The effectiveness of masks? What a difference 7 months make! Back in the early days of COVID-19, evidence suggested homemade cloth masks probably don’t work. The CDC recommended against them. Now it seems like masks do everything. It’s a mask miracle.
Let’s take a look at this mask miracle.
COVID-19 and Masks
In the early days of COVID-19, we had plenty of evidence in favor of specialized tasks, including surgical masks and others. But there wasn’t much evidence in favor of homemade cloth masks. What little evidence we had suggested they probably didn’t work.
And then evidence to the contrary started rolling in. The new evidence suggested that cloth masks work to prevent spreading COVID-19 but not to prevent contracting it. However, that was a great start, and the CDC started recommending we wear them. In general, the CDC stayed on top of the new evidence.
But the evidence was still a bit lean at this point. It was lean enough that I wrote a post back in early April suggesting the main benefits of masks might be psychological. The idea back then was that masks may calm people down enough to get them to quit hoarding. In the US, at least, hoarding was a major problem. Irrational hoarding caused shortages of, for example, toilet paper.
The Mask Miracle
Then April turned into May and June and more evidence rolled in. Scientists concluded that masks also protect people from contracting COVID-19, in addition to preventing its spread. And then even more evidence rolled in. Now we have good reason to believe masks reduce the severity of cases, even turning potential deaths into asymptomatic cases.
At this point, the mask miracle was born. It turns out homemade cloth masks can do practically anything, They’re basically a COVID-stopper. Widespread mask usage among the entire US public for even 6-8 weeks could bring about an even greater mask miracle: reducing COVID-19 from a major pandemic to a minor annoyance.
Lessons Learned
The primary lesson here? We should learn from science and adjust our beliefs as more evidence rolls in. Mask naysayers weren’t wrong in February, March, or even early April. Mask naysayers after May? Completely, irresponsibly wrong. To all available evidence, the mask miracle is real.
Wear a mask.
