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Face masks reduce severity of symptoms


Still Waters

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Face masks can prevent wearers from developing a serious case of Covid-19 by cutting the amount of virus in the body, scientists have found.

It means face coverings not only protect other people, but they also mean that if the person wearing it does become infected, their symptoms are milder, they say.

Monica Gandhi, an infectious disease doctor at the University of California, San Francisco, says people wearing masks will take in fewer coronavirus particles, making it easier for their immune systems to cope.

Until now, this theory has only been suspected, not proven.

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/health/coronavirus-face-mask-symptoms-protect-severe-mild-immune-monica-gandhi-a9662226.html

https://www.ucsf.edu/news/2020/07/418181/one-more-reason-wear-mask-youll-get-less-sick-covid-19

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Masks Do More Than Protect Others During COVID-19: Reducing the Inoculum of SARS-CoV-2 to Protect the Wearer

https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11606-020-06067-8

 

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It seems natural that this sort of study would be done and I find the results somewhat encouraging.

https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11606-020-06067-8

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There are two likely reasons for the effectiveness of facial masks: The first—to prevent the spread of viral particles from asymptomatic individuals to others—has received a great deal of attention.10, 11 However, the second theory—that reducing the inoculum of virus to which a mask-wearer is exposed will result in milder disease12,13,14,15,16,17,18,19,20,21,22,23,24,25,26,27—has received less attention and is the focus of our perspective which compiles virologic, epidemiologic and ecologic evidence.

They make reference to this animal study. It was published in May. The work was done earlier in this pandemic.

https://academic.oup.com/cid/advance-article/doi/10.1093/cid/ciaa644/5848814

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SARS-CoV-2 could be transmitted by respiratory droplets or airborne droplet nuclei in the hamster model. Such transmission could be reduced by surgical mask usage, especially when masks were worn by infected individuals.

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From the original link.

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A systematic review of earlier studies, before facial masking was widely practiced, placed the proportion of asymptomatic infection with SARS-CoV-2 at 15%.35 A more recent narrative review of 16 different studies estimated the rate of asymptomatic infection at 40–45%.36 The CDC has now (since article submission) also placed the rate of asymptomatic infection at 40% - the reference is as follows and could this new reference be placed here: “Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). COVID-19 Pandemic Planning Scenarios. July 10, 2020. https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/hcp/planning-scenarios.html.” Closed settings, such as cruise ships, can be particularly illustrative when examining phenotypes associated with SARS-CoV-2. For example, one of the earliest estimates of the rate of asymptomatic infection due to SARS-CoV-2 was in the 20% range from a report of a COVID-19 outbreak on the Diamond Princess cruise ship.37 In a more recent report from a different cruise ship outbreak, all passengers were issued surgical masks and all staff provided N95 masks after the initial case of COVID-19 on the ship was detected.38 In this closed setting with masking, where 128 of 217 passengers and staff eventually tested positive for SARS-CoV-2 via RT-PCR, the majority of infected patients on the ship (81%) remained asymptomatic,38 compared with 18% in the cruise ship outbreak without masking.37

This is suggestive of a low amount of virus causing asymptomatic cases.

 

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Thanks Still !   That's very encouraging news.    I've read about the idea of "viral load"..somewhere before.    ..the idea that the severity of your reaction is dose related, at the time of infection.    

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Sounds like hocus pokus with no real way to prove it except anecdotally.  Just how does a virus propagate in the body.  If you only take a bit of virus then you only get a bit sick?  Seriously?  

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A virus lodged in a cell replicates and reproduces as much as possible; with each new replication, the host cell produces more viral material than it does normal genetic material. Left unchecked, the virus will cause the death of the host cell. Viruses will also spread to nearby cells and begin the process again.

So when a virus starts spreading it spreads until the immune system can overcome it.  Makes this study sound like meh to me.

Edited by OverSword
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22 minutes ago, OverSword said:

Sounds like hocus pokus with no real way to prove it except anecdotally.  Just how does a virus propagate in the body.  If you only take a bit of virus then you only get a bit sick?  Seriously?  

Yes, seriously. 

Because a virus needs time to replicate and if there's smaller amount of virus to start with, replication to the amount needed to actually cause an illness takes longer time, which body can and usually does use to start building the defence anti-bodies. 

It was pretty telling, the way doctors and nurses would tend to develop severe symptoms, even if they were healthy and young, and the logical explanation certainly was that the initial high saturation of virus helps create severe cases of the actual disease. 

It had to be proven, not just noted, of course, and now we've got it proven too. 

Additional reason to wear a mask. 

Wear. A. Mask. 

 

22 minutes ago, OverSword said:

So when a virus starts spreading it spreads until the immune system can overcome it.  Makes this study sound like meh to me.

Or can't overcome it. 

So wear a mask.    

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Hmmm, this is interesting paired with the other thread that had a study going against the viral load hypothesis 

 

 

Edited by spartan max2
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4 minutes ago, Helen of Annoy said:

Yes, seriously. 

Because a virus needs time to replicate and if there's smaller amount of virus to start with, replication to the amount needed to actually cause an illness takes longer time, which body can and usually does use to start building the defence anti-bodies. 

It was pretty telling, the way doctors and nurses would tend to develop severe symptoms, even if they were healthy and young, and the logical explanation certainly was that the initial high saturation of virus helps create severe cases of the actual disease. 

It had to be proven, not just noted, of course, and now we've got it proven too. 

Additional reason to wear a mask. 

Wear. A. Mask. 

 

Or can't overcome it. 

So wear a mask.    

I've been wearing a mask Mom :yes:  Thank you.

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34 minutes ago, OverSword said:

Sounds like hocus pokus with no real way to prove it except anecdotally.  Just how does a virus propagate in the body.  If you only take a bit of virus then you only get a bit sick?  Seriously?  

So when a virus starts spreading it spreads until the immune system can overcome it.  Makes this study sound like meh to me.

Apparently you did not read the material before commenting.

Maybe you could also learn about how the immune system handles viruses. Sounds like you need to.

This is false thinking: "So when a virus starts spreading it spreads until the immune system can overcome it. "

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11 minutes ago, spartan max2 said:

Hmmm, this is interesting paired with the other thread that had a study going against the viral load hypothesis 

 

 

Actually it doesn't. 

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39 minutes ago, OverSword said:

Sounds like hocus pokus with no real way to prove it except anecdotally.  Just how does a virus propagate in the body.  If you only take a bit of virus then you only get a bit sick?  Seriously?  

So when a virus starts spreading it spreads until the immune system can overcome it.  Makes this study sound like meh to me.

Well yes. The virus replicates until the immune system eliminates it.

Let's say the virus duplicates every hour. 

If you get a hundred cells (proper name escapes me...) of the virus, in 8 hours you will have 25600. If you started with 5000, you'll have 1.2 million.

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When evidence is put forth it is clear that those that spread VD are unable to understand how that evidence fits in with what has already been determined.

Consider what happens when someone is infected. Suppose that the infection is due to a single droplet, unlikely but consider it. Then the infection starts at one spot. The extremely localized infection can be addressed by the body's defenses as best it can. Now suppose that someone inhales thousands of droplets. Each of these can begin an infection. Now the body has to deal with infections widely spread out.

This is what is happening.

 

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5 minutes ago, stereologist said:

Actually it doesn't. 

How so?

If asymptomatic people were found to have just a high a viral load as symptomatic people then wouldn't that suggest viral load has no effect on serverity?

Edited by spartan max2
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2 minutes ago, spartan max2 said:

How so?

If asymptomatic people were found to have just a high a viral load as symptomatic people then wouldn't that suggest viral load has no effect on serverity?

If someone is infected at one spot hopefully one of the parts of the immune system determines there is an infection happening.  If it is localized then the body can begin to ramp up the immune response. That takes time. As the immune system ramps up its attack the virus is able to replicate. The exact mechanism that allows coronaviruses to do that is not known. What happens if someone is infection in many places is that the infection gets ahead of the immune system's response and the person becomes ill. For those that are asymptomatic, the immune system is able to address the virus until  it can suppress the infection.

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For those that skipped reading the article in the OP:

https://www.ucsf.edu/news/2020/07/418181/one-more-reason-wear-mask-youll-get-less-sick-covid-19

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The idea that viral dose, also known as viral inoculum, determines the degree of illness is not new, said Gandhi. Descriptions of a dose-mortality curve – how much of a virus is needed to cause death in an animal – were first published in 1938. And after all, the earliest vaccines, which were documented in 16th century China, involved exposing someone to a small amount of smallpox virus to induce mild illness and subsequent immunity.

The idea of variolation is described here.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smallpox_vaccine#Variolation

 

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Variolation allowed a person to get immunity by only getting a tiny infection.

I believe that was the form of the vaccine that led to the supreme court ruling supporting mandatory vaccinations in 1905.

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Here is an article that predicts where we are today. It is from April which was close to the start of the pandemic.

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2020/04/06/how-does-the-coronavirus-behave-inside-a-patient

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But three questions deserve particular attention, because their answers could change the way we isolate, treat, and manage patients. First, what can we learn about the “dose-response curve” for the initial infection—that is, can we quantify the increase in the risk of infection as people are exposed to higher doses of the virus? Second, is there a relationship between that initial “dose” of virus and the severity of the disease—that is, does more exposure result in graver illness? And, third, are there quantitative measures of how the virus behaves in infected patients (e.g., the peak of your body’s viral load, the patterns of its rise and fall) that predict the severity of their illness and how infectious they are to others? So far, in the early phases of the COVID-19 pandemic, we have been measuring the spread of the virus across people. As the pace of the pandemic escalates, we also need to start measuring the virus within people.

 

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1 hour ago, stereologist said:

If someone is infected at one spot hopefully one of the parts of the immune system determines there is an infection happening.  If it is localized then the body can begin to ramp up the immune response. That takes time. As the immune system ramps up its attack the virus is able to replicate. The exact mechanism that allows coronaviruses to do that is not known. What happens if someone is infection in many places is that the infection gets ahead of the immune system's response and the person becomes ill. For those that are asymptomatic, the immune system is able to address the virus until  it can suppress the infection.

What I don't understand with what you are saying is, if a asymptomatic persons immune system is "suppressing" a virus better l, then shouldn't we see that person have a smaller viral load (unlike the study in the other thread where asymptomatic and symptomatic had the same viral load)

As in, if an immune system isn't  supressing the virus by stopping it from replicating more then how is it suppressing the virus?

If it is suppressing the virus by stopping it from replicating more then we should see less of a viral load in that person right, due to the immune system preventing the virus from replicating?

I understand the idea that if a person is initially infected with more of that virus that the virus will replicate quicker then the immune system can handel. But if that was happening then we should see a higher viral load in that person then the person who was initially exposed to less.

 

Edited by spartan max2
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31 minutes ago, spartan max2 said:

What I don't understand with what you are saying is, if a asymptomatic persons immune system is "suppressing" a virus better l, then shouldn't we see that person have a smaller viral load (unlike the study in the other thread where asymptomatic and symptomatic had the same viral load)

As in, if an immune system isn't  supressing the virus by stopping it from replicating more then how is it suppressing the virus?

If it is suppressing the virus by stopping it from replicating more then we should see less of a viral load in that person right, due to the immune system preventing the virus from replicating?

I understand the idea that if a person is initially infected with more of that virus that the virus will replicate quicker then the immune system can handel. But if that was happening then we should see a higher viral load in that person then the person who was initially exposed to less.

 

I don't believe this is correct: "if a asymptomatic persons immune system is "suppressing" a virus better". Then again it all depends on what is meant by better. As I pointed out the way that the immune system deals with coronaviruses is not well  understood. It might be that the infection is stalled but not being cleared from the system. Or maybe it is replicating and being released from already infected cells. It's not spreading but the hijacked cells are not being stopped. Another possibility is that the measurement detected non-infectious virus.

Whatever is happening is still to be discovered.

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2 hours ago, OverSword said:

Sounds like hocus pokus with no real way to prove it except anecdotally.  Just how does a virus propagate in the body.  If you only take a bit of virus then you only get a bit sick?  Seriously? 

Maybe this example might give you a better understanding of the human immune system: day by day, the human body get hit by high-energy particles (radiation), for example in the form of cosmic rays, ultraviolet rays and naturally occurring radiation like from radon gas. The ionizing radiation also hit the cell nucleus and is cracking the DNA strings. These cracked parts, which when connecting with other cracked ones, are a kind of construction plan which wasnt "tested and approved" by the evolution but can grown something which is called cell degeneration or in a more simpler word, cancer. Our immune system is prepared against the natural occurring radiation levels, and a little more of course, and its negative effects. If you get a CT scan (= very little radiation dose), you can get 100 years old but if you had worked as a cleaner on the roof of Reactor Block 4 in Chernobyl (= very high radiation dose) on 26APR1986, your life had been ended within hours. As always, the dose is doing the trick.

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Floridians discover their brains work better with oxygen (sans mask):

Martin County mask order no longer in effect for general public

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STUART, Fla. — The mask ordinance requiring all Martin County residents to wear face coverings where social distancing is not possible has expired.

Passed unanimously on July 7, the order was only valid for 30 days.

County officials decided not to renew the order.

https://www.wptv.com/news/region-martin-county/martin-county-mask-order-no-longer-in-effect-for-general-public

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A ;mask also lowers your immune system and makes you breath harder putting more strain on your body, and touching a COvid surface then your face, usually does not mean inhaling anything, if you use the back of your hand for your mouth, etc.

While if you touch a dodgy surface then a mask you inhale the particle for an hour or more.

Real studies not the Parker Bros ones, show the ineffectiveness of masks, outside of hospitals where they show some merit, (l won't post the video again, since some won't watch it, not without an invite from the Queen).

But inhaling a Covid particle into your lungs for hours on end, isn't good!

:P

Edited by tmcom
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9 hours ago, ian hacktorp said:

Floridians discover their brains work better with oxygen (sans mask):

Martin County mask order no longer in effect for general public

https://www.wptv.com/news/region-martin-county/martin-county-mask-order-no-longer-in-effect-for-general-public

The idea that face masks deprive the general public of oxygen is VD. You are spreading VD, viral disinformation.

Tests show that even 6 masks worn at once have no effect on oxygen for the wearer.

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