4 ms·

One more for the pile of evidence that Vitamin D supplementation may(!) help. It baffles me that masks are officially recommended despite scant evidence that t

One more for the pile of evidence that Vitamin D supplementation may(!) help. It baffles me that masks are officially recommended despite scant evidence that they help, yet Vitamin D is ignored. EDIT: This is a not an argument against mask usage, it's pointing out the double standard applied to two different cheap and low-risk interventions.

xiphias2 6y ago
Masks have a 100 year history of helping to stop respiratory infections. I'm taking vitamin D, but as the sun shining have other advantages as well (being outside, not coughing that much because of the better weather), it's harder to decide whether taking extra vitamin D helps.
Erlich_Bachman 6y ago
There is a lot of evidence for efficiency of masks, actually: https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(20)31142-9/fulltext?#.XxRifFxeF38.facebook https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6...
- gridlockd 6y ago
  That is, as usual, a basket of low-quality studies that suggest that surgical masks may(!) decrease infection. In other words, scant evidence, just like I said. The difference is in the branding.
  - Erlich_Bachman 6y ago
    > basket of low-quality studies In what way are they low-quality? They are basically as good of a quality as the ethical considerations allow any studies to be made in this area (it's not like you can make an RCT that actively tries to infect participants to study how well the virus does). In what context are you using the word "scant" here? What kind of practical (realistic) evidence would even satisfy your judgement here as "non-scant"?
  - swader999 6y ago
    It's good enough evidence to act on. Obvious that masks reduce viral load.
Renaud 6y ago
I'd like to offer a counterpoint on the masks: as soon as the epidemic started, the Hong Kong population -remembering SARS 15 years ago- started wearing masks and sanitizing hands. Hong Kong is one of the most densely populated area in the world. There is no way to implement effective social distancing here The result so far? one of the lowest rate of infection and death per capita of any developed country: 675/M and 12/M respectively. To put this in perspective, the UK and US are at 50x that death rate. So we may speculate about what had a strongest effect -sanitizing hands, masks, temporary closure of schools and entertainment venues, partial work form home- but it seems difficult to argue that masks have no effects as most of these measures were also tried elsewhere. A major difference being that, in HK, no-one leaves the house without wearing a mask.
- gridlockd 6y ago
  I'm not arguing that masks don't work, I'm arguing that the evidence is of low quality. Not that the evidence is wrong, or that people shouldn't wear masks. If you're advocating the wearing of masks premised on that sort of evidence, you should be advocating Vitamin D supplementation, and you probably should be advocating Zinc+HCQ as a prophylactic, because you just lowered your scientific standards by that much.
  - nicoburns 6y ago
    What sort of evidence would you like to see?
    - gridlockd 6y ago
      Well, of course I'd like to see a double-blind placebo-controlled gold-standard trial on a million subjects from diverse backgrounds! In fact, I don't need more evidence to wear masks. I have no problem with wearing a mask. I have no problem with advocating the wearing of masks in an honest fashion. It's plausible that masks do help to some degree. It's however also plausible that they hurt in some ways, that they serve as a reservoir for viruses and bacteria. If anything, I have a problem with the intellectual dishonesty surrounding the advocacy of masks.
spuz 6y ago
I would say that we don't yet have the desired level of evidence for the effectiveness of either masks or vitamin D supplements when it comes to battling covid-19. The difference is that it's almost certainly not going to harm someone to wear a mask, whereas recommending vitamin D supplements to everyone might. I really want vitamin D to be the miracle cure for this disease but so far only a single RCT has been published. Like you say, this study adds to the pile but doesn't talk about supplementation as such. This particular paper was completed in July and only published two days ago. Hopefully that means there are more studies waiting to be released that can give us a more concrete answer.
- gridlockd 6y ago
  > The difference is that it's almost certainly not going to harm someone to wear a mask, whereas recommending vitamin D supplements to everyone might. Vitamin-D supplementation is considered safe and is already recommended to everyone by health authorities, at least seasonally, not specifically for COVID-19 related reasons. That's just not part of the media spectacle, but it think it should be. There were lots of arguments against masks in the beginning, such as people becoming more careless due to feeling "protected". It's a valid argument to make, but you couldn't make it anymore today, "masks are good" is dogma. Obviously, Vitamin D is not a miracle cure, but there's mounting evidence that it may be beneficial, just like masks, perhaps even drastically more so. I don't accept the "we need to wait for more evidence" argument anymore when I'm simultaneously forced by law to wrap a piece of cloth against my mouth/noise, based on similarly poor evidence.

xiphias2 6y ago

Masks have a 100 year history of helping to stop respiratory infections. I'm taking vitamin D, but as the sun shining have other advantages as well (being outside, not coughing that much because of the better weather), it's harder to decide whether taking extra vitamin D helps.

Erlich_Bachman 6y ago

There is a lot of evidence for efficiency of masks, actually: https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(20)31142-9/fulltext?#.XxRifFxeF38.facebook https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6...

gridlockd 6y ago
That is, as usual, a basket of low-quality studies that suggest that surgical masks may(!) decrease infection. In other words, scant evidence, just like I said. The difference is in the branding.
- Erlich_Bachman 6y ago
  > basket of low-quality studies In what way are they low-quality? They are basically as good of a quality as the ethical considerations allow any studies to be made in this area (it's not like you can make an RCT that actively tries to infect participants to study how well the virus does). In what context are you using the word "scant" here? What kind of practical (realistic) evidence would even satisfy your judgement here as "non-scant"?
- swader999 6y ago
  It's good enough evidence to act on. Obvious that masks reduce viral load.

Renaud 6y ago

I'd like to offer a counterpoint on the masks: as soon as the epidemic started, the Hong Kong population -remembering SARS 15 years ago- started wearing masks and sanitizing hands. Hong Kong is one of the most densely populated area in the world. There is no way to implement effective social distancing here The result so far? one of the lowest rate of infection and death per capita of any developed country: 675/M and 12/M respectively. To put this in perspective, the UK and US are at 50x that death rate. So we may speculate about what had a strongest effect -sanitizing hands, masks, temporary closure of schools and entertainment venues, partial work form home- but it seems difficult to argue that masks have no effects as most of these measures were also tried elsewhere. A major difference being that, in HK, no-one leaves the house without wearing a mask.

gridlockd 6y ago
I'm not arguing that masks don't work, I'm arguing that the evidence is of low quality. Not that the evidence is wrong, or that people shouldn't wear masks. If you're advocating the wearing of masks premised on that sort of evidence, you should be advocating Vitamin D supplementation, and you probably should be advocating Zinc+HCQ as a prophylactic, because you just lowered your scientific standards by that much.
- nicoburns 6y ago
  What sort of evidence would you like to see?
  - gridlockd 6y ago
    Well, of course I'd like to see a double-blind placebo-controlled gold-standard trial on a million subjects from diverse backgrounds! In fact, I don't need more evidence to wear masks. I have no problem with wearing a mask. I have no problem with advocating the wearing of masks in an honest fashion. It's plausible that masks do help to some degree. It's however also plausible that they hurt in some ways, that they serve as a reservoir for viruses and bacteria. If anything, I have a problem with the intellectual dishonesty surrounding the advocacy of masks.

spuz 6y ago

I would say that we don't yet have the desired level of evidence for the effectiveness of either masks or vitamin D supplements when it comes to battling covid-19. The difference is that it's almost certainly not going to harm someone to wear a mask, whereas recommending vitamin D supplements to everyone might. I really want vitamin D to be the miracle cure for this disease but so far only a single RCT has been published. Like you say, this study adds to the pile but doesn't talk about supplementation as such. This particular paper was completed in July and only published two days ago. Hopefully that means there are more studies waiting to be released that can give us a more concrete answer.

gridlockd 6y ago
> The difference is that it's almost certainly not going to harm someone to wear a mask, whereas recommending vitamin D supplements to everyone might. Vitamin-D supplementation is considered safe and is already recommended to everyone by health authorities, at least seasonally, not specifically for COVID-19 related reasons. That's just not part of the media spectacle, but it think it should be. There were lots of arguments against masks in the beginning, such as people becoming more careless due to feeling "protected". It's a valid argument to make, but you couldn't make it anymore today, "masks are good" is dogma. Obviously, Vitamin D is not a miracle cure, but there's mounting evidence that it may be beneficial, just like masks, perhaps even drastically more so. I don't accept the "we need to wait for more evidence" argument anymore when I'm simultaneously forced by law to wrap a piece of cloth against my mouth/noise, based on similarly poor evidence.