
Show HN: Japan's mask culture saves lives. The West needs to adopt mask culture - fasteddie31003
http://www.maskssavelives.org/
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dgrin91
Isn't this the epitome of causation vs correlation? I'm not saying masks don't
help, but this site doesn't say or link to why masks are the way.

For example, Japan has over double the population of SK, yet SK has ~9x more
cases. Yet both are "high mask-wearing culture".

And of course, China, which is "medium", breaks this model heavily. Masks
didn't help. Lockdowns helped.

~~~
fasteddie31003
I totally agree that this is nothing more than correlation at this point. I'm
all for a double-blind study and would love to better quantify mask-wearing. I
am saying: wearing masks seems like an easy thing to do that could potentially
limit the COVID-19 infection rate.

~~~
mbreese
And it could also give people a false sense of security. Masks may be helpful,
but only in concert with other practices. Distancing is going to have a much
larger impact on limiting the viral spread. If you have a bunch of people
wearing masks that are only partially effective start gathering in large
groups, you run the risk of negating all of the good generated from
distancing.

~~~
svara
The "false sense of security" point needs evidence the same way that we need
evidence on whether masks are beneficial or not. There's evidence for the
latter, and, to the best of my knowledge, only speculation on the former
point.

Either way, no one is advocating for mask wearing to replace other mitigation
measures.

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tpmx
The normally extremely anti-racist newspapers in Sweden have some very weird
racist thoughts about the use of masks in Asia. It's just plain idiotic.

The thinking tends to go something like: "Oh, that's just asians doing things
without any scientific grounding out of group think. I know that because I
read an article in The Guardian which said that wearing a mask is not a 100%
protection against getting infected, so because of that they are ignorant."

The messaging has also become confused by journalist-activists attempting to
do some public good by saying masks are meaningless, just so that the public
doesn't hoard the masks that the people in healthcare needs.

~~~
dmlittle
> wearing a mask is not a 100% protection against getting infected

Most things are never 100% safe. Wearing a seatbelt does not guarantee you
won't be injured in case of an accident, it's still something everyone
recognizes it's a good thing to wear. I wonder what the tipping point is in
terms of something being silly to do vs. it makes sense to do it for the
general public. I would guess that social stigma plays a big role in it.

~~~
StavrosK
It's an example of fallacious thinking, "if it's not 100% effective, that
means it's 0% effective".

~~~
notahacker
Yep. There are certain circumstances when _if it 's not completely effective,
don't bother_ might be a valid heuristic, like taking completely unnecessary
risks simply because you have a mask to reduce them. But reluctance to wearing
masks in the West isn't coupled with a commonsense avoidance of risks
altogether..

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2T1Qka0rEiPr
I'm sorry, but the proof made on this site in support of the efficacy of
wearing a face mask appears to be simply looking at a small sample of
countries and finding a _correlation_ between two variables. Completely
putting the _should we shouldn 't we debate_ to one side, I'm not sure this
site really contributes to this discussion in a scientific/novel way...

~~~
nerfhammer
Country-sized groups of people are not small samples. There may be other
biases but that's not one of them.

~~~
viklove
Why don't we look at Mexico and try to draw some conclusions? None of this
data is useful as long as governments continue to stifle the freedom of
information. Every country is hiding numbers from the international community,
I'm not so sure we can trust Japan's numbers (or anyone's) to be honest...

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nojvek
I don't think people are against masks. The message is that we don't have
enough masks for everyone. Because they are so limited, doctors and healthcare
workers are at the highest risk, since they are exposed to the virus the most.
Please make masks available for them as they'll have the best use for masks.
They can save themselves and other people having the biggest impact.

Singapore is a small country and had capacity to distribute masks to everyone.
US is at a much larger scale. I'm sure if we have a billion masks, we'd be
giving a couple to everyone.

Masks are definitely effective, but US is so grossly underprepared for this
pandemic that we really have to make a tough choice. Our manufacturing economy
has been going downhill as we've been offshoring things to China and other
countries. This is a huge blow when we can't build things that are dire to
save us.

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ajankelo
Here is a growing list of 30+ papers that back up the efficacy of masks:
[https://docs.google.com/document/d/1HLrm0pqBN_5bdyysOeoOBX4p...](https://docs.google.com/document/d/1HLrm0pqBN_5bdyysOeoOBX4pt4oFDBhsC_jpblXpNtQ/edit#)

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jpatrickpark
Japan has low number of confirmed cases because they barely tested anyone. For
example, from Feb 1st to March 18th, Japan had over 160k people who wanted to
get tested, and they tested only about 5k people among them
(news.bizwatch.co.kr/article/industry/2020/03/23/0001).

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seltzered_
A few points:

\- There's an ongoing effort to promote civilian use of masks, see:
[https://www.facebook.com/groups/640968383371577](https://www.facebook.com/groups/640968383371577)
and their document 'Hong Kong Protocol"
[https://docs.google.com/document/d/1mvc6evI2qzU3M8MkrLSqKJBT...](https://docs.google.com/document/d/1mvc6evI2qzU3M8MkrLSqKJBTO8bmzIFgqP7FkJT-
tkI/mobilebasic?1=)

\- The Surgeon General may be saying not to wear masks because they have to be
done correctly, you don't want to try and buy an N95 mask (at time of this
writing in USA) because:

    
    
      - First responders in the US need N95 respirators right now! I donated mine and plan to make a cloth mask.
    
      - You might be wearing it wrong! See NIOSH's guide on facial hairstyle and respirators: https://www.cdc.gov/niosh/npptl/pdfs/FacialHairWmask11282017-508.pdf
    
      - You need to dispose or disinfect after use.
    
      - Most importantly, if you're wearing an N95 with a valve, you may just be spreading the virus out if you're an asymptomatic carrier.
    

\- People are currently looking into the best mask to wear, see
[https://twitter.com/lucasgonzalez/status/1242468271825313792](https://twitter.com/lucasgonzalez/status/1242468271825313792)
&
[https://twitter.com/magghu/status/1241361090954571781](https://twitter.com/magghu/status/1241361090954571781)

I'm onboard with your overall message, but think it needs to be crafted a bit
better.

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mbreese
I think you're confounding a lot of variables here... the way that Japan and
South Korea have dealt with the virus are in many ways different than the way
that it was handled in Italy and the US. Masks aren't necessarily as important
as some of those other factors, including general cultural tendencies, such as
listening to government advice or willingness to adhere to limits on movement.

It's also misleading to include the Surgeon General's tweet on this subject.
This is in very specific context to having a limited supply of masks and
trying to reserve them for the most at risk populations.

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asdz
I'm Asian and travelling in UK around mid Feb. I'm wearing a surgical mask and
everyone is giving me a weird look, there's even a male driver who take
picture of me as I cross the traffic light.

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spqr0a1
Meanwhile in New York, the worst hit state in America, masks of all sorts have
been illegal in public for the last 175 years.
[https://newyorkhistoryblog.org/2013/10/halloween-history-
new...](https://newyorkhistoryblog.org/2013/10/halloween-history-new-yorks-
anti-mask-law/)
[https://www.nysenate.gov/legislation/laws/PEN/240.35](https://www.nysenate.gov/legislation/laws/PEN/240.35)

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JoshuaEddy
Singapore should not be circled. Singapore haven't distributed masks, they
don't mandate masks, they only encourage masks for sick/hospital, and NYT said
on Mar 13 "most... do not wear masks out, because the government has told them
it’s not needed".

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stevavoliajvar
Iran doesn't have 80k cases
[https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/map.html](https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/map.html)
[https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/iran/](https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/iran/)

~~~
detaro
same number as shown for Italy, so copy-paste mishap?

~~~
stevavoliajvar
can be, hopefully they will fix it

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talonbragg
This entire site is an argumentative fallacy. There are many other factors
involved in the spreading of viruses. Masks are not going to solve the problem
and forcing people to start wearing masks isn't going to make people believe
that it is a solution.

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alanfranz
You know, in Italy you could not buy a face mask since mid January. Yes, if it
were in our culture we would stockpile them at home. But I can assure
everybody would use one since February, if we could get some.

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d3ntb3ev1l
A lot of the mask usages in Japan are to help with allergies

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lazylizard
Singapore does not have a mask wearing culture. Neither has it told everyone
to stay home. But it has closed borders n pubs.

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theredbox
CzechoSlovakia is at this point where everyone is using masks

But I guess we are still east so it does not count ;-)

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mcnamaratw
Why is this flagged? Please look at the data (at link).

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tpmx
So some fxxers flagged this thread? Again showing why HN sucks in any
emergency situation. There will always be two people who strongly disagree.
(It seems like two flags is enough to kill any post.)

