11/21/2020
Bombshell mask study out today (top of picture, link 1 below) . Can’t help myself 😬 Must do the math! 🤓 -0.3% difference in infection rates of those who are recommended to mask vs. not recommended to mask.
This implies, then, that 333 people would need to mask to prevent ONE infection.
Not one death, one infection.
And according to the infection fatality rate approximation of 0.27% found on a recent World Health Organization bulletin (bottom of picture, link 2 below), out of ~370 infections, one person will die.
Therefore, it would take 123,333 people masking (333 X 370) to potentially save 1 life.
With this new context in mind, perhaps we could change the public health propaganda messaging from “Mask Up, Save Lives” to “Mask Up, Save 1/123,333rd Of A Life”
1) https://www.acpjournals.org/doi/full/10.7326/M20-6817
2)https://www.who.int/bulletin/online_first/BLT.20.265892.pdf