8 ms·

Those two studies you cite aren't strong scientific evidence. There is no control group, so we don't know what would have happened if they had not been wearing

Those two studies you cite aren't strong scientific evidence. There is no control group, so we don't know what would have happened if they had not been wearing masks. Also the sample size is quite small (n=2 across the two studies). I've seen some studies that have good controls on influenza, in particular there is a college dorm study that compared no intervention vs. masks vs. hand washing: https://www.cidrap.umn.edu/news-perspective/2010/01/masks-plus-hand-hygiene-reduced-ili-college-dorm-study https://www.cidrap.umn.edu/news-perspective/2010/01/masks-pl... . This specific study doesn't give strong evidence that masks stop influenza spread. Also, the individual rights argument is pretty strong. If mask wearing is already at 70% without any government mandate, I'd want really strong evidence and strong reasons to justify government intervention just to push that number a little higher.

wrs 6y ago
If we’re having this much trouble sorting out individual egos and absolutist ideologies with masks, where the choice is so simple and risk-free, we are REALLY going to be in the soup when vaccines start to come out.
ponker 6y ago
Wearing pants would be higher than 70% without government mandate -- does that mean that a law that you must have your junk covered an impingement on individual rights?
- tomjen3 6y ago
  Of course. So is having to wear a mask. A mask is justified in the short term, the fact that you don't want to see my junk rates no higher than me not wanting to see your sportsball t-shirt. Unfortunately one of them is illegal and it isn't the sportsball t-shirt.
elliekelly 6y ago
The individual rights argument is not pretty strong. Here’s a partial list of things I did today for the sake of my neighbors/community that are also government mandated: - Wore a shirt - Turned on my headlights and used my turn signals - Held on to my empty coffee cup until I got to a trash can when I could have just dropped it on the ground - Kept my dog on a leash and picked up his poop - Parked in a parking spot instead of conveniently stopping my car in the middle of traffic directly in front of the grocery store door I’m sure there are plenty others. Being a member of society comes with a lot of privileges and a handful of obligations but it only works if we all do our part. No freeloaders, right? Edit: An extra word
- brighton36 6y ago
  These are objective concessions. Most of these concessions took tens (or thousands) of years to become objective.
- smnrchrds 6y ago
  > - Wore on a shirt Where do you live where this is government mandated?
  - elliekelly 6y ago
    I’m a woman so my nipples are criminalized in most of the United States.
    - smnrchrds 6y ago
      That's terrible. I'm glad that this is not the case here in Canada. It does make no sense whatsoever for it to be like this in the US. I agree with your other examples, but this one is clearly unjust and should change.
      - rossdavidh 6y ago
        In many parts of the U.S., it's not actually illegal for women to be topless, they just don't. It is often a requirement for a liquor license, however. For example, where I live in Austin, Texas, state law does not prohibit a woman being topless, and Texas is not generally among the most liberal of states.
        undersuit 6y ago
        Proactively mitigating the abuses that would emerge from a state that doesn't need to encourage more low paying jobs that have a very high rate of sex trafficking? At least the Bud Light at the strip club isn't $12 like that place I went in Las Vegas.
    - enobrev 6y ago
scythe 6y ago
>I'd want really strong evidence and strong reasons to justify government intervention just to push that number a little higher. Why? Look I know we've all heard the Friedman quip about temporary government programs, but that refers to normal situations. It's one thing when a program might drop off the political radar and outlast its mandate by decades, but in the case of COVID-19, there is absolutely no way on Earth, at all, that people could just forget that it happened. If the COVID-19 pandemic were a war, it would already rank among the 50 deadliest ever. Our rights are not devalued in the long term by rapid action in a pandemic which, by the best available estimates, could kill over a million Americans if left to run unchecked. They are not devalued in the long term because it is always going to be easy for people to know whether we are experiencing this kind of emergency. The loudest deniers on Facebook are not representative of the population: most Americans do recognize the threat, despite one of the largest disinformation campaigns in human history. So what if there's a small chance we might be too strict about masks? It's not a large injustice, and it's not a slippery slope.
- JoshuaDavid 6y ago
  > So what if there's a small chance we might be too strict about masks? It's not a large injustice, and it's not a slippery slope. It very strongly depends on exactly how the mask requirement legislation works. If it's "all persons in a public in the state of California must wear a face covering until December 31, 2020. Failure to do so will result in a fine of no more than $150", that's probably fine. People will still complain, somewhat justifiably, that this legislation is safety theater rather than an actually useful law, but in the grand scheme of things it just wouldn't be that big of a deal. However, if it's "any person who knowingly performs an action which endangers the health or well-being of others is subject to a fine of up to $10,000 or 5 years in prison", we now have yet another law that most people are arguably in violation of at least some of the time, which allows bad actors in government to impose enormous pressure to comply with unreasonable or illegal demands under threat of large fines or jail time. I personally worry quite a bit that something more like the second will be passed, and will be very selectively enforced.
  - gpanders 6y ago
llukas 6y ago
Sorry, but this doesn't sound like "no strong evidence": Without adjustments for other variables, the two intervention groups had about a 10% reduction in overall ILI incidence over the 6 weeks compared with the control group, but this was not statistically significant. However, when the researchers analyzed the ILI rates for each week of the study and adjusted for other variables (age, sex, ethnicity, baseline hand washing practices, sleep quality, alcohol use, flu vaccination), they found that the FMHH group had significantly lower rates than the controls in weeks 4, 5, and 6 (35%, 44%, and 51%, respectively). The adjusted rates for the mask-only group also were lower than those of the control group in weeks 4, 5, and 6, with reductions ranging from 28% to 42%, but this did not meet the authors' significance criterion of P<.025. The authors say several factors may explain why a significant reduction in ILI was found only during the second half of the intervention period. One is that recruitment of students continued through the first 2 weeks of the intervention, increasing the sample size by 11%. Also, the proportion of FMHH participants who wore their masks more than the average 3.5 hours a day increased in the later weeks of the study, and confirmed flu cases on campus peaked in weeks 4 and 5.
- marcell 6y ago
  Well, it depends on what you think is "strong" evidence. A 10% reduction doesn't seem very compelling, and when you introduce the more advanced statistical analysis, that hurts the case in my eyes. There are probably less disruptive ways to get a 10% reduction. I found that study from this meta study here: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/20092668/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/20092668/ which reviews a lot of these studies for influenza. Note, however, that most of the studies only look at if the masks protect the individual, not whether masks stop the spread of influenza, but the evidence seems pretty inconclusive.
  - llukas 6y ago
    I agree that 10% reduction is not much in normal situation but not when ICU are at capacity or economy is shut down. Results from weeks 4, 5 and 6 are interesting. Another study could see if this can be reproduced.
ogre_codes 6y ago
> There is no control group, so we don't kno It is unethical to have a study with a control group which involves a live virus. There is enough evidence that masks are effective that they should be required until it's proven they are ineffective or the virus risk is reduced.
- lol2143651 6y ago
  Where is this evidence? Is this evidence for n95 masks, or the cotton nonsense most people wear?
- thu2111 6y ago
  There are doctors, experts and even whole nations that disagree with you that there is evidence masks are effective. This is the problem with arguments like this. It inevitably turns into a fight over who gets to pick the evidence and experts, as there is always reasoned disagreement. Heck, China is an existence proof that mask wearing doesn't stop the virus in any meaningful way. Sample size, a billion. Checkmate. Are we done?
  - ogre_codes 6y ago
    China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan all have lower infection rates than we do, and one of their biggest ways of controlling it has been masks. Taiwan in particular has never had more than a few cases and they are near neighbors to the epicenter of this whole thing. They controlled it by cutting off travel and using masks and they've never had to do a shut down.
    - thu2111 6y ago
      You don't actually know that using masks cut it down, you're just assuming it. You're also assuming the Chinese numbers are reliable, etc etc. I mean there are just so many ways to slice it. Suffice it to say, COVID happened in China despite widespread mask wearing. If you want to prove masks work it'd take a much more rigorous analysis than cherry-picking countries and attributing their numbers to masks, that's my point.
trianglem 6y ago
This is such an asinine comment. What’s the need for any law, since ~70% will comply anyways? And this of all cases? Where a few rogue “super spreaders” can give it to thousands of people?
- throwaway0a5e 6y ago
  >What’s the need for any law, since ~70% will comply anyways? Codifying morals is done for the purpose of having cheaper and fairer enforcement.
ameister14 6y ago
The individual rights argument is based on community norms so if it's 70% already it becomes weaker, not stronger.
newacct583 6y ago
> There is no control group There's no ethical way to do a control in a study of infectious diseases. You'd have to mandate that some study participants not wear masks, when your hypothesis is clearly they the masks will keep some of them from getting sick or dying. You're asking for far too much here. Masks are known to stop disease spread from (literally) centuries of use. We don't have to throw all that intuition out with covid, even though the numbers may change. And again: why should we have to prove this technique via completely impractical research constraints when it is very likely that it helps, in a situation of dire urgency.

wrs 6y ago

If we’re having this much trouble sorting out individual egos and absolutist ideologies with masks, where the choice is so simple and risk-free, we are REALLY going to be in the soup when vaccines start to come out.

ponker 6y ago

Wearing pants would be higher than 70% without government mandate -- does that mean that a law that you must have your junk covered an impingement on individual rights?

tomjen3 6y ago
Of course. So is having to wear a mask. A mask is justified in the short term, the fact that you don't want to see my junk rates no higher than me not wanting to see your sportsball t-shirt. Unfortunately one of them is illegal and it isn't the sportsball t-shirt.

elliekelly 6y ago

The individual rights argument is not pretty strong. Here’s a partial list of things I did today for the sake of my neighbors/community that are also government mandated: - Wore a shirt - Turned on my headlights and used my turn signals - Held on to my empty coffee cup until I got to a trash can when I could have just dropped it on the ground - Kept my dog on a leash and picked up his poop - Parked in a parking spot instead of conveniently stopping my car in the middle of traffic directly in front of the grocery store door I’m sure there are plenty others. Being a member of society comes with a lot of privileges and a handful of obligations but it only works if we all do our part. No freeloaders, right? Edit: An extra word

brighton36 6y ago
These are objective concessions. Most of these concessions took tens (or thousands) of years to become objective.
smnrchrds 6y ago
> - Wore on a shirt Where do you live where this is government mandated?
- elliekelly 6y ago
  I’m a woman so my nipples are criminalized in most of the United States.
  - smnrchrds 6y ago
    That's terrible. I'm glad that this is not the case here in Canada. It does make no sense whatsoever for it to be like this in the US. I agree with your other examples, but this one is clearly unjust and should change.
    - rossdavidh 6y ago
      In many parts of the U.S., it's not actually illegal for women to be topless, they just don't. It is often a requirement for a liquor license, however. For example, where I live in Austin, Texas, state law does not prohibit a woman being topless, and Texas is not generally among the most liberal of states.
      - undersuit 6y ago
        Proactively mitigating the abuses that would emerge from a state that doesn't need to encourage more low paying jobs that have a very high rate of sex trafficking? At least the Bud Light at the strip club isn't $12 like that place I went in Las Vegas.
  - enobrev 6y ago

scythe 6y ago

>I'd want really strong evidence and strong reasons to justify government intervention just to push that number a little higher. Why? Look I know we've all heard the Friedman quip about temporary government programs, but that refers to normal situations. It's one thing when a program might drop off the political radar and outlast its mandate by decades, but in the case of COVID-19, there is absolutely no way on Earth, at all, that people could just forget that it happened. If the COVID-19 pandemic were a war, it would already rank among the 50 deadliest ever. Our rights are not devalued in the long term by rapid action in a pandemic which, by the best available estimates, could kill over a million Americans if left to run unchecked. They are not devalued in the long term because it is always going to be easy for people to know whether we are experiencing this kind of emergency. The loudest deniers on Facebook are not representative of the population: most Americans do recognize the threat, despite one of the largest disinformation campaigns in human history. So what if there's a small chance we might be too strict about masks? It's not a large injustice, and it's not a slippery slope.

JoshuaDavid 6y ago
> So what if there's a small chance we might be too strict about masks? It's not a large injustice, and it's not a slippery slope. It very strongly depends on exactly how the mask requirement legislation works. If it's "all persons in a public in the state of California must wear a face covering until December 31, 2020. Failure to do so will result in a fine of no more than $150", that's probably fine. People will still complain, somewhat justifiably, that this legislation is safety theater rather than an actually useful law, but in the grand scheme of things it just wouldn't be that big of a deal. However, if it's "any person who knowingly performs an action which endangers the health or well-being of others is subject to a fine of up to $10,000 or 5 years in prison", we now have yet another law that most people are arguably in violation of at least some of the time, which allows bad actors in government to impose enormous pressure to comply with unreasonable or illegal demands under threat of large fines or jail time. I personally worry quite a bit that something more like the second will be passed, and will be very selectively enforced.
- gpanders 6y ago

llukas 6y ago

Sorry, but this doesn't sound like "no strong evidence": Without adjustments for other variables, the two intervention groups had about a 10% reduction in overall ILI incidence over the 6 weeks compared with the control group, but this was not statistically significant. However, when the researchers analyzed the ILI rates for each week of the study and adjusted for other variables (age, sex, ethnicity, baseline hand washing practices, sleep quality, alcohol use, flu vaccination), they found that the FMHH group had significantly lower rates than the controls in weeks 4, 5, and 6 (35%, 44%, and 51%, respectively). The adjusted rates for the mask-only group also were lower than those of the control group in weeks 4, 5, and 6, with reductions ranging from 28% to 42%, but this did not meet the authors' significance criterion of P<.025. The authors say several factors may explain why a significant reduction in ILI was found only during the second half of the intervention period. One is that recruitment of students continued through the first 2 weeks of the intervention, increasing the sample size by 11%. Also, the proportion of FMHH participants who wore their masks more than the average 3.5 hours a day increased in the later weeks of the study, and confirmed flu cases on campus peaked in weeks 4 and 5.

marcell 6y ago
Well, it depends on what you think is "strong" evidence. A 10% reduction doesn't seem very compelling, and when you introduce the more advanced statistical analysis, that hurts the case in my eyes. There are probably less disruptive ways to get a 10% reduction. I found that study from this meta study here: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/20092668/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/20092668/ which reviews a lot of these studies for influenza. Note, however, that most of the studies only look at if the masks protect the individual, not whether masks stop the spread of influenza, but the evidence seems pretty inconclusive.
- llukas 6y ago
  I agree that 10% reduction is not much in normal situation but not when ICU are at capacity or economy is shut down. Results from weeks 4, 5 and 6 are interesting. Another study could see if this can be reproduced.

ogre_codes 6y ago

> There is no control group, so we don't kno It is unethical to have a study with a control group which involves a live virus. There is enough evidence that masks are effective that they should be required until it's proven they are ineffective or the virus risk is reduced.

lol2143651 6y ago
Where is this evidence? Is this evidence for n95 masks, or the cotton nonsense most people wear?
thu2111 6y ago
There are doctors, experts and even whole nations that disagree with you that there is evidence masks are effective. This is the problem with arguments like this. It inevitably turns into a fight over who gets to pick the evidence and experts, as there is always reasoned disagreement. Heck, China is an existence proof that mask wearing doesn't stop the virus in any meaningful way. Sample size, a billion. Checkmate. Are we done?
- ogre_codes 6y ago
  China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan all have lower infection rates than we do, and one of their biggest ways of controlling it has been masks. Taiwan in particular has never had more than a few cases and they are near neighbors to the epicenter of this whole thing. They controlled it by cutting off travel and using masks and they've never had to do a shut down.
  - thu2111 6y ago
    You don't actually know that using masks cut it down, you're just assuming it. You're also assuming the Chinese numbers are reliable, etc etc. I mean there are just so many ways to slice it. Suffice it to say, COVID happened in China despite widespread mask wearing. If you want to prove masks work it'd take a much more rigorous analysis than cherry-picking countries and attributing their numbers to masks, that's my point.

trianglem 6y ago

This is such an asinine comment. What’s the need for any law, since ~70% will comply anyways? And this of all cases? Where a few rogue “super spreaders” can give it to thousands of people?

throwaway0a5e 6y ago
>What’s the need for any law, since ~70% will comply anyways? Codifying morals is done for the purpose of having cheaper and fairer enforcement.

ameister14 6y ago

The individual rights argument is based on community norms so if it's 70% already it becomes weaker, not stronger.

newacct583 6y ago

> There is no control group There's no ethical way to do a control in a study of infectious diseases. You'd have to mandate that some study participants not wear masks, when your hypothesis is clearly they the masks will keep some of them from getting sick or dying. You're asking for far too much here. Masks are known to stop disease spread from (literally) centuries of use. We don't have to throw all that intuition out with covid, even though the numbers may change. And again: why should we have to prove this technique via completely impractical research constraints when it is very likely that it helps, in a situation of dire urgency.