In retrospect, I think it would have been better, consequentially, to push for cloth masks earlier, but current modeling and our understanding of spread make it clear that mask wearing by itself is only marginally effective.
Do you mean our present day understanding, or our understanding at the time? Do you mean that you still think masks are only marginally effective, or thought so at the time?
I mean now—it’s clear that masks are not particularly effective at preventing people from getting COVID, and are somewhat but not very effective at preventing people who have COVID from infecting others. That’s enough to be incredibly important at a population level, which is obviously a key thing to do, but it’s not anything similar to what proponents had been claiming.
Thanks for this!
Paragraph with confusing wording:
Do you mean our present day understanding, or our understanding at the time? Do you mean that you still think masks are only marginally effective, or thought so at the time?
I mean now—it’s clear that masks are not particularly effective at preventing people from getting COVID, and are somewhat but not very effective at preventing people who have COVID from infecting others. That’s enough to be incredibly important at a population level, which is obviously a key thing to do, but it’s not anything similar to what proponents had been claiming.