Mask wearing as a source of immunity?

[sTeamTraen]

(Apologies if this is a duplicate. This was reported a couple of weeks ago by the Telegraph, but AFAICT they didn't include a link to the article. )

A commentary in the New England Journal of Medicine suggests that, by providing occasional exposure to a reduced dose of the virus, wearing a mask might be giving people some degree of immunity to COVID-19.

For the moment this is only an interesting hypothesis; the authors have conducted no trials and presented no data. But I like the idea, not least because it will cause great cognitive dissonance among the mask skeptics.

[Grumble]

Well they mentioned a case study. Is this something that epidemiologists could study?

[bob sterman]

They mention...

"Another experiment in the Syrian hamster model simulated surgical masking of the animals and showed that with simulated masking, hamsters were less likely to get infected, and if they did get infected, they either were asymptomatic or had milder symptoms than unmasked hamsters"

But this specific test doesn't seem to be in the hamster study paper they cite earlier in the article.

[shpalman]

They mention...

"Another experiment in the Syrian hamster model simulated surgical masking of the animals and showed that with simulated masking, hamsters were less likely to get infected, and if they did get infected, they either were asymptomatic or had milder symptoms than unmasked hamsters"

But this specific test doesn't seem to be in the hamster study paper they cite earlier in the article.

I want to find that reference to understand if they really put tiny face masks on hamsters, and if not, what "simulated masking" means.

[bob sterman]

I want to find that reference to understand if they really put tiny face masks on hamsters, and if not, what "simulated masking" means.

Surely they'd chew them off?

Sorry for the tangent but the idea reminded me of this...

Scientists learned how babies are made by dressing frogs in pants
https://nypost.com/2017/06/10/scientist ... -in-pants/

[Little waster]

They mention...

"Another experiment in the Syrian hamster model simulated surgical masking of the animals and showed that with simulated masking, hamsters were less likely to get infected, and if they did get infected, they either were asymptomatic or had milder symptoms than unmasked hamsters"

But this specific test doesn't seem to be in the hamster study paper they cite earlier in the article.

I want to find that reference to understand if they really put tiny face masks on hamsters, and if not, what "simulated masking" means. why not?

FTFY

What self-respecting person wouldn't want to?

A google image search for "hamster wearing mask" is exactly as rewarding as you would expect.

Example:-

[bob sterman]

A google image search for "hamster wearing mask" is exactly as rewarding as you would expect

You're SO right!!!!

[Bird on a Fire]

I want to find that reference to understand if they really put tiny face masks on hamsters, and if not, what "simulated masking" means.

Surely they'd chew them off?

Sorry for the tangent but the idea reminded me of this...

Scientists learned how babies are made by dressing frogs in pants
https://nypost.com/2017/06/10/scientist ... -in-pants/

That was fascinating, thanks Bob.

[sTeamTraen]

Sorry for the tangent but the idea reminded me of this...

Scientists learned how babies are made by dressing frogs in pants
https://nypost.com/2017/06/10/scientist ... -in-pants/

That article makes it seem that we didn't find out until the 18th century that babies are made by shagging. I'd bet quite a bit of money that people in several thousand BCE knew that. They might not have put all the anatomical details together, but the Bible isn't big on virginity for nothing. Onan, as many snickering schoolchildren used to learn back when religious studies was a thing, "spilled his seed on the ground". Seed, you see, not just jizz.

[bob sterman]

Sorry for the tangent but the idea reminded me of this...

Scientists learned how babies are made by dressing frogs in pants
https://nypost.com/2017/06/10/scientist ... -in-pants/

That article makes it seem that we didn't find out until the 18th century that babies are made by shagging. I'd bet quite a bit of money that people in several thousand BCE knew that. They might not have put all the anatomical details together, but the Bible isn't big on virginity for nothing. Onan, as many snickering schoolchildren used to learn back when religious studies was a thing, "spilled his seed on the ground". Seed, you see, not just jizz.

The breakthrough was discovering specifically that contact between the fluid produced by the males (into the pants in this case) and the eggs was required.

There was at one time a thought that the male "seed" was actually like a seed - and would just grow inside the female.

[basementer]

They mention...

"Another experiment in the Syrian hamster model simulated surgical masking of the animals and showed that with simulated masking, hamsters were less likely to get infected, and if they did get infected, they either were asymptomatic or had milder symptoms than unmasked hamsters"

But this specific test doesn't seem to be in the hamster study paper they cite earlier in the article.

I want to find that reference to understand if they really put tiny face masks on hamsters, and if not, what "simulated masking" means.

John Campbell covered this a few months back in his YouTube update. They put a cage of infected hamsters next to a cage of uninfected ones, blew a steady breeze across them and looked at the effect of putting a fabric screen between the cages. I'll see if I can find the links, but now, breakfast is more important.

[basementer]

They mention...

"Another experiment in the Syrian hamster model simulated surgical masking of the animals and showed that with simulated masking, hamsters were less likely to get infected, and if they did get infected, they either were asymptomatic or had milder symptoms than unmasked hamsters"

But this specific test doesn't seem to be in the hamster study paper they cite earlier in the article.

I want to find that reference to understand if they really put tiny face masks on hamsters, and if not, what "simulated masking" means.

John Campbell covered this a few months back in his YouTube update. They put a cage of infected hamsters next to a cage of uninfected ones, blew a steady breeze across them and looked at the effect of putting a fabric screen between the cages. I'll see if I can find the links, but now, breakfast is more important.

Here's the paper https://academic.oup.com/cid/advance-ar ... 44/5848814
And here's the video where John Campbell discussed it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zhQw7vLNsDA

[Tessa K]

Sorry for the tangent but the idea reminded me of this...

Scientists learned how babies are made by dressing frogs in pants
https://nypost.com/2017/06/10/scientist ... -in-pants/

That article makes it seem that we didn't find out until the 18th century that babies are made by shagging. I'd bet quite a bit of money that people in several thousand BCE knew that. They might not have put all the anatomical details together, but the Bible isn't big on virginity for nothing. Onan, as many snickering schoolchildren used to learn back when religious studies was a thing, "spilled his seed on the ground". Seed, you see, not just jizz.

Anyone who has lived around livestock would know that male mounting female would result in offspring. Otherwise, how would early farming have worked? Before that, people would have observed wild animals and made the connection. It didn't matter that they didn't understand the science, they could have thought that there were tiny people in the sperm or (as the Greeks did) that the womb wandered around the body, they knew the end result.

[noggins]

https://www.google.co.uk/amp/s/www.inde ... html%3famp

Same evidence, different conclusion.

Btr Is it possible for someone who has had covid and recovered to pass dead virus fragments and antibodies to another person via bodily fluids, thereby boosting their immune response to the virus? Asking for a friend.

[sTeamTraen]

Btr Is it possible for someone who has had covid and recovered to pass dead virus fragments and antibodies to another person via bodily fluids, thereby boosting their immune response to the virus? Asking for a friend.

It probably depends on the bodily fluids in question. Eeewww.