[HN Gopher] An analysis of studies pertaining to masks from 1978...
___________________________________________________________________
An analysis of studies pertaining to masks from 1978 to 2023
Author : ohshit
Score : 29 points
Date : 2024-05-23 20:20 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.medrxiv.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.medrxiv.org)
| ohshit wrote:
| Background from one of the authors:
| https://twitter.com/TracyBethHoeg/status/1709371816479952993.
| reify wrote:
| This is the correct way to do science
|
| A superb example of poor science in practice!!!!!!!!!
|
| This study did not receive any funding. I wonder why?
|
| Conclusions and Relevance:
|
| MMWR publications pertaining to masks drew positive conclusions
| about mask effectiveness over 75% of the time despite only 30%
| testing masks and <15% having statistically significant results.
|
| No studies were randomized, yet over half drew causal
| conclusions.
|
| The level of evidence generated was low and the conclusions drawn
| were most often unsupported by the data. Our findings raise
| concern about the reliability of the journal for informing health
| policy.
|
| So many people still wearing masks in their cars while driving
| alone.
| vkou wrote:
| > So many people still wearing masks in their cars while
| driving alone.
|
| Many of them do it because they have various degrees of social
| anxiety, not because they are afraid of the 'Rona.
| thaumasiotes wrote:
| Why would that be relevant to their behavior while alone?
| xboxnolifes wrote:
| If you can see them wearing a mask while driving, are they
| really alone?
| vkou wrote:
| Unless your windows are tinted way past the legal limit,
| you aren't really alone when driving.
| u32480932048 wrote:
| Unfortunately, even illegal levels of window tint aren't
| enough to stop COVID - the glass must also be mirrored so
| that the COVID bounces off of it and sticks back to you.
| u32480932048 wrote:
| Once, I left a store, got into my car, and made it to the
| light before realizing I still had my mask on. I've never
| felt more ashamed in my life.
| tokai wrote:
| >This study did not receive any funding. I wonder why?
|
| You don't need funding to do a literature review.
| jampekka wrote:
| A bit like you don't need funding to write software.
| majormajor wrote:
| > So many people still wearing masks in their cars while
| driving alone.
|
| Where do you live that you see this regularly?
|
| Don't think it's happening in southern California.
| amluto wrote:
| It would have been an excellent idea in Southern California
| not that long ago -- a good mask massively reduces PM2.5, and
| PM2.5, especially on So Cal freeways, was quite high.
| jerlam wrote:
| Cabin air filters, which are in many if not most modern
| cars, should already have removed the particulates already.
| amluto wrote:
| "Should have" is, at best, wishful thinking. In air
| filtration, a good rule of thumb is that, if an actual
| quantitative spec isn't given, then the filter doesn't
| filter. I've seen this with expensive commercial systems
| with stamped plans, I've seen it with very fancy European
| IAQ systems, and I've seen it with cars. Seriously, go
| look for a stated spec for a cabin air filter, which you
| generally won't find, then drive on a freeway, bring a
| PM2.5 meter, and compare windows open to windows closed.
| burningChrome wrote:
| I live in Minneapolis - I see it all the time. Several times
| a day in fact. I still see people in outside settings wearing
| them as well. By now, if I see a person wearing one my only
| two thoughts are: a) this is an act of virtue signaling
| (Minneapolis is a VERY progressive city) or b) you are
| immunocompromised and or wearing it for medical or health
| reasons.
|
| Since both of these are on opposite ends of the spectrum, I
| just hope its for medical reasons and being cautious as
| opposed to the former and get one with my day.
| amluto wrote:
| Don't forget option C: in cold, dry weather, a disposable
| mask can be an impressive comfort improvement. And you can
| throw it away when it gets disgusting. They often
| outperform balaclavas.
|
| Or option D: allergies. A well fitted disposable mask
| removes allergens, at least until it collects so many that
| it starts triggering allergies all by itself. Achoo!
| Bognar wrote:
| I discovered option D during covid and it's like a
| superpower. I have allergies even through double dosing
| OTC medicine, but a good mask does wonders for me in
| spring.
| sfblah wrote:
| The mask thing was all theater and political logrolling. Beyond
| it being anti-science, three other concerning factors:
|
| * It decreased trust in government by backing a policy that most
| now understand wasn't science-based.
|
| * It increased the partisan divide in the country for no benefit
| by encouraging people on both sides to label those on the other
| side as "nutters."
|
| * It probably caused some amount of real harm by causing people
| to think that, if they wore a mask, they were protected. This
| probably meant some elderly and immunocompromised people put
| themselves at risk when they could have avoided the risk by
| staying outdoors.
| pessimizer wrote:
| The most embarrassing part is that it started off by declaring
| that the science was against masks, and silencing all
| dissenters; then moved to declaring the effectiveness of masks,
| demanding their universal use, and silencing all dissenters.
|
| The problem is with the _official_ silencing, not with masks.
| You can 't even figure out whether masks work when you can't
| trust any of the sources of information to not be some sort of
| partisan religious police. The hydroxychloroquine fraud being
| published in the Lancet is something that political, wedge
| issue science will never recover from. It was like an awful
| sequel to the Wakefield incident, and a one-two death blow to
| the general acceptance of vaccines writ large. Now people will
| just believe the studies that their political party tells them
| to believe.
| leptons wrote:
| Why do you think that suggesting to wear a mask during a global
| pandemic was "all theater"?
|
| If you had to go into an ebola ward, and someone handed you a
| mask, would you really refuse to wear it?
| standardUser wrote:
| You're throwing in a truly decadent load of assumptions in a
| few short words before you make your points. Just because you
| can craft rhetoric that is tiring to untangle does not mean it
| has any merit.
| threeseed wrote:
| > The mask thing was all theater and political logrolling
|
| And yet every government around the world from all political
| persuasions pushed for mask wearing.
|
| Wonder how you reconcile this with your intellectually lazy and
| factually baseless "this was all for partisan reasons"
| rhetoric.
| downWidOutaFite wrote:
| The authors were very publicly biased against masks before this
| paper. It's hard to take it objectively.
| IncreasePosts wrote:
| Sure, but on the other other hand, it might be difficult to
| expect someone who really believes in masks to try to prove
| they don't work. Or, to publish their data if they find that
| masks don't work(because they believe they have some flaw in
| their logic, or they think there are social benefits to mask
| wearing not covered in their study, etc).
| marcosdumay wrote:
| The people that believe in masks should be the ones testing
| if they work. The situation you are describing is a messed-up
| environment that puts politics above science.
|
| The people that don't believe masks work should be busy
| testing something they believe in.
| IncreasePosts wrote:
| Believing masks to be slightly effective at preventing
| airborne illnesses seems like a pretty common sense default
| viewpoint though. No barrier provides no benefit, a
| completely impermeable barrier like wearing a fish tank on
| your head would provide 100% benefit. So it makes sense
| that a partially permeable barrier would provide some
| benefit.
| leptons wrote:
| Most anti-maskers say "masks don't work" without trying
| to understand that masks are not a 100% solution, and
| nothing in life is. But even if a mask is 50% effective
| (not a scientifically proven number, just an example),
| I'll take that mitigation over 0% of not wearing a mask
| (not a random number, wearing no mask actually provides
| no protection at all), every single time.
| zeroonetwothree wrote:
| But surely the amount matters. What if it's only 1%
| better?
| leptons wrote:
| If you think we're still in the "what if" stage of
| knowing that masks are effective, then you're either
| willfully ignorant about mask efficacy, or you're
| attempting to argue disingenuously.
| burningChrome wrote:
| >> The situation you are describing is a messed-up
| environment that puts politics above science.
|
| This has been going on for a while and just came into sharp
| focus during the pandemic. Its horrifying to think science
| is now so politically based that any study that contradicts
| what the gov is telling you is somehow suppressed because
| they know better? Do you remember when the Canadian Health
| Minister said people should ignore any information that
| isn't coming directly from the government?
|
| Our dystopian future arrived during the pandemic and
| science went from using a rigorous established methodology
| to allowing the government to tell us that science is now
| decided as a popularity contest like a survey. "99% of
| doctors recommend the vaccine so you should trust "the
| science" and get it or you're going to kill your grandma!"
| marcosdumay wrote:
| > Do you remember when the Canadian Health Minister said
| people should ignore any information that isn't coming
| directly from the government?
|
| On that environment, with several groups spreading lies
| everywhere, and with a public health issue that couldn't
| possibly turn into a political hot topic, that statement
| made a lot of sense. That is not suppression of
| scientific speech. (Suppression of scientific speed
| happened a lot less than popular press manipulation.
| Still happened, though.)
|
| Personally, I am much more afraid about how people
| managed to turn covid into a political hot topic.
| adamomada wrote:
| I remember how in Ontario the actual science, pardon me,
| the Science Advisory Table, was some meeting that
| absolutely could not be public and Science(tm) only
| occurred in the back room secret meetings, with the
| Premier coming out once in a while to give updates,
| telephone-game style
| u32480932048 wrote:
| Absolutely none of this has ever been objective, or even based
| in reality, let alone evidence, so I find it hard to care.
|
| The issue was never about masks, but of two highly-polarized
| groups (few of them having any real knowledge on the subject)
| dehumanizing the other under color of Science(tm).
|
| It was purposefully misunderstanding and sloganizing
| Science(tm) into simplistic, unscientific statements like
| "Masks work" and "Masks don't work" [for what? for whom? etc].
| Objective science isn't sold as bumper stickers and lapel pins
| on Etsy.
|
| It ignored completely and purposefully the two extremely basic
| and fundamentally different modes of operation: protecting the
| wearer from inhaling Bad Things (Masks Don't Work) and
| protecting people other than the mask wearer from what the
| mask-wearer is exhaling (Masks Work).
|
| The Science(tm) on this hasn't really changed in any meaningful
| way, and the whole subject is tiresome. People who can't think
| past Mask Good or Mask Bad might think otherwise, but their
| opinions are perhaps even less valuable than this study.
|
| Besides, if you're not a physician or have a PhD in maskology,
| how could you possibly begin to evaluate this evidence anyway?
| It's so very complicated and technical, see. You should be
| Trusting The Experts(tm).
| majormajor wrote:
| > 77 studies, all published after 2019... 23/77 (29.9%) assessed
| mask effectiveness, with 11/77 (14.3%) being statistically
| significant, but 58/77 (75.3%) stated masks were effective. Of
| these, 41/58 (70.7%) used causal language. Only one mannequin
| study used causal language appropriately (1.3%). 72/77 (93.5%)
| pertained to SARS-CoV-2 alone. None cited randomized data. 1/77
| (1.3%) cited conflicting evidence.
|
| Bit hard to follow here since the talk about "studies that didn't
| actually study it" seems like a valid critique of _study quality_
| but not of mask effectiveness. (But where does the 1978 year in
| the title come from?)
|
| Seems like of 23 studies, 11 of them found statistically
| significant evidence of improvement; only 1 saw conflicting
| evidence.
|
| Sounds like room for further study and investigation but possibly
| suggestive of differences in mask quality, correct usage, etc, so
| deeper dives would certainly be interesting.
|
| Obviously in some situations and disciplines nobody questions the
| value of quality masks, so the "it can't possibly be effective"
| crowd seems even more unjustified than the "it's effective [even
| if just 11 out of 23 of the studies said so]" crowd.
| kristjansson wrote:
| > study quality
|
| And even more specifically, quality of studies (re)published by
| a single journal, albeit an important one.
| kbelder wrote:
| "Are masks effective" is the completely wrong question, anyway.
| The question should be "how effective are masks?"
|
| Preferably, "How effective are masks against X under Y
| circumstance?"
|
| In relation to Covid, I think it's likely masks reduced
| transmission. But, under normal social environments, did they
| reduce it by 5% or by 50%? It makes a big policy difference. It
| seems that studies are coalescing around masks having a 'real
| but small' effect, but I get it's a hard thing to study.
| marcosdumay wrote:
| > did they reduce it by 5% or by 50%
|
| Either one would cause a dramatic reduction on the
| (exponential) virus spread.
|
| For the actual policy, it shouldn't make a difference. It had
| feedback mechanisms anyway, because the conditions always
| change.
| frognumber wrote:
| Well, no. It makes a big difference:
|
| 1) If the exponent is >1, it doesn't make much difference.
| Everyone will catch "it," for whatever disease.
|
| 2) It makes sense to have interventions prioritized by ROI
|
| 3) Many interventions are individual, and there is no
| exponent. Should I, as a [doctor / immuno-compromised-
| individual / patient / etc.] wear a mask?
| marcosdumay wrote:
| > It makes sense to have interventions prioritized by ROI
|
| The thing about masks is that the investment is minimal.
| Those 5% are still an incredibly large number that makes
| it a non-brainier.
|
| If it decreases another order of magnitude, it may need
| some analysis. The OP has a point, but it's way beyond
| the plausibility window.
| zeroonetwothree wrote:
| As an individual I would not wear a mask to reduce
| infection risk by 5%. If it's more like 90% then that's
| something.
| threeseed wrote:
| But those who are the most likely to be affected i.e.
| older and vulnerable people would.
|
| So in fact whether you wear one or not is far less
| relevant.
| postepowanieadm wrote:
| > I think it's likely masks reduced transmission
|
| And your belief is based on what?
| warcher wrote:
| Common sense? Restricting exhalation to reduce transmission
| of airborne disease? Have you never been taught to cover
| your mouth when you sneeze or cough?
|
| Like it would be remarkable if it did nothing. THAT would
| be a blockbuster result.
|
| The thing worth studying is if the effect is worth the
| trouble or not. It could be worth doing or it could
| effectively be a waste of time due to whatever other
| factor.
| pandaman wrote:
| Many people have been taught to say "Bless you!" when
| somebody sneezed too, would it also surprise you that it
| doesn't affect any airborne virus?
| neilwilson wrote:
| Common sense says if you put your hand over your mouth
| and breath out you will be able to. That says the
| pressure is overcoming the blockage.
|
| The other way round is far more difficult.
|
| If you leak then you are wasting your time because in a
| static air environment you'll delay the critical level
| build up by a few minutes at most.
|
| Medicine doesn't like aerosolisation because it sounds
| too much like miasmia theory.
|
| So we have too much focus on droplets and fomites.
|
| Fundamentally this should have been sorted with a
| properly designed trial with the correct protocol of
| sufficient size to answer the question. Given what was on
| the line why has it not been done?
| u32480932048 wrote:
| This simple "Masks Work" vs. "Masks Don't Work" paradigm is
| insufficient and almost meaningless, which probably explains,
| in part, why it came to dominate the conversation.
|
| The sad thing is that the people who should have known
| better, by virtue of their professed intelligence and
| education, didn't allow any nuance whatsoever. Masks Work,
| Masks Good, in every sense and situation. Anyone who didn't
| chant the slogan verbatim was painted as a puppy-kicking
| grandma killer.
|
| Meanwhile, all those deplorable schmucks in the trades,
| who've been lectured to death about choosing the right
| respiratory protection for the job, were able to comprehend
| that big mask hole and tiny virus is a Bad Choice. You want
| the mask holes to be smaller than the Bad Thing. Therefore,
| "Masks Don't Work".
|
| But they do work to keep the mask-wearer from spitting on
| others when they talk, and there's something to be said for
| that. A clear explanation of the different modes of
| operation, and framing it as a polite thing to do (akin to
| covering your mouth/nose when you cough or sneeze), probably
| would have been sufficient.
|
| Instead of getting everyone on the same page, they resorted
| to threats and violence, often accompanied by factually-
| incorrect arguments, which only made it seem all the more
| tyrannical.
|
| We need to stop "believing" in Science and start
| "understanding" it, even when it doesn't fit in a headline or
| tweet.
| supplied_demand wrote:
| == Instead of getting everyone on the same page, ==
|
| Your post seems to be continuing this trend. Nobody called
| anyone "deplorable schmucks" or "puppy kicking grandma
| killer" but you. Your victimhood really comes out in the
| language you choose to describe others.
| throw-the-towel wrote:
| FWIW I remember this very forum flinging this kind of
| accusations in 2020.
| supplied_demand wrote:
| Even without any examples, I don't see how revisiting it
| today gets anyone on the same page. It feels like a way
| to play the victim.
| ipaddr wrote:
| Retros are common in our industry this is a mini-retro.
| Many things by experts and leaders were false and caused
| many deaths and still are causing deaths. The follow your
| government officials crowd got it wrong. Those who got
| fooled want to move on and not face reality are now
| calling other victims in an attempt to silence and shame.
| Shame on you for trying to hide your collective cowardly
| actions.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| While we're on the subject of retrospection, did you ever
| figure out which news sources you consume led to your
| belief that George Floyd was murdered by "black
| supremacists"?
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35069871
| pfannkuchen wrote:
| I have no opinion on this thread but I find it weird when
| people dig through others' comment history and try to use
| it as an argument.
|
| If you read the rest of that thread GP states that he was
| thinking of a specific different police brutality case
| and mistakenly referred to the George Floyd case instead.
| I also have no idea what he means by black supremacists
| there but the ridiculous part of your quote was
| essentially a typo by GP (allegedly anyway).
| supplied_demand wrote:
| == Shame on you for trying to hide your collective
| cowardly actions.==
|
| I needed a reminder on my I stopped posting here. This
| type of arrogant indignation is the perfect example. It
| completely cuts off actual discourse and makes a host of
| negative assumptions about others while demanding that
| others treat your ideas with care and nuance.
|
| Shame on me for trying to have a discussion. Back to your
| flamewars!
| threeseed wrote:
| > this very forum
|
| Specific individuals not "this forum".
| contingencies wrote:
| The parent seeks to convey the zeitgeist irrational
| emotional response of the populace to alternate
| perspectives during the COVID era and to my mind does so
| successfully.
|
| As someone who not only mapped the rise of COVID for
| Wikipedia before it was mainstream media acknowledged in
| January 2020 -
| https://github.com/globalcitizen/2019-wuhan-coronavirus-
| data - but also had the unique fortune of experiencing
| (catching) COVID in all of China, Australia and the US,
| while all countries had irrational response I would
| classify Australian social paranoia as some of the worst.
| Absolutely, people were being shamed and attacked and
| removed from society, employment, etc. if they did not
| have vaccinations or refused to wear masks. While all
| countries had irrational response, Australia's was
| certainly "up there". Furthermore, they turned the whole
| country in to a prison (you needed 'special permission'
| to leave, even as an Australian citizen), and virtually
| nobody complained.
|
| _There are no such people so hopelessly enslaved as
| those who believe they are free._ - Goethe
|
| I personally found the recent withdrawl of some of the
| vaccines - which people were hounded and shamed in to
| taking in to their bodies - with proven mortality risk,
| as something of a vindication. None of my family had any
| vaccines, not because we are against them per se, but
| because we didn't encounter a legal requirement to do so
| as we visited the US right after the requirement for
| travelers was dropped, and had already developed natural
| resistance through repeated exposure. If we were dealing
| with a more vicious pathogen, we would have been first in
| line.
| supplied_demand wrote:
| My problem is the person engaging the exact things they
| accuse the other side of doing, all while lamenting the
| inability to "get people on the same page."
| ceejayoz wrote:
| > Meanwhile, all those deplorable schmucks in the trades,
| who've been lectured to death about choosing the right
| respiratory protection for the job, were able to comprehend
| that big mask hole and tiny virus is a Bad Choice. You want
| the mask holes to be smaller than the Bad Thing. Therefore,
| "Masks Don't Work".
|
| It's interesting that you stop here, and not go further to
| the next level of relevant knowledgeableness, which is that
| the virologists and materials engineers who work on masks
| know something the tradespeople don't, which is a) that
| viruses rarely travel around as single viral particles and
| b) that this is why we make surgical and N95 masks
| electrostatically charged.
| (https://www.wired.com/story/the-physics-of-the-n95-face-
| mask...)
|
| (For a clear example of why a) matters, try peeing through
| your pants. The water molecules are, after all, far too
| small to be blocked!)
|
| > A clear explanation of the different modes of operation,
| and framing it as a polite thing to do (akin to covering
| your mouth/nose when you cough or sneeze), probably would
| have been sufficient.
|
| This was very widely attempted.
| timr wrote:
| > which is that the virologists and materials engineers
| who work on masks know something the tradespeople don't,
| which is a) that viruses rarely travel around as single
| viral particles and b) that this is why we make surgical
| and N95 masks electrostatically charged.
|
| Right. Which is why we saw a great many "virologists"
| (who are not "maskologists", btw, so I'm not sure where
| we get this idea that they "work on masks" [1]) blindly
| assert that it didn't matter what kind of mask you wear,
| then for a long time defended the silly notion of a
| 6-foot rule (remember "ballistic droplets"? I do!), then
| said, _" OK, cloth masks probably don't do much, but
| 'swiss-cheese model!'"_, and so on and so forth.
| Literally anything than just be intellectually honest
| about what the data says.
|
| This entire debate has been insipid, and OP is correct: a
| great many people who _should have known better_ shifted
| their brains into neutral and allowed slogans to drive
| the conversation. The entire point of the linked article
| is that the CDC has historically used crap studies to
| make causative arguments that wouldn 't work in any other
| scientific debate.
|
| [1] ...and let's not forget people like _Jeremy Howard_
| (philosophy major; Kaggle guy) and _Zeynep Tufecki_
| (librarian) somehow get cited as 'mask experts' and
| publish total gibberish in PNAS and other high-profile
| journals, despite having zero relevant experience.
| russdill wrote:
| Looking at the data on other respiratory illnesses showed
| that _something_ certainly worked. Really hope we get
| good at figuring out the relative effectiveness of
| different measures before the next pandemic.
| wpietri wrote:
| I think one needs to have different standards for an
| academic discussion versus a public health campaign.
|
| For example, taking drinking and driving. If we're talking
| academically, it's an incredibly nuanced topic, and I'm
| sure the actual risk depends a ton on the individual, their
| skills, their reaction times, their built-up alcohol
| tolerance, and many other factors.
|
| But if we're talking about actual individuals getting
| hammered and then grabbing the keys, then "Don't Drink And
| Drive. Ever." is about the right level for the discussion.
|
| And I think part of the reason that it's so important to
| hammer home messages like that is that the people who want
| to do the thing that's dangerous for others will seize upon
| the nuances of the academic discussion, use anything that
| gives them permission, and absolutely ignore the rest of
| it. That's true of drunk drivers for sure. It was also true
| of smokers before they lost that battle. And of course the
| Andrew Wakefields of the world are great at building a
| whole grift around that.
| russdill wrote:
| N95 style and other similar masks don't work by making
| holes that are smaller than the particles they are meant to
| filter, they filter smaller particles primarily with
| electrostatic effects.
| 580515975 wrote:
| https://journals.aps.org/rmp/abstract/10.1103/RevModPhys.95..
| .. is one article that provides some insight. It describes
| the nature of viral particles exhaled in different
| activities, and explains how effective different masks are at
| preventing these particles from being inhaled.
|
| Separately, I was surprised to see that OP's article looked
| at studies starting in 1978, since modern electrostatic
| filtering masks were only patented in 1995--so I'm not sure
| how meaningful it is to lump studies on older mask
| technologies in with modern masks.
| chaostheory wrote:
| Another question most of these studies fail to ask is what is
| the effectiveness of each type of mask? An N95 mask is going
| to have a big difference in efficacy vs a surgical mask
| without a seal.
|
| Another issue is that most of these studies are just surveys.
| Did participants actually use their masks for x hours? Did
| they use their masks correctly?
| jampekka wrote:
| It's probably more addressing the "it can't possibly be
| ineffective" crowd.
| greasegum wrote:
| >But where does the 1978 year in the title come from?
|
| This seems to come from the fact that although MMWR has been in
| publication since 1978, 100% of papers they have published on
| the topic has been in the past 3.5 years.
| efitz wrote:
| Actually the authors interpretation is very different if you
| read the very next sectio ("Conclusions"):
|
| > "Conclusions and Relevance MMWR publications pertaining to
| masks drew positive conclusions about mask effectiveness over
| 75% of the time despite only 30% testing masks and <15% having
| statistically significant results. No studies were randomized,
| yet over half drew causal conclusions. The level of evidence
| generated was low and the conclusions drawn were most often
| unsupported by the data. Our findings raise concern about the
| reliability of the journal for informing health policy."
|
| I watch Dr Prasad on YouTube and he is pretty interesting IMO.
| He's an oncologist but spends a lot of time analyzing medical
| studies.
| standardUser wrote:
| With language like that, there's no way to not see this as a
| hit piece.
| admissionsguy wrote:
| Yea, a hit piece on bad science
| majormajor wrote:
| Yes, I noted that the authors are largely focused on _study
| quality_ vs actual conclusions about which sorts of masks are
| what level of effective.
|
| And critiquing sloppy science is very necessary. But it's
| being extended by many to be "masks not useful, full stop"
| despite largely being about "most studies suck." And the
| phrasings chosen by the authors make it look like that mis-
| read/extension is an effect they desire.
| ano-ther wrote:
| > But where does the 1978 year in the title come from?
|
| Was curious about that too -- it's a slightly unfortunate
| headline:
|
| > Our search, spanning the years 1978 to 2023, identified 83
| MMWR published studies on PubMed, all of which were published
| after 2019.
| 9cb14c1ec0 wrote:
| One of the single most frustrating things about Covid was the way
| media coverage almost entirely ignored the 100 years of studies
| on the varying effectiveness of various types of masks against
| various threats. Every bit of media attention on masks that I
| read treated it like it was some new cutting-edge area of
| research, when nothing could be further from the truth.
| "Effectiveness of masks" is a very deep and nuanced subject, but
| unfortunately most talking heads don't seem interested in nuance.
| spondylosaurus wrote:
| It also seemed very American/Euro-centric how it was treated as
| some kind of novel idea that no one had ever tried before.
| Meanwhile in most East Asian countries it's been common
| courtesy for ages to wear a mask during cold/flu season.
| dboreham wrote:
| From a US perspective it was much worse than that. People
| seemed to 1) divide into two groups: you like the idea of
| masks, or you hate the idea of masks. Then 2) invent reasons to
| justify that position. The media simply followed along with
| this, providing pseudo-justification for one position or the
| other depending on political color. Disclosure: I liked the
| idea of avoiding breathing pathogens on other people, and I
| loved 2 years not catching any cold or flu. It has been really
| unpleasant to once again be having back-to-back colds every
| time I travel by plane.
| stevenwoo wrote:
| Why do you not just wear a mask on a plane? It's pretty
| effective for Covid-19 and presumably all other airborne
| vectors even if you take it off for the meals.
| https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/21/6/654
| taeric wrote:
| I confess the criticism of randomized control trials (RCTs) in
| the previous paper hit me the wrong way. Anyone that tries to
| build a case against RCTs has a pretty heavy hill to climb. There
| are weaknesses, of course, but it is by far the strongest method
| we know of at the moment for things where you can't isolate all
| other factors.
|
| That said, I also confess that I look forward to a time we aren't
| seeing writers seeming to just take pot shots at each other. I
| get that talking past each other is a common problem in life, it
| still sucks that it has seemed to dominate so much discourse
| recently.
| ok_dad wrote:
| I live in a place where masking isn't a big deal, people wore
| masks all the time before covid if they felt sick to prevent
| transmission. During covid, our rates were quite low, and the
| rates of countries like Japan where they mask routinely were
| lower.
|
| How do "anti-maskers" (for lack of a better term) explain this?
| If masks only work for 5 or 10 percent reduction, then it still
| helps and with little downside.
|
| I don't understand what's so bad about wearing a mask, other than
| wanting to buck the system trying to tell you what to do.
|
| I don't understand why you'd look at someone with a mask on and
| judge them today, even, as you don't know their story or what
| their health is like.
| taeric wrote:
| I think the problem with the mask discussion is both sides over
| represent what the other side is saying. Proponents likely
| don't view it as a panacea, just as opponents probably could be
| convinced it is a good idea to try.
|
| To be clear, there were and are people that are in the
| extremes. People having meltdowns over being asked to wear a
| mask did happen. And that doesn't make sense.
|
| However, it also takes rather high confidence to think that
| masks were meaningful impacts on school transmission. And
| getting either side that is invested in a position here to
| discuss with the others is difficult. I'm not clear why.
|
| So, people will talk over each other and not actually engage
| with the discussion, but the weakest form of the discussion
| that they can dominate.
|
| For myself, I don't understand it, either. Agreed that masking
| was not a big deal. But, literally everyone I knew that made a
| big deal of masking all of the time were the most likely people
| I knew to have covid. Usually several times in the year. It
| made literally no sense. (My guess is they were the most likely
| to test all of the time, and odds are high they had a few false
| positives?)
|
| Now, as indicated by my comment on schools, I also think it was
| pointless to try and get preschools and such with masking
| policies. Happy to be shown I'm wrong on that, but the
| messaging around kids and covid was abysmal.
| vundercind wrote:
| Preschool's probably hopeless, but I happened to get to see a
| somewhat-nice (doctors and fancy lawyers send their kids
| there) local private elementary and a bunch of local public
| elementaries handle Covid.
|
| The public schools re-opened later and had terrible
| transmission rates the whole first year. Kids and teachers
| were sick constantly. Masking was nominally mandated but
| compliance in all grades was terrible, mostly due to
| attitudes from and modeling at home (i.e. their parents were
| chin-maskers who complained about masking a ton at home in
| front of their kids) and then social effects of having quite
| a few like that, causing even more to mask poorly. Kids
| routinely came to school with fevers and got everyone sick
| with what always seemed to turn out to be _yet more goddamn
| covid_.
|
| The private school opened sooner, but had very-good air
| purifiers in every room that ran whenever possible (too loud
| when class actively working) and practically perfect masking.
| Kids didn't come to school sick. Despite re-opening sooner,
| they did a _ton_ better. Any extra costs were more than made
| up by not having to pay for as many substitute days. Even
| first graders and kindergarteners masked decently well--
| because their parents did, and didn't complain constantly
| about masking and talk about how it's pointless and watch
| media complaining about masking in front of their kids. The
| parents' attitudes made most of the difference as far as
| masking goes.
| taeric wrote:
| I'd wager that opening sooner versus later is almost
| certainly more pertinent than you realize there. It is
| comical how rapidly families get sick when they first start
| something like preschool. The longer it has been since they
| were exposed, the more rapidly they get sick.
|
| That said, I'm happy to see data backing this. Last time I
| recall the claim getting looked at, it didn't have anything
| actionable. Private school was something like 1/20th the
| size of typical public schools and the numbers were inline
| with what you would expect for such a smaller population.
|
| Our kids in public similarly saw a ton of reported cases.
| Around here, though, masking compliance was pretty good.
| I'm still finding stashes of masks we had in convenient
| locations for when we were out.
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| >I don't understand what's so bad about wearing a mask, other
| than wanting to buck the system trying to tell you what to do.
|
| Mostly this. I like eating ice cream. If someone told me to eat
| ice cream or they would shoot me in the face, I would resent
| it.
|
| I much prefer to be offered ice cream, or asked politely to
| have some.
| ok_dad wrote:
| What about vaccinations? I'm talking about for mumps and
| stuff, things we should all agree are necessary. Those are
| more invasive yet we accept them today as a requirement for
| most of society.
|
| I just don't understand (cause I'm autistic I think) that if
| you think a mask might help, but it was mandatory anyways,
| why you would get angry then versus if they asked politely
| and you did it. Is that your ego or something? I totally
| don't understand, but like I said, around here it was the
| exception for someone to not wear a mask, and those who
| didn't had good reasons and were very careful to shop when
| less people were around and stuff like that. We care about
| each other where I live.
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| Happy to explain further, but first I need to know more
| about what you can relate to.
|
| How do you feel about the ice cream analogy? Would you just
| be happy for the opportunity to eat ice cream and not be
| bothered by the gun to your head?
| ok_dad wrote:
| I guess maybe I just won't get it, it seems like nothing,
| to me, to wear a mask if requested, so I don't get the
| push back. Do you feel like it's being too submissive or
| something? I prefer explanations of how you feel and what
| your internal dialogue is when a mask is mandatory at,
| say, the grocer. Vaccinations are a decent corollary but
| those are riskier than an N95 by far, so it's not
| perfect. Wearing a mask basically costs nothing, IMO,
| unless you're a very specific case where it's harmful.
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| You refused to answer the question. I clearly stated it
| was a pre-requisite for an explanation.
|
| I dont know if you would get it or not.
| ok_dad wrote:
| The ice cream analogy was stupid, that's what I think.
| Ice cream isn't a virus, it's not even the same stakes!
| Do 1/100 to 1/250 people die from new ice cream
| varieties?
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| Eating ice cream is an analogy for wearing a mask, not
| the virus.
|
| It is something that isn't a big deal, and that I would
| normally enjoy doing. I guess you didnt get it
| lachaux wrote:
| I would say this is false analogy fallacy.
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| You might be surprised at how many Americans feel the
| analogy is quite accurate.
| jl6 wrote:
| > the conclusions drawn were most often unsupported by the data
|
| This is damning. What's the purpose of an allegedly-scientific
| paper if it draws conclusions not supported by the data? It's no
| better than an opinion column.
| jhp123 wrote:
| There is also no good study showing that parachutes prevent death
| when falling from an airplane. The best we have is observational
| "evidence" where there are many uncontrolled variables, such as
| people whose parachutes failed (but they may be unlucky or
| careless in other ways, or incompetent fallers). And then
| speculative physics models involving rates of acceleration and
| energy transfer, which can hardly be assumed to carry over to the
| real world in the absence of a proper large-scale randomized
| test.
| thedrbrian wrote:
| >parachutes
|
| Very easy and simple demonstration though. With a high
| confidence value.
|
| Whether masks make a 1% or 0.07653 difference or whatever is
| very difficult.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| It's very tough to do a good double-blind parachute RCT.
|
| https://www.bmj.com/content/363/bmj.k5094
| timr wrote:
| ....which, again, you don't need to do, because the effect
| size of parachutes is enormous. You _must do them_ when the
| effect size is measured in single-digit percent (or less,
| as in the case of mask mandates).
|
| You're not making a responsive argument to the parent.
| jhp123 wrote:
| how do you get an "effect size" or "confidence interval"
| without a properly controlled trial? I could claim that
| the "effect size" of umbrellas leading to rain is
| absolutely enormous, billions of gallons of it drop from
| the sky! You parachute believers are really something
| else.
| swader999 wrote:
| Timely, we are about to enter a new election cycle.
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2024-05-24 23:01 UTC)