mask.
But if you want to keep beating your head against that wall of denial, John, consider: Long before coronavirus, health care workers regularly wore masks to prevent infection. Is there any sign, pre-coronavirus or currently, that health care workers get pneumonia more frequently than the regularly unmasked population and that such pneumonia can be linked directly to their mask usage and not their exposure to patients with infectious respiratory disease?