Do face masks work? | Spectator USA

Do face masks work? | Spectator USA

• Coronavirus is not a reason for us to accept arbitrary impositions or abandon our traditions of rational discourse

Alejandrina Guzman, daughter of Joaquin ‘El Chapo’ Guzman, is making a designer range of face masks in Mexico. --Credit: Getty

• Governments may make them mandatory, but how much protection do they offer? 
• "Should we, or should we not be compelled to wear face masks during a virus epidemic? 

 ...If we are to be told that decisions are scientifically justified, we need a discussion about that scientific basis, not just be told to take our medicine.
...The surgical-type face masks, more likely to be used in developed countries, are a bit better. 
They have pores typically three times larger than the virus particles, rather than the one to five thousand times larger for the cloth masks. 
Better, but still not good enough to filter out viruses. 
...But the thing to understand about this science is that those breathing-in factors represent the very best that could possibly be achieved. 
...In other tests, masks are better at filtering out large droplets. 
...The mask may protect you a bit, but it may well not.
...The point is: does any of what is out there add up to a watertight case for compelling people to wear masks in public or at work (outside a healthcare setting)? 
The threshold for compulsion must surely be higher than ‘maybe’ and ‘perhaps’. 
But if it really is the case that the threshold for regulatory compulsion is being approached, it should be a simple matter for our scientific advisers to present it to us and allow time for it to be critically discussed in relation to a real-world setting, before government imposes measures upon us all...
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