Obviously not a scientific study but I thought was interesting.

I have not seen a study showing culture results from masks.

Would love to have a link if available.

https://townhall.com/tipsheet/scottmorefield/2021/06/15/a-group-of-parents-sent-their-kids-face-masks-to-a-lab-for-analysis-heres-what-they-found-n2591047

Most of those are colonizers of the upper airway so it's not too surprising. It's also not surprising E. Coli was found on kids masks (kids are gross and don't wash their hands). Borrelia burgdorferi is the main one that stands out as unusual. Whatever kid grew MTB needs to get checked ASAP because either they or someone in their home has active tuberculosis.

The reality is that these masks aren't designed to be antiseptic, aren't supposed to be reused over and over and will quickly start growing whatever non-fastidious organisms they get inoculated with. Unless you're washing you're reusable mask literally daily, this is gonna happen.

Now all that being said, in most cases this isn't clinically relevant as again it's largely the same stuff that lives in your upper airway all the time. The masks are growing that stuff because the wearer is inoculating the mask, not vice versa. The articles insinuation that this is somehow a shocking and dangerous finding is incorrect and misleading.

Infection_Ag11 said:

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Most of those are colonizers of the upper airway so it's not too surprising. It's also not surprising E. Coli was found on kids masks (kids are gross and don't wash their hands). Borrelia burgdorferi is the main one that stands out as unusual. Whatever kid grew MTB needs to get checked ASAP because either they or someone in their home has active tuberculosis.

The reality is that these masks aren't designed to be antiseptic, aren't supposed to be reused over and over and will quickly start growing whatever non-fastidious organisms they get inoculated with. Unless you're washing you're reusable mask literally daily, this is gonna happen.

Now all that being said, in most cases this isn't clinically relevant as again it's largely the same stuff that lives in your upper airway all the time. The masks are growing that stuff because the wearer is inoculating the mask, not vice versa. The articles insinuation that this is somehow a shocking and dangerous finding is incorrect and misleading.

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Agree to an extent. I think kids wearing masks is not productive. Of course I also do not think schools should have been shut down.

dermdoc said:

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Infection_Ag11 said:

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Most of those are colonizers of the upper airway so it's not too surprising. It's also not surprising E. Coli was found on kids masks (kids are gross and don't wash their hands). Borrelia burgdorferi is the main one that stands out as unusual. Whatever kid grew MTB needs to get checked ASAP because either they or someone in their home has active tuberculosis.

The reality is that these masks aren't designed to be antiseptic, aren't supposed to be reused over and over and will quickly start growing whatever non-fastidious organisms they get inoculated with. Unless you're washing you're reusable mask literally daily, this is gonna happen.

Now all that being said, in most cases this isn't clinically relevant as again it's largely the same stuff that lives in your upper airway all the time. The masks are growing that stuff because the wearer is inoculating the mask, not vice versa. The articles insinuation that this is somehow a shocking and dangerous finding is incorrect and misleading.

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Agree to an extent. I think kids wearing masks is not productive. Of course I also do not think schools should have been shut down.

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It's absolutely not productive or necessary. Every school in America should have been open and mask free beginning Fall of 2020. I understand the initial response in Spring 2020 when we didn't have as much info, but we knew kids were not a major vector of transmission or at high risk of symptomatic disease by this time a year ago.

So the cloth mask (buff) I've been using this whole time and washed 2-3 times is dirty?

Glad I don't wear it anymore.

The bedazzled or sequined masks make me shudder. How the hell are you supposed to wash those things with any regularity? Yuck!

I think it is crazy that we still have to wear mask in clinic with well patients. Hell it is pretty dumb even with sick patients considering I've been seeing sick kids for 20 years with no barriers and no vaccines to the viruses they were spewing.

KidDoc said:

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The bedazzled or sequined masks make me shudder. How the hell are you supposed to wash those things with any regularity? Yuck!

I think it is crazy that we still have to wear mask in clinic with well patients. Hell it is pretty dumb even with sick patients considering I've done seeing sick kids for 20 years with no barriers and no vaccines to the viruses they were spewing.

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Amen. I have only missed one work day for illness since 1980(got campylobacter from a patient). After working at diarrhea land at Ben Taub pedi and being at the old Ben Taub and VA, I assume I am basically immune to everything.

And go read the articles on masks in the OR. Did zero good even with bacteria.

And please do not jump to the seemingly always conclusion that I am saying COVID is a "nothing burger"(still waiting on a link for that allegation).

There is just little people can do to stop the spread of a respiratory spread virus short of a vaccine.. This has been proven over and over again historically. And I know, I am a dermatologist and blah, blah, blah.

Exactly! The thought that we could stop this virus was just plain stupid. Once it was out, it was going to spread. Even with the vaccine it's still going to spread. I'm not going to down play it either. You know who I lost to it. The virus is 100% deadly for some.

But, masks were always stupid. They were always ineffective, but they made people feel safe. And they probably exposed vulnerable people because they were convinced that the mask was some magic barrier.

Yep. Sorry for the loss of your dad.

The most inane thing was shutting down schools.

Did nothing except foment fear in moms, which as an old doc, I am keenly aware of the power of a mom falsely afraid for her kids safety.

That said nothing about the effectiveness of masks. In fact, they argued that the virus was airborne and tiny. Way smaller than a mask could filter out. Especially how we were wearing them.

My mom got it while double masked in an office for less than 15 minutes. She always wore her mask even though we told her it probably wasn't doing much to help her. We encouraged my parents to stay home a little more since the vaccine was right around the corner and dad would be in the at risk category. But, they wouldn't give up church, nor do I blame them. That's where they wanted to be.

The mask gave them false hope that it was their ticket to freedom. I remember asking my dad about it before he got sick. He said he felt, "very comfortable " when he was wearing it.

People that kept beating the drum to just "mask up, stay safe" are partially to blame for folks getting sick. They gave false hope that that damn piece of dirty fabric was doing anything to stop that virus.

It because a religion to a lot of people including people like Fauci that admitted in e-mail that they didn't do much to stop the spread, but in public he was saying that we should wear 2 or 3. It was madness and people still want to argue that they must have worked somehow because they just believe that they had to.

And kids being forced to wear them? The people that kept pushing this crap have done much more mental damage to the people of this country than anyone can imagine. It wasn't healthy (mentally or physically). It became political and it was bull ****. It was bull **** when the mask thread started on this board and it's bull **** now for the FAA to be putting people on the no fly list if a nose pops out of their mask mid flight.

It's time for us to get back to living and stop with this stupid mask stuff. And there are a lot of people that need to eat some crow.

Again, they work, they just don't work how people think they work.

1) they do little to protect the wearer, as they aren't intended to filter incoming air of viral particles, they're intended to change air currents and flow to prevent giant plumes of viral particles from spreading out when people talk/cough/sneeze.
2) I haven't personally read Fauci's emails, but I think I read an excerpt that said something along the lines of "masks do little to keep OUT the virus." I don't think he said they didn't do much to "prevent spread."
3) I feel like the mask advertising campaigns were pretty consistent about saying it protects others from you, more so than you from others, but people continue to believe otherwise.
4) The effectiveness of masks on the wearer is likely present, but minimal, and is what I remember everyone said early on in the pandemic as well.

I agree that the political BS is BS. We wouldn't even be talking about masks if politicians hadn't drawn their lines in the sand on masks to begin with. But I think the consensus is still that they work.

https://www.pnas.org/content/118/4/e2014564118
https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2776536
https://www.vox.com/coronavirus-covid19/22456544/covid-19-mask-mandates-lockdown-debate-evidence

Quote:

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The studies can be underpowered meaning they might not have enough subjects for statistically significant findings and they often can't fully isolate the effect of masks versus other widely adopted actions against Covid-19. Some simply find correlations, but whether the associations are truly cause-and-effect is unclear.

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From a link in the vox article.

I agree that it's impossible to 100% prove that masks do or do not work. I do contend that you would see much better results from states like California if they did work.

As Nate Silver said, the nerds at the CDC and other places do not understand that face to face interaction is "essential" to a lot of people.

I'm a physical therapist and don't require masks in my office. It's been like that for months. People are glad to not wear them any more.

now that we have effective safe free vaccines and aren't in an election year can we have that honest discussion about if masks even work

I wanted them to but I'm pretty sure they don't