2 questions -
1. In brief, how great is the benefit of masks - meaning what percentage of spread does it stop, how does wearing them properly or not (not fully on, facial hair, constant adjusting) affect those numbers & which masks work better or worse?
If you can please link 2 or 3 real articles (not political) with studies.
Here are some
List of studies. Knock yourself out
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1HLrm0pqBN_5bdyysOeoOBX4pt4oFDBhsC_jpblXpNtQ/preview#
2. Before the CDC reversed their guidance, & recommended masks, was the general consensus among the medical community that the CDC was wrong? Or they were all following the CDC? (I do remember there being a lot of talk here about the CDC being wrong but I’m wondering if doctors were all going against the CDC as well)
To answer your question: The medical establishment/doctors take guidance from the CDC, so they did not advise communal mask wearing. However, any individual doctor would have told you to wear a mask if you needed extra protection, and would have required a COVID+ person to wear a mask if they left the house.
The question wasn’t whether masks are beneficial in slowing person-to person transmission of COVID. It was whether the benefits of communal mask wearing would outweigh the costs at the time.
There also was the concern of fomites, which has since been shown not to be the main source of spread. Because person-to-person transmission now known to be the main source of spread, the benefits of mask wearing (which reduce person-to-person spread) outweigh the potential hazards (which raise the potential for fomite spread).
NOTES:
1) A large part of the CDC guidance was predicated on the assumption that COVID-19 wasn’t widely seeded, so communal wearing of face masks was unwarranted and didn’t offer as great a benefit. Contact tracing was considered much more important.
2) They claimed that asymptomatic/pre-symptomatic spread wasn’t proven, which would effectively negate the largest benefit of masks, although it was well known at that point as
@yuneeq often reminded us.
3) The crux of the guidance was that masks were being diverted from medical personnel, as there was a severe shortage of PPE, for use in community settings where the potential benefit was unknown. This could have had terrible overall implications for medicine. Later, they encouraged homemade masks, circumventing this issue to an extent while allowing for mask usage.
4) It is universally acknowledged that it was a mistake. They were criticized at the time as well. Note that the quote from
@aygart is from March, before the CDC reversed guidance.
5) In the earliest days it wasn’t clear what played a greater role in transmission, fomites or respiratory droplets/aerosols. That debate was settled in April with more information, showing that fomite transmission was relatively rare.