If you knew anything about how a N95 (or FFP3 in this country) work, you would relise that they do not protect anyone not wearing one. They are purely personal protection. To function correctly, they need a release valve to expel moisture as one exhales. Once they become damp, they are as useless against a virus as surgical masks.

Systematically dragged down by the lawmakers

A surgeon who is infection free operating on an infection free patient will decide for themselves which is the safest way to proceed. There is no correlation with the steps taken to try to limit the spread of Covid.

I have read the Cochrane report. It will doubtless, along with many others, inform on best practice when making assessments on how to respond if another pandemic occurs. When responding to the Covid pandemic, with a nervous population expecting actions to reassure them, and evidence of mask wearing in Asia in particular as a response to other viruses, mandating their use, alongside social distancing and lockdowns made, and continues to make, perfect sense. It might not again, as the public are now more aware.

I wonder if you have read their report! Or whether you have only read the words you want to hear! This is the author's conclusion:-

"The high risk of bias in the trials, variation in outcome measurement, and relatively low adherence with the interventions during the studies hampers drawing firm conclusions. There were additional RCTs during the pandemic related to physical interventions but a relative paucity given the importance of the question of masking and its relative effectiveness and the concomitant measures of mask adherence which would be highly relevant to the measurement of effectiveness, especially in the elderly and in young children.

There is uncertainty about the effects of face masks. The low to moderate certainty of evidence means our confidence in the effect estimate is limited, and that the true effect may be different from the observed estimate of the effect. The pooled results of RCTs did not show a clear reduction in respiratory viral infection with the use of medical/surgical masks. There were no clear differences between the use of medical/surgical masks compared with N95/P2 respirators in healthcare workers when used in routine care to reduce respiratory viral infection. Hand hygiene is likely to modestly reduce the burden of respiratory illness, and although this effect was also present when ILI and laboratory‐confirmed influenza were analysed separately, it was not found to be a significant difference for the latter two outcomes. Harms associated with physical interventions were under‐investigated.

There is a need for large, well‐designed RCTs addressing the effectiveness of many of these interventions in multiple settings and populations, as well as the impact of adherence on effectiveness, especially in those most at risk of ARIs."

In other words the jury is still out, especially on the impact in our own country. What is not in doubt was the need to use every potential tool in the box in a crisis. Not allowing despondency to set in is an important issue in health management.

The time for reflection and lesson learning comes later. Which is precisely why we are holding an enquiry and not rushing to judgement whenever something emerges which happens to confirm a deep-seated bias.

For the avoidance of doubt any comments in response to a previous post are directed to its ideas and not at any, or all, posters personally.

Imagine locking down the country over a silly flu with a 99.9 percent survival rate if the catch it. Scaring the life out of the vulnerable and eldery.

History will not look back in kind on these events. Especially those who discriminated against people who made informed decisions about thier body to not get the covid vax.

There are many reasons people don't get vaccinated beyond selfishness.

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Case by case really. The first lockdown was understandable as it was new territory and unknowns. Beyond that it was just more and more destructive to businesses, mental health, those with other health issues. I don't envy those having to make these decisions, but since they often didn't follow the restrictions themselves it further manages faith in them.

It was all a crap shoot. If something that comes along that's worse, understandably fewer will listen and the next time your 'informed decision' might get you killed because they're made in the moment not in hindsight. Life is full of unknowns and whether politician or man on the street, best judgement is often just a guess really. The retrospective back patting exercises are more ego based than anything anyone else cares about.

It made sense to slow the spread at the beginning, most certainly. The repeated lockdowns though did some bundled with many negatives. We also have to factor in though that young people were largely unaffacted by Covid and yet the consequences are substantially long term more theirs to face. As such there are many considerations to be made beyond covid itself. We all have failings and a bias could be the 'i'm alright jack' angle , financially, so it pays to recognise that too. If you're a landlord you in a sense may benefit from others financial difficulties which puts you out of the loop of some peoples very real struggles in life. All perspectives matter not just the covidcentric one.

Edited by footythoughts (07 Mar 2023 1.39pm)