Face Mask or Visor or Both.

There are many links which I don't have to hand, I'll try and post some later but a search of Prof Carl Heneghan should pull up the clips of his evidence to the Oireachtas committee.

I've posted a link to the full transcription of that session above, you can quote the pertinent sections.

Prof. Staines challenged Prof. Heneghan's authority to speak on the subject give his lack of experience...
One of Professor Heneghan’s colleagues, Professor Trisha Greenhalgh, has conducted a systematic review of the evidence for masks. Unlike Professor Heneghan, I make my living analysing and interpreting observational data. I am extremely familiar with what one can and cannot usefully do with it in public health. I am moderately convinced by the evidence.

The evidence that masks protect a person from infection, particularly this type of mask or the cloth masks some members are wearing, is very low but the evidence that they reduce spread from an infected person is much better.

Prof. Kearney added:
I was a mask-sceptic at the outset of this based on the evidence that I was familiar with. However, like Professor Staines, I have looked at where they have been used at a population level. I have been convinced that it is part of the suites of things we need to do to address the virus.
 
I'm not going to comment on professor Carl Henegan's (general practitioner physician, director of the University of Oxford's Centre for Evidence-Based Medicine) lack of experience, I'll leave that to DCU's Prof. Staines, but I don't accept the comparison to climate change deniers nor the superior attitude from those who rush to show their compliance by attacking those who stop to question the reality around them vs the "expert advice" from experts who themselves generally can't agree, and whose pronouncements are skewed by the fact that their entire goal is to get the count to zero.
 
I'm not going to comment on professor Carl Henegan's (general practitioner physician, director of the University of Oxford's Centre for Evidence-Based Medicine) lack of experience, I'll leave that to DCU's Prof. Staines, but I don't accept the comparison to climate change deniers nor the superior attitude from those who rush to show their compliance by attacking those who stop to question the reality around them vs the "expert advice" from experts who themselves generally can't agree, and whose pronouncements are skewed by the fact that their entire goal is to get the count to zero.
All any of us can do is go with the advice given my the Irish Government, the EU, the UN and the US CDC. Given that wearing a mask does no harm (as long as you keep it clean) and the weight of evidence suggests that it is more effective than a visor then it seems prudent to wear a mask rather than a visor.
 
but I don't accept the comparison to climate change deniers nor the superior attitude from those who rush to show their compliance by attacking those who stop to question the reality around them vs the "expert advice" from experts who themselves generally can't agree, and whose pronouncements are skewed by the fact that their entire goal is to get the count to zero.

No doubt there are attitudes on both sides of this argument, but solely in the context of contributions since you first posted here, others have just asked you to provide evidence on which your assertion is based. I hope you're not interpreting that as 'attitude'.

Regarding the 'experts who themselves generally can't agree', within climate science, there are some authorities who deny we are experiencing change, but the vast majority who claim the evidence is irrefutable. That's just how understanding evolves over time. There was a time when the ideas of magnetic fields or electron flow were considered ludicrous, but evidence has developed and they are now broadly accepted as reality. At the same time, there are still many people who believe the earth is less than 10,000 years old.

The same applies to mask wearing, at the moment the majority of scientists agree that wearing masks does offer a degree of protection. Prof. Heneghan's point that some masks are less effective than others, and that masks aren't as effective when they're not worn, or worn incorrectly doesn't challenge the fundamental premise. He acknowledged that the laboratory based evidence shows mask are effective, but points out that 'there is no real-world evidence'. To obtain real-world evidence would of course require the running of trials with large groups in a controlled environment. There is a moral hazzard in running such a trial that makes it problematic, how do you organise sufficiently large groups, one wearing masks however well, and the other not wearing masks at all, and ask them to go about their daily lives in two isolated environments, with no cross-over between groups and with the same starting levels of incidence of COVID-19?
 
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