01-05-2022, 12:29 PM
(01-05-2022, 12:21 PM)danbrotherston Wrote:(01-05-2022, 11:42 AM)tomh009 Wrote: For fighting the flu, facemasks would really help more than the vaccine. Maybe there will be less stigma associated with wearing a mask in the future.
I'm not sure facemasks would help that much, or at least, face masking in most contexts, I don't expect masking would be done in, family, school, visiting friends, non-public work contexts, but would probably apply in public settings like shopping and transit. (There are a lot of different policies available here). My understanding of the flu (which may be wrong--and frankly, epidemiologists may also be wrong as they were for COVID) is that it requires close contact, so it's most often transferred between those with close contact, when you are unlikely to wear a mask. It's also possible to be contagious before you feel symptoms.
"One 2013 study looked at how masks could help people with the seasonal flu limit spreading it when they exhale droplets containing the virus. Overall, researchers found masks led to a more than threefold reduction in how much virus people sprayed into the air."
https://www.healthline.com/health/cold-flu/mask
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3591312/