Julie, I think there's actually very little evidence that mask wearing does much in surgery - definitely not for anyone else but the surgeon, and I'm not sure that we have any hard evidence that it makes much difference if they're wearing one either! So if that's the crux of your point, it's a very weak one. We mask in surgery because it…
Julie, I think there's actually very little evidence that mask wearing does much in surgery - definitely not for anyone else but the surgeon, and I'm not sure that we have any hard evidence that it makes much difference if they're wearing one either! So if that's the crux of your point, it's a very weak one. We mask in surgery because it's a convention, not because we have any convincing peer reviewed evidence that it actually does anything. Sucked in by biological plausibility yet again...
Julie, I think there's actually very little evidence that mask wearing does much in surgery - definitely not for anyone else but the surgeon, and I'm not sure that we have any hard evidence that it makes much difference if they're wearing one either! So if that's the crux of your point, it's a very weak one. We mask in surgery because it's a convention, not because we have any convincing peer reviewed evidence that it actually does anything. Sucked in by biological plausibility yet again...