{"id":10302,"date":"2023-03-28T15:45:49","date_gmt":"2023-03-28T15:45:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lonecandle.com\/?p=10302"},"modified":"2023-03-28T15:45:49","modified_gmt":"2023-03-28T15:45:49","slug":"the-covid-mask-wars-have-left-us-unprepared-for-the-next-pandemic","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/?p=10302","title":{"rendered":"The Covid mask wars have left us unprepared for the next pandemic"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>\n\n&#8220;Jason Abaluck is a Yale behavioral economist and the co-author of a&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.science.org\/doi\/10.1126\/science.abi9069\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">study<\/a>&nbsp;of masking interventions in Bangladesh that provided the single largest randomized controlled trial we have that looks at the effects of encouraging people to wear masks during the Covid pandemic. His research found a significant reduction in Covid cases in the villages that encouraged masking.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>When I talked with him this week, he emphasized that his finding \u2014 even if it\u2019s eventually supported by further research \u2014 is only one piece of the puzzle when it comes to figuring out masks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cThere\u2019s a couple distinct questions that are getting conflated here,\u201d he told me. Here are some of them:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cIf you wear a mask while there\u2019s a pandemic, are you less likely to get sick?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cIf you wear a mask while you have a respiratory illness, are you less likely to infect other people?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cIf you make people less likely to get sick during a pandemic, does that have lasting benefits to them, or does it just delay an infection without significantly changing their long-term health outcomes? Does it reduce transmission enough to change the overall dynamics of the pandemic?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cIf you tell people to wear masks, will they actually wear masks correctly and reliably?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cIf youmandate that people wear masks, will they actually wear masks correctly and reliably?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cWhat are the costs, to the median person and to a person who is unusually affected by wearing masks, of wearing masks?\u201d&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.vox.com\/future-perfect\/2023\/3\/8\/23630644\/cochrane-review-masks-covid-coronavirus-pandemic\">https:\/\/www.vox.com\/future-perfect\/2023\/3\/8\/23630644\/cochrane-review-masks-covid-coronavirus-pandemic<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&#8220;Jason Abaluck is a Yale behavioral economist and the co-author of a study of masking interventions in Bangladesh that provided the single largest randomized controlled trial we have that looks at the effects of encouraging people to wear masks during the Covid pandemic. His research found a significant reduction in Covid cases in the villages that encouraged masking.<br \/>\nWhen I talked with him this week, he emphasized that his finding \u2014 even if it\u2019s eventually supported by further research \u2014 is only one piece of the puzzle when it comes to figuring out masks.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThere\u2019s a couple distinct questions that are getting conflated here,\u201d he told me. Here are some of them:<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIf you wear a mask while there\u2019s a pandemic, are you less likely to get sick?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIf you wear a mask while you have a respiratory illness, are you less likely to infect other people?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIf you make people less likely to get sick during a pandemic, does that have lasting benefits to them, or does it just delay an infection without significantly changing their long-term health outcomes? Does it reduce transmission enough to change the overall dynamics of the pandemic?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIf you tell people to wear masks, will they actually wear masks correctly and reliably?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIf you mandate that people wear masks, will they actually wear masks correctly and reliably?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhat are the costs, to the median person and to a person who is unusually affected by wearing masks, of wearing masks?\u201d&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[588,409,483],"class_list":["post-10302","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-article-share","tag-corona","tag-coronavirus","tag-covid-19"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10302","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=10302"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10302\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10303,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10302\/revisions\/10303"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10302"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10302"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10302"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}