[M T]

Ineffective at preventing the wearer from acquiring the disease. Which they are. But they're apparently pretty effective at preventing the wearer from spreading the disease.

Stupac, can you point me to data that supports the view that masks are effective at preventing the wearer from spreading the disease?  The studies I mostly see are of whether mask wearers get ill.  There is an Australian  study of household use of masks after an influenza case in the household, that showed effectiveness against spread where both the ill and healthy wore masks (or, rather, it showed that IF they actually wore the masks).

I would NOT say that masks are ineffective at preventing the wearer from acquiring the disease.  The studies that I've seen are mostly among healthcare workers, but those workers are usually using other factors (PPE, or behavioral differences) when they wore masks than when not.  I think it was BC that pointed to such a study on the Cardboard in the last week.  When they wore masks (and whatever else they may have done when they took that precaution), they had fewer infections.

We will probably soon see at least anecdotal evidence from superspreading events where the people were exposed, some who were wearing masks and some who weren't.  Some of those experiments have unfortunately been conducted over the past week.  But, even with that data, it would be hard to ascertain whether a person who was infectious and wearing a mask prevented the spread to others.

[M T]

Ineffective at preventing the wearer from acquiring the disease. Which they are. But they're apparently pretty effective at preventing the wearer from spreading the disease.

Stupac, can you point me to data that supports the view that masks are effective at preventing the wearer from spreading the disease?  The studies I mostly see are of whether mask wearers get ill.  There is an Australian  study of household use of masks after an influenza case in the household, that showed effectiveness against spread where both the ill and healthy wore masks (or, rather, it showed that IF they actually wore the masks).

I would NOT say that masks are ineffective at preventing the wearer from acquiring the disease.  The studies that I've seen are mostly among healthcare workers, but those workers are usually using other factors (PPE, or behavioral differences) when they wore masks than when not.  I think it was BC that pointed to such a study on the Cardboard in the last week.  When they wore masks (and whatever else they may have done when they took that precaution), they had fewer infections.

We will probably soon see at least anecdotal evidence from superspreading events where the people were exposed, some who were wearing masks and some who weren't.  Some of those experiments have unfortunately been conducted over the past week.  But, even with that data, it would be hard to ascertain whether a person who was infectious and wearing a mask prevented the spread to others.