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> The rationale for cheap masks is that they drastically reduce the spread of particles from the wearer to everyone else nearby. If so, why does states with th

> The rationale for cheap masks is that they drastically reduce the spread of particles from the wearer to everyone else nearby. If so, why does states with the highest mask use (CA, NYC) have much higher covid rates than states with some of the lowest mask use (Florida, Texas)?

dragonwriter 5y ago
> If so, why does states with the highest mask use (CA, NYC) have much higher covid rates than states with some of the lowest mask use (Florida, Texas)? They...don’t (leaving out NYC because the other three things are large, diverse states and NYC is a single large city): California 3.7M cumulative cases & 1,336 case/day current 7-day average vs. 39.5M population Florida 2.3M cumulative cases & 3,007 case/day 7-day average vs 21.5M population. Texas 2.9M cumulative case & 2,034 case/day current 7-day average vs. 29M population. FL and TX are worse on per capita cumulative cases, and much worse on current per capita new cases than California. (case numbers from usafacts.org)
- johbjo 5y ago
  Also consider age distribution/population density in areas you compare. Death rate is exponential in age, so small differences in age distribution gives big differences in relative deaths.
  - asabjorn 5y ago
    Death rate to confirmed cases is TX 1.7% (51k deaths over 2.9m cases), Florida 1.56% (36k deaths over 2296 cases), CA 1.64% (62k deaths over 3.74m cases) [source: google coronovirus stats]. So data does not confirm your conclusion.
    - dragonwriter 5y ago
      Without stats on the age distribution of confirmed cases (even before considering the absence of analysis of confounding factors, liking case timing within the pandemic, etc.), I’m not sure how you can say the data doesn’t confirm the conclusion since you don’t have data on the proposed independent variable at all.
      - asabjorn 5y ago
        Yes, age distribution matters as older people are at higher risk. As some signal for this Florida is USAs old people home, so you would expect that if masks had a large positive mitigatory effect then Florida with its low mask use would do worse than CA and NY that has low mask use. However, we do not see this.
        dragonwriter 5y ago
        > As some signal for this Florida is USAs old people home, so you would expect that if masks had a large positive mitigatory effect then Florida with its low mask use would do worse than CA and NY that has low mask use. Again, this has a problem of failing to address case timing and distribution, with CA and NY being hard hit and having COVID into the community before there was much awareness or any policy response (e.g., targeted control measures directed at elder facilities) or personal behavior response or evolution in treatment protocols, which radically changes the dynamic vs. states that weren't hit until after public awareness and health care competence was more advannced. And presumbaly, you mean “CA and NY with high mask use”, otherwise this argument is nonsense. OTOH, no one has cited any data supporting the “CA and NY are representative of high mask use states while FL (and TX, as claimed in other posts) are representative of low mask use” argument, which seems to be based on stereotyping based on dominant political parties in each state and leanings of political leaders of each party on mask mandates. What data there is on this doesn’t seem to support that this stereotyping accurately reflects mask use, OTOH; i.e., a study on mask use with self-reported data for May through August of last year had mask use as: AUG: CA 74.6% > FL 71.6% > NY 69.6% > TX 69.1% JUL: NY 80.6% > CA 74.3% > FL 66.9% > TX 66% JUN: NY 56.4% > CA 48.7% > FL 45.1% > TX 42.4% MAY: NY 46.1% > CA 45.2% > TX 43.8% > FL 43.5% APR: CA 38.1% > NY 36.1% > FL 35.0% > TX 32.4% And, notably, all four states were in the top half of the country in mask use in all 5 months with data. https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0249891 https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal...
        asabjorn 5y ago
        I tend to trust state policy and political leanings more as an indicator then a self reported study. Can you please dig into why you trust this self reported study on the politically charged mask use question? Especially when the study is performed by academics that is perceived to be too often left-wing activists by republicans and many libertarians? (And according to Haidt have a provably largely left leaning bias) Self reported results are prone to preference falsification and hidden bias in whom answers. (“Yes, mom, I did my homework” ;) ) Self reported results of politically charged questions are effectively polls. To indicate the problem you can observed how inaccurate polls around politically charged choices has become when compared to actual choices. The normal problems with self reported results are probably aggravated by how academics, major authorities, media, and tech companies have openly without cover used force to promote the “right” answer and suppressed the “wrong”. The use of force to enforce specific conclusions had been an extraordinary and very noticeable break from western traditions.
- asabjorn 5y ago
  NY (not NYC) cumulative cases is 2m and population is 19.4m, so about 10.3% of population [source: google coronavius stats]. > California 3.7M cumulative cases & 1,336 case/day current 7-day average vs. 39.5M population Its 3.77M, so about 9.5% of population. > Texas 2.9M cumulative case & 2,034 case/day current 7-day average vs. 29M population. That's 10%. > Florida 2.3M cumulative cases & 3,007 case/day 7-day average vs 21.5M population. That's about 10.6%. > FL and TX are worse on per capita cumulative cases, and much worse on current per capita new cases than California. With the total cases being about the same so this does not support your conclusion that masks "drastically reduce spread".
  - dragonwriter 5y ago
    > With the total cases being about the same so this does not support your conclusion I didn’t offer any conclusion except that the upthread claim that California had a much higher rate of COVID cases than FL/TX was bunk. To actually tease out the effects of mask use from jurisdictional case statistics, you’d also have to (1) have stats on mask use, which (despite people making claims about it in coordination with blatantly false claims about cases), I haven’t seen, and (2) have good stats for the other things that would reasonably be expected to contribute to differences in infection spread, (3) either have enough a priori knowledge of the contribution of the items in 2 to control for their effect in 1:1 comparisons, or have data from enough different places to do an analysis that determines the contributions of different factors. Even with good mask stats, a head to head comparison of a couple states case numbers with mask stats wouldn’t otherwise be useful for anything.
    - asabjorn 5y ago
      >To actually tease out the effects of mask use from jurisdictional case statistics, you’d also have to (1) have stats on mask use, which (despite people making claims about it in coordination with blatantly false claims about cases), I haven’t seen, and (2) have good stats for the other things that would reasonably be expected to contribute to differences in infection spread, (3) either have enough a priori knowledge of the contribution of the items in 2 to control for their effect in 1:1 comparisons, or have data from enough different places to do an analysis that determines the contributions of different factors. Absolutely, 100% with you. And effectiveness of a mitigation should be determined before mandating it, and the positives and negatives of the mitigation should be well understood. > I didn’t offer any conclusion except that the upthread claim that California had a much higher rate of COVID cases than FL/TX was bunk. I was responding to the parents claim that masks “ drastically reduce the spread” which I think I’ve showed is an unsupported claim, although I stated my initial claim too strongly. There is no significant observable effect on state covid case count or state death to confirmed case count (which would to some degree control for some differences in testing). > Even with good mask stats, a head to head comparison of a couple states case numbers with mask stats wouldn’t otherwise be useful for anything. After one year of mandating this mitigation we should be able to see some observable difference to continue mandating that people cover their faces. This is not zero-cost, especially for the ones living alone, as the masks block facial expressions showing emotion and the masks make it harder to breathe which can on aggregate cause health issues. For instance, a large number of dental issues is caused by mask use [1]. [1] https://fineartsdentistry.com/how-face-masks-are-affecting-oral-health-during-a-pandemic/ https://fineartsdentistry.com/how-face-masks-are-affecting-o...

dragonwriter 5y ago

> If so, why does states with the highest mask use (CA, NYC) have much higher covid rates than states with some of the lowest mask use (Florida, Texas)? They...don’t (leaving out NYC because the other three things are large, diverse states and NYC is a single large city): California 3.7M cumulative cases & 1,336 case/day current 7-day average vs. 39.5M population Florida 2.3M cumulative cases & 3,007 case/day 7-day average vs 21.5M population. Texas 2.9M cumulative case & 2,034 case/day current 7-day average vs. 29M population. FL and TX are worse on per capita cumulative cases, and much worse on current per capita new cases than California. (case numbers from usafacts.org)

johbjo 5y ago
Also consider age distribution/population density in areas you compare. Death rate is exponential in age, so small differences in age distribution gives big differences in relative deaths.
- asabjorn 5y ago
  Death rate to confirmed cases is TX 1.7% (51k deaths over 2.9m cases), Florida 1.56% (36k deaths over 2296 cases), CA 1.64% (62k deaths over 3.74m cases) [source: google coronovirus stats]. So data does not confirm your conclusion.
  - dragonwriter 5y ago
    Without stats on the age distribution of confirmed cases (even before considering the absence of analysis of confounding factors, liking case timing within the pandemic, etc.), I’m not sure how you can say the data doesn’t confirm the conclusion since you don’t have data on the proposed independent variable at all.
    - asabjorn 5y ago
      Yes, age distribution matters as older people are at higher risk. As some signal for this Florida is USAs old people home, so you would expect that if masks had a large positive mitigatory effect then Florida with its low mask use would do worse than CA and NY that has low mask use. However, we do not see this.
      - dragonwriter 5y ago
        > As some signal for this Florida is USAs old people home, so you would expect that if masks had a large positive mitigatory effect then Florida with its low mask use would do worse than CA and NY that has low mask use. Again, this has a problem of failing to address case timing and distribution, with CA and NY being hard hit and having COVID into the community before there was much awareness or any policy response (e.g., targeted control measures directed at elder facilities) or personal behavior response or evolution in treatment protocols, which radically changes the dynamic vs. states that weren't hit until after public awareness and health care competence was more advannced. And presumbaly, you mean “CA and NY with high mask use”, otherwise this argument is nonsense. OTOH, no one has cited any data supporting the “CA and NY are representative of high mask use states while FL (and TX, as claimed in other posts) are representative of low mask use” argument, which seems to be based on stereotyping based on dominant political parties in each state and leanings of political leaders of each party on mask mandates. What data there is on this doesn’t seem to support that this stereotyping accurately reflects mask use, OTOH; i.e., a study on mask use with self-reported data for May through August of last year had mask use as: AUG: CA 74.6% > FL 71.6% > NY 69.6% > TX 69.1% JUL: NY 80.6% > CA 74.3% > FL 66.9% > TX 66% JUN: NY 56.4% > CA 48.7% > FL 45.1% > TX 42.4% MAY: NY 46.1% > CA 45.2% > TX 43.8% > FL 43.5% APR: CA 38.1% > NY 36.1% > FL 35.0% > TX 32.4% And, notably, all four states were in the top half of the country in mask use in all 5 months with data. https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0249891 https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal...
        asabjorn 5y ago
        I tend to trust state policy and political leanings more as an indicator then a self reported study. Can you please dig into why you trust this self reported study on the politically charged mask use question? Especially when the study is performed by academics that is perceived to be too often left-wing activists by republicans and many libertarians? (And according to Haidt have a provably largely left leaning bias) Self reported results are prone to preference falsification and hidden bias in whom answers. (“Yes, mom, I did my homework” ;) ) Self reported results of politically charged questions are effectively polls. To indicate the problem you can observed how inaccurate polls around politically charged choices has become when compared to actual choices. The normal problems with self reported results are probably aggravated by how academics, major authorities, media, and tech companies have openly without cover used force to promote the “right” answer and suppressed the “wrong”. The use of force to enforce specific conclusions had been an extraordinary and very noticeable break from western traditions.
asabjorn 5y ago
NY (not NYC) cumulative cases is 2m and population is 19.4m, so about 10.3% of population [source: google coronavius stats]. > California 3.7M cumulative cases & 1,336 case/day current 7-day average vs. 39.5M population Its 3.77M, so about 9.5% of population. > Texas 2.9M cumulative case & 2,034 case/day current 7-day average vs. 29M population. That's 10%. > Florida 2.3M cumulative cases & 3,007 case/day 7-day average vs 21.5M population. That's about 10.6%. > FL and TX are worse on per capita cumulative cases, and much worse on current per capita new cases than California. With the total cases being about the same so this does not support your conclusion that masks "drastically reduce spread".
- dragonwriter 5y ago
  > With the total cases being about the same so this does not support your conclusion I didn’t offer any conclusion except that the upthread claim that California had a much higher rate of COVID cases than FL/TX was bunk. To actually tease out the effects of mask use from jurisdictional case statistics, you’d also have to (1) have stats on mask use, which (despite people making claims about it in coordination with blatantly false claims about cases), I haven’t seen, and (2) have good stats for the other things that would reasonably be expected to contribute to differences in infection spread, (3) either have enough a priori knowledge of the contribution of the items in 2 to control for their effect in 1:1 comparisons, or have data from enough different places to do an analysis that determines the contributions of different factors. Even with good mask stats, a head to head comparison of a couple states case numbers with mask stats wouldn’t otherwise be useful for anything.
  - asabjorn 5y ago
    >To actually tease out the effects of mask use from jurisdictional case statistics, you’d also have to (1) have stats on mask use, which (despite people making claims about it in coordination with blatantly false claims about cases), I haven’t seen, and (2) have good stats for the other things that would reasonably be expected to contribute to differences in infection spread, (3) either have enough a priori knowledge of the contribution of the items in 2 to control for their effect in 1:1 comparisons, or have data from enough different places to do an analysis that determines the contributions of different factors. Absolutely, 100% with you. And effectiveness of a mitigation should be determined before mandating it, and the positives and negatives of the mitigation should be well understood. > I didn’t offer any conclusion except that the upthread claim that California had a much higher rate of COVID cases than FL/TX was bunk. I was responding to the parents claim that masks “ drastically reduce the spread” which I think I’ve showed is an unsupported claim, although I stated my initial claim too strongly. There is no significant observable effect on state covid case count or state death to confirmed case count (which would to some degree control for some differences in testing). > Even with good mask stats, a head to head comparison of a couple states case numbers with mask stats wouldn’t otherwise be useful for anything. After one year of mandating this mitigation we should be able to see some observable difference to continue mandating that people cover their faces. This is not zero-cost, especially for the ones living alone, as the masks block facial expressions showing emotion and the masks make it harder to breathe which can on aggregate cause health issues. For instance, a large number of dental issues is caused by mask use [1]. [1] https://fineartsdentistry.com/how-face-masks-are-affecting-oral-health-during-a-pandemic/ https://fineartsdentistry.com/how-face-masks-are-affecting-o...