All of us, Andrew Nikiforuk writes, should be wearing masks. That's what Nassim Taleb, a Lebanese born mathematician, told us back in January:
Taleb warned in late January that this pandemic required a rapid reduction in global mobility including lockdowns and social distancing to prevent exponential growth.
But the functionaries ignored Taleb, because they didn’t understand that a pandemic is a dynamic whirlwind of complexity.
In June Taleb wrote about the masks masquerade and the incompetence of some medical professionals. He noted that bureaucrats (and he calls them imbeciles) wouldn’t appreciate the power of masks because linear thinkers don’t like simple solutions.
The bureaucrats reasoned that one person wearing a mask wouldn’t cut down infection rates by much, and demanded more evidence. What they missed was the compounding effects of two or more people wearing masks.
Wearing a mask, of course, protects others from contagious droplets that can, without a mouth covering, travel eight to 12 feet. (Yes, our social distance requirements are a bit short.)
But as Taleb argued, two people wearing masks changes the scale of the story. A masked duo can reduce any exposure to each others’ viral load by 75 per cent. That matters because this coronavirus gets more contagious the more of it you take into your throat and lungs. So by reducing the viral load by three-quarters, Taleb pointed out, the duo actually will “reduce the probability of infection by 95 per cent or more!”
Instead, we have been distracted by a virulent discussion about human rights -- while the evidence around the world is clear:
When this coronavirus came along, it encountered cultures in Japan, China, South Korea and Taiwan where people don’t wait “for statistical data to find comfort in an easily adopted prophylactic device.”
Hong Kong’s low death and infection rates from the coronavirus owe much to the ubiquity of masks (99 per cent) and their compounding effects.
Crowded Hong Kong boasts a population similar to Quebec. But unmasked and spacious Quebec suffered more than 5,600 deaths while Hong Kong recorded eight deaths. Why?
The benefits of wearing masks scales up as more people don them, and protect the commons.
Sometimes the answer is right in front of our noses -- and we don't see it.
Image: The Tyee
6 comments:
You hit the nail on the head, Owen - the answer is right in front of our noses! If I see one more Covidiot in the stores wearing their mask under their nose, I'm going to scream. Then there's the idiots who remove their masks to take a cellphone call, or the one I saw the other day who removed her mask in order to cover her mouth with her hand when she coughed! Aaargh!
Cap
Stupidity is more virulent than COVID, Cap.
While this truth has been in front of us for nearly all of the pandemic, like the warming climate created by burning fossil fuels, it is still an inconvenient truth - for far too many of us.
CED
We like truths that lull us into ennui, CED. We have difficulty with calls to action.
Truly, there is something deeply flawed about our species, Owen, when a public health measure that can prevent the transmission of disease becomes fodder for political and cultural battles. To say I am disappointed in my fellow humans is an understatement.
This isn't rocket science, Lorne. It's geometric progression -- something they taught us back in high school Algebra. There is a reason Twain called us "the damn'd human race."
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