alt Hacker NewsThought I recall Vinay Prasad saying (back in 2020 or 2021) that masks don't really work well enough for us to force all kids to wear them. Like chance passing encounters they have some effectiveness, but an imperfectly used non-n95 mask is basically worthless. But the latter scenario is what nearly everyone was doing.
>Vinay Prasad
frequent touter of other right-wing ideas surround the pandemic https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vinay_Prasad#COVID_response
>but an imperfectly used non-n95 mask is basically worthless.
also not true. Even surgical or cloth masks on bearded individuals provide 30-40% aerosol filtration https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8130778/
The myth that laypeople couldn't effectively use masks was just turning the topic into an all-or-nothing binary, knowing people would be discouraged.