3 ms·

How is it a crap study? They had a bunch of people wear masks, which they did with varying levels of compliance ("46% of participants wore the mask as recommend

by dilap 6y ago

How is it a crap study? They had a bunch of people wear masks, which they did with varying levels of compliance ("46% of participants wore the mask as recommended, 47% predominantly as recommended, and 7% not as recommended"), and found no statistically significant reduction in infection rates. To me that seems like a pretty convincing reason to believe that wearing a mask is not going to decrease my chances of getting COVID. Do you have a compelling reason to believe otherwise?

hprotagonist 6y ago
some thoughts: - if you run a study about the effectiveness of mitigation methods when there's a low incidence rate during your study duration, don't be surprised when you're sampling noise and get inconclusive answers. - a sub-50% self reporting compliance rate is pretty shit. - https://www.vumc.org/health-policy/sites/default/files/public_files/Vanderbilt%20COVID19%20Report-Oct%2027.pdf https://www.vumc.org/health-policy/sites/default/files/publi... Figure 1. - that masks are better at keeping your gross breath in than it is in keeping everyone else's out is not a very contentious claim, and it's upheld here. Asymptomatic transmission being what it is (ie, real), you would expect to see high compliance with masks and social distancing correlate well with reduction in overall caseload. That hypothesis was not investigated here, so this study contributes no information to it. - the authors of the paper themselves conclude “We think you should wear a face mask at least to protect yourself, but you should also use it to protect others ... We consider that the conclusion is we should wear face masks.” - if you want to see population statistics where community transmission is frankly rampant: https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/69/wr/pdfs/mm6947e2-H.pdf https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/69/wr/pdfs/mm6947e2-H.pdf , https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32543923/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32543923/
- dilap 6y ago
  The study claims its sample sizes were large enough to see an effect if there were one; I'm not expert enough to evaluate the math, but I assume they are telling the truth. None of your other points give me any reason to believe masks provide protection to the wearer. I agree the study does not speak to whether wearing masks provides protection to others. (And I have so far not seen analysis that convinces me one way or the other on that point.)
  - hprotagonist 6y ago
    then read them more thoroughly.

by dilap 6y ago

hprotagonist 6y ago

some thoughts: - if you run a study about the effectiveness of mitigation methods when there's a low incidence rate during your study duration, don't be surprised when you're sampling noise and get inconclusive answers. - a sub-50% self reporting compliance rate is pretty shit. - https://www.vumc.org/health-policy/sites/default/files/public_files/Vanderbilt%20COVID19%20Report-Oct%2027.pdf https://www.vumc.org/health-policy/sites/default/files/publi... Figure 1. - that masks are better at keeping your gross breath in than it is in keeping everyone else's out is not a very contentious claim, and it's upheld here. Asymptomatic transmission being what it is (ie, real), you would expect to see high compliance with masks and social distancing correlate well with reduction in overall caseload. That hypothesis was not investigated here, so this study contributes no information to it. - the authors of the paper themselves conclude “We think you should wear a face mask at least to protect yourself, but you should also use it to protect others ... We consider that the conclusion is we should wear face masks.” - if you want to see population statistics where community transmission is frankly rampant: https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/69/wr/pdfs/mm6947e2-H.pdf https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/69/wr/pdfs/mm6947e2-H.pdf , https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32543923/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32543923/

dilap 6y ago
The study claims its sample sizes were large enough to see an effect if there were one; I'm not expert enough to evaluate the math, but I assume they are telling the truth. None of your other points give me any reason to believe masks provide protection to the wearer. I agree the study does not speak to whether wearing masks provides protection to others. (And I have so far not seen analysis that convinces me one way or the other on that point.)
- hprotagonist 6y ago
  then read them more thoroughly.