and the policies/messaging which shold arise from the science.
When masks fit well, are high quality (N95 KF94, or equivalently effective cloth masks), and are worn consistently, they minimize the transmission of disease. Period. That's the science. Especially when combined with vaccinations, testing, staying home at the first symptoms of illness, etc.
The effectiveness of mask mandates (policy) is a mixed bag - largely because, aside from limited early implementations, they were ignored: they weren't complied with, they were minimially complied with (people wore masks which weren't well-fitted, high quality; people wore them as chin diapers, people took them off when they were with people they trusted to not be sick, or deliberately defied the masks, etc.). Just like seat belts that just sit in your care - but aren't pulled around your body - they don't work well if they aren't in use. If we measured the effectiveness of seat belts in the early days without taking into account whether injured drivers or riders were actually wearing them at the time it is unlikely we would have seat belt mandates now.
And - from the beginning, our message has been based on policy rather than science: The masks aren't effective (or only protect those around the wearer) were based on policy: we needed the masks for health care professionals - and early on we believed that people would be more compliant based on altruism than on self-protection.
We know why the Trump administration played down COVID, but the Biden administration is also down-playing COVID for policy reasons: poeple are tired of COVID and want to go on about their lives without thinking about the fact that there are still hundreds of people dying from COVID every day, and 59% of a group of low risk individuals had damage to one of 7 major organs several months after the end of COVID. Not to mention that we have zero idea about the consequences of this disease (which impacts more body systems than any other disease we have yet encountered) more than 3 years out. Yet, on the eve of the State of the Union a year ago, facing a fight about masking to attend the event, the CDC relatively quietly changed how it measures risk ("community transmission" ) - which resulted in a magic transformation from nearly every state being all red or orange to nearly every state being mostly yellow, and the mask mandate in the house being dropped. The new measure (ironically "community level" ) is based not on how much COVID is present in a community - but almost exclusively on whether the hospitals in a community can handle the load. At the time of the switch, there could have been 4 times as much COVID in a community than the previous day - and the community could still be green.
We (both the CDC and more broadly) need to separate the science from policy. COVID is a deadly disease with long term consequences we already know of. Masks minimize its transmission and protect both wearer and those around them. The reality of COVID needs to be acknowledged - and the government shold be be more broadly warning people about the science, and not convlating policy with science. There are far too many people (including on DU) who cite the policy recommendations from the CDC as science.
The policy to best protect people is a different question - but we need to be clear on the scientific facts and figure out what to do to best protect people while not forcing us to hunker down in our houses with not human contact. And we need to figure out how to move people toward wanting to protect themselves and others.
Mandatory masking is a policy. As implemented in the US, aside from the early implementation, the mandatory masking policy had - at best - mixed effectiveness. Not because masking was ineffective, but because the policy was not consistently followed. The article being cited is focused largely on whether the policy of mandating mask wearing was effective - and the studies it relies on reflect the mixed results from the ineffective implementation of the policy. Most of the responses also make the same mistake (including, to some extent, the specific response cited above).
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