Thought I'd go over the issues around when and possibly if we can stop wearing masks.
It's been long stated that Covid-19 will only be suppressed by herd immunity. This is roughly the point where the percentage of people that have either recovered or are immunized reaches 60%, recently upgraded to 70-80%. 60% corresponds to a R0 of 2.5 but new variants may well have R0 of 3.5 to 4.
But there are other considerations.
We don't know whether vaccines or prior infection prevents enough disease to stop or reduce spreading from people that may get a touch but may be asymptomatic. Even if a much lower viral load being asymptomatic may increase some transmission since symptomatics are more likely to avoid others. The information needed has was not provided by the vaccine trials. It will gradually emerge but will be hard to get the data.
Likely it will require substantial reduction (100x or more) in new cases together with a full genomic characterization of most new cases which will be much more able to determine transmission links.
There are also the social issues. If half the public is vaccinated will they start feeling put upon wearing masks and if they don't wear one will it send the wrong message to others that have not yet been vaccinated? This may create more conflict among people already highly polarized. Might be interesting to see how Israel addresses this as they seem to be a few months ahead of most every other place in vaccinations.
One thing the government could do here in the USA instead of just sending out money to everyone is tie it to getting vaccinated. You get more if you have been vaccinated. The obvious problem is that currently vaccines are in short supply so this would need to wait until availability is sufficient.
So what are your thoughts?
Please post any new data/studies that address the issues as to when we can stop wearing masks and return to some degree of normality.
Here's a brief piece that touches on some of the issues, known and unknown.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/08/h...cine-mask.html
It's been long stated that Covid-19 will only be suppressed by herd immunity. This is roughly the point where the percentage of people that have either recovered or are immunized reaches 60%, recently upgraded to 70-80%. 60% corresponds to a R0 of 2.5 but new variants may well have R0 of 3.5 to 4.
But there are other considerations.
We don't know whether vaccines or prior infection prevents enough disease to stop or reduce spreading from people that may get a touch but may be asymptomatic. Even if a much lower viral load being asymptomatic may increase some transmission since symptomatics are more likely to avoid others. The information needed has was not provided by the vaccine trials. It will gradually emerge but will be hard to get the data.
Likely it will require substantial reduction (100x or more) in new cases together with a full genomic characterization of most new cases which will be much more able to determine transmission links.
There are also the social issues. If half the public is vaccinated will they start feeling put upon wearing masks and if they don't wear one will it send the wrong message to others that have not yet been vaccinated? This may create more conflict among people already highly polarized. Might be interesting to see how Israel addresses this as they seem to be a few months ahead of most every other place in vaccinations.
One thing the government could do here in the USA instead of just sending out money to everyone is tie it to getting vaccinated. You get more if you have been vaccinated. The obvious problem is that currently vaccines are in short supply so this would need to wait until availability is sufficient.
So what are your thoughts?
Please post any new data/studies that address the issues as to when we can stop wearing masks and return to some degree of normality.
Here's a brief piece that touches on some of the issues, known and unknown.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/08/h...cine-mask.html
via International Skeptics Forum https://ift.tt/2N76m3h
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