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0 pointsBjoernKW2y ago0 comments

> It is practically impossible to avoid catching covid in modern society.

For the average human going about an ordinary and active life that statement is quite true.

However, the person in question didn't lead an ordinary life. He was confined to a medical device and probably very rarely had in-person contact with random people. Besides, the people who met him personally all must have known about his condition.

Under such circumstances avoiding COVID-19 is actually pretty easy: Have everyone in the room wear high-quality face masks.

Even for the average person during the height of the pandemic, avoiding COVID-19 was still possible, but required significant effort (no lockdowns though, mind you): Basically, it meant wearing such a mask properly in public settings (and changing it at appropriate intervals) as well as frequent testing of everyone you were in touch with regularly.

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whelp_242y ago· 1 in thread

Masks are not 100% effective. Indeed, at it's height the hope was only to slow the spread to manageable levels, the spread was inevitable.

BjoernKWOP2y ago

N95 / FFP2 masks are sufficiently effective (if worn correctly) to reduce the likelihood of getting infected to the extent they effectively prevent infection on a personal level.

There's of course still a small chance of contracting COVID-19 in spite of wearing a mask, which is why for society at large masks only slowed down the spread at best. For the individual person by and large the probability for getting infected is negligible, though.

This precisely what those - quite heated - arguments (and pertinent studies) regarding masks being not effective at all were about: Masks are highly effective on a personal level; for preventing community spread their usefulness is limited.

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