Rigorous international study of N95 masks upends federal COVID narrative
(justthenews.com)
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I think it's a trick question folks. The answer is right there in black and white at the top of this page: "...no statistically significant real-world performance difference between surgical masks, N95s"
Same as this one: 2022 Oct 22 "Our findings indicate that both respirators and medical masks provide a high as-worn bioaerosol protection efficacy against virus containing aerosols, and therefore, a very high protection against airborne diseases. Considering the higher comfort, better availability, and lower price of medical masks in contrast to respirators, it is recommendable to use medical face masks especially in low risk situations and in general public." https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/36317154/
When I said "what was the study's conclusions", what I meant was does the quoted statement point to masks working or masks not working, because I think you came to the complete opposite conclusion any rational person would.
The study compared two common types of masks to each other, to see how well they worked. That's all.
In order to address the question of whether they worked at all the study would have had to include a group with no masks, and it did not do that.
I'll repeat the conclusion in the post, which compared N95s to surgical masks: "...no statistically significant real-world performance difference between surgical masks, N95s"
And I'll quote from the article the post linked to: "Published in the Annals of Internal Medicine (AIM) this week and led by researchers at Canada's McMaster University, the study found no statistically significant difference in protection between the two kinds of masks in healthcare facilities in Canada, Israel, Pakistan and Egypt." https://justthenews.com/government/federal-agencies/highest-protection-rigorous-international-study-n95-masks-upends
If you think any study in that post or its links says that masks do not work at all I think you need to re-read them.
so, do the surgical masks work better than expected, or do the N95s work worse than expected?
What part of "the N95s are a smidge better than the surgical masks" is confusing you?
except we know this is false. You can observe with you naked eye how well these non sealing masks contain anything at all.
Head on down to the nearest hospital with an infection control officer and explain this to them. I'm sure they'll be grateful to hear from you.