Face Mask Debate - A Scientific Double Standard?
Key Points:
“No one complained about the lack of evidence for 20-second hand-washing. So why did we treat face masks differently?”
- Hilda Bastian
Hilda Bastian comments on how during the pandemic experts have cautioned, or outright rejected, the use of masks by the general public, calling for ‘better, more decisive evidence. Why?’
Research literature on mask usage doesn’t provide definitive answers - trials often neither prove that masks are useful, nor that they’re dangerous or a waste of time.
Studies have been both few in number and beset with methodological problems.
Yet, similar complaints could be made about the evidence supporting mask use by health care workers too. Also:
There aren’t any clinical trials proving that a 6-foot social distance prevents infection.
Clinical trials do not prove that washing our hands for 20 seconds is superior to doing so for 10 seconds for limiting the spread of disease in a respiratory disease pandemic.
Bastian suggests that the double standard regarding face masks is due to ‘concerns that people would be unable to use masks without contaminating themselves. Or that masks would provide a false sense of security, leading them to slacken off social distancing or other measures’.
‘In the end, it’s hard to escape the suspicion that the double standard about masks has less to do with science than a cultural difference over how we respond to pandemics … We often ask for extra-special proof when a practice doesn’t fit our preconceived ideas. That, unfortunately, is all too common; and scientists aren’t immune.’