Daryl Devore 🇨🇦

Well @Soulgirl1RN You’ve changed my argument. Or as we like to say - you moved the goal posts. I didn’t say surgeons wear masks primarily to prevent themselves from catching respiratory infections. Surgical masks are part of infection control: among other things, they reduce contamination of the operative field from material coming from the surgical team’s mouth and nose. A KN95/N95 is different. It is a respirator, specifically designed to reduce the wearer’s inhalation of airborne particles. So yes, I wear a surgical mask while operating, and I wear a KN95 in healthcare facilities to reduce my exposure to respiratory viruses. Neither is controversial. As for this supposedly established 1.5–1.6% annual transmission rate “regardless of masks,” please cite the actual UK and US surveillance studies. A percentage without a denominator, case definition, pathogens studied or methodology is not epidemiology. It’s a number. I asked you to cite it, and again you say "quality surveillance .." so cite the study so I can see it. but since you won't let me help you and since you keep quoting 1.5–1.6% as though hospital respiratory transmission is some immutable constant “regardless of masking.” Here is actual published hospital data. Munigala et al., Open Forum Infectious Diseases, 2024: after universal masking was implemented, healthcare-associated respiratory viral infections fell 34.9%, from 0.71 to 0.19 infections per 1,000 patient-days during universal masking, with the analysis accounting for changes in community respiratory-virus activity. So no, the literature does not show that transmission simply stays the same regardless of masking. It helps if you cite the studies, read the studies because I will. If you believe what people tell you the studies say you will be misled a lot. In this case, you tried to mislead - either intentionally or I suspect because you didn't read the study, you just used some secondary source