7 ms·

Why look at Missouri which is a really small sample? Look at the rest of the world where mask mandates are in effect. Europe for example, isn't a COVID free hav

Why look at Missouri which is a really small sample? Look at the rest of the world where mask mandates are in effect. Europe for example, isn't a COVID free haven, quite the opposite. A colleague of mine got sick of COVID last January while he did everything by the book (masks, gel, distancing etc). So the effectiveness of masks is probably marginal IMHO.

dagw 5y ago
Europe for example, isn't a COVID free haven, quite the opposite. Do we know if Europe actually has stricter mask mandates (that are observed) and more mask wearing, like you seem to be suggesting? Because based on my casual observation I'd say no.
- eythian 5y ago
  It'll depend a huge amount on the country in Europe you're referring to. Germany is a lot stricter than the Netherlands, for example.
antocv 5y ago
Masks (the N95 kind not the loose dentist kind), gel, distancing, double Pfizer shots. Still got COVID with severe symptoms not even 4th month in after the second shot. Why is there no good statistics over breakthrough infections, not merely how many double vaccinated are in hospital? Why not blast the non-immunity provided by supposed vaccine the same way as "infections per day" is shown everywhere? Show "failure of vaccine to provide immunity cases per day"
- ChuckNorris89 5y ago
  >Masks (the N95 kind not the loose dentist kind), gel, distancing, double Pfizer shots. Still got COVID with severe symptoms not even 4th month in after the second shot. Ouch. Anecdotes like this really scare me. I also have friends with double Pfizer shots who got the COVID and had strong symptoms. Maybe Pfizer should go back to the drawing board though. Though I assume, without the vaccine they would have probably ended up in the hospital. Glad I got my 3rd dose now.
  - gjulianm 5y ago
    An anecdote in the other direction: I know people that were working in the hospital, treating COVID-19 infected people, before vaccines. Protection was a N95 mask (well-fitted and tight), a gown and gloves. They worked for months without an outbreak, until a bunch of them got infected. The source of that infection was probably in a meeting with a patient (for things unrelated to COVID) in a closed room when they were wearing non-N95 masks. None of them had strong symptoms other than a few days feeling awful. > Maybe Pfizer should go back to the drawing board. Maybe we should look at the data and see that the vaccines are still pretty effective. Think about the difference in restrictions and people behavior between now and before the vaccines: they have pretty much enabled normal life again and made COVID a much less worrying disease, even with high case numbers again.
  - bmj 5y ago
    Maybe Pfizer should go back to the drawing board though. The vaccines (on the U.S. market, at least) were never promoted as providing complete protection from Covid. It was about preventing serious illness and keeping people out of the hospital. As others have pointed out, they have been largely successful in those goals. I'm not claiming the vaccines are perfect, but I think a large part of the population was under the impression that these vaccines were some sort of silver bullet that would end the virus in a few short months. edit: spelling
    - antocv 5y ago
      "The vaccines (on the U.S. market, at least) were never promoted as providing complete protection from Covid." Then do not call it a vaccine, because it is not. I did not take my TBE vaccine, to be greeted a year later by TBE.
      - bmj 5y ago
        What definition of "vaccine" are you using? From Wikipedia[0]: Vaccines can be prophylactic (to prevent or ameliorate the effects of a future infection by a natural or "wild" pathogen), or therapeutic (to fight a disease that has already occurred, such as cancer). Some vaccines offer full sterilizing immunity, in which infection is prevented completely. The key word up there is "ameliorate," which is exactly what the Covid vaccines available in United States promise to do. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vaccine https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vaccine
- gjulianm 5y ago
  I don't know about your country, but in Spain we have those stats each day from the ministry of health. Turns out that the efficacy is still pretty high, around ~80% for infection. There was also a report with rates of hospitalization between vaccinated and non-vaccinated (I can't find it right now, I'll try again later) and it's a pretty clear difference, 6-14 times (depending on the age) more hospitalizations for unvaccinated persons per capita.
- ajvs 5y ago
  England for one has open source statistics, and most cases are breakthrough. Alex Berenson has some good analysis of these statistics on his Substack.
  - gjulianm 5y ago
    > England for one has open source statistics, and most cases are breakthrough I was thinking why one would say this without mentioning that the vaccination rate is pretty high, so one would expect more breakthrough cases than cases in unvaccinated people. For an extreme example, with 100% vaccination rate, all cases would be breakthrough. I can't find the UK data, so can't answer exactly, but not unexpected at all. > Alex Berenson And this explains why you didn't include it. I didn't know this person, but apparently he's a writer, no education in stats/biology/medicine, from the US, and apparently has made multitude of wrong claims [1]. I wonder if it's that you don't know better or you're making a bad faith argument. 1: https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2021/04/pandemics-wrongest-man/618475/ https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2021/04/pandemics-...
    - SuoDuanDao 5y ago
      >I was thinking why one would say this without mentioning that the vaccination rate is pretty high Does that really need to be stated? I don't think even the most suspicious among us think the vaccines make a person more likely to catch Covid all else being equal. It seems more a commentary on the narrative (not promulgated by you, but it is out there) that vaccines+distancing will somehow be able to eliminate the novel coronavirus entirely.
      - gjulianm 5y ago
        > It seems more a commentary on the narrative (not promulgated by you, but it is out there) that vaccines+distancing will somehow be able to eliminate the novel coronavirus entirely. To be honest, the only times I've seen this narrative is when people say it's out there and argue against it. I've never seen it seriously supported.
gjulianm 5y ago
Luckily we have data and not just anecdotes and humble opinions. For example, see https://www.nature.com/articles/s41562-020-01009-0 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41562-020-01009-0: ‘Wearing a mask’ exhibits a significant impact on Rt in three methods (ΔRt between −0.018 and –0.12)' It's not a silver bullet, of course, and there are some situations were masks will be useless: for example, when you get in a closed room with no ventilation with other people for a long time, masks won't do too much. Or if you get together to have dinner with others and take your mask off, well, they won't do much obviously. But masks are effective, and a pretty low cost intervention to reduce the incidence. That's a fact.
- toolz 5y ago
  There's at least one RCT on masking w.r.t. covid that finds no statistical benefit. I don't think it's appropriate to reference modeling as evidence after we have thorough studies published. https://www.acpjournals.org/doi/10.7326/m20-6817 https://www.acpjournals.org/doi/10.7326/m20-6817
  - gjulianm 5y ago
    Inconclusive results != no statistical benefit. A 95% of CI that ranges between 46% decrease and 23% increase is pretty much inconclusive, you can't say masks are better with that study but you wouldn't be justified either in saying they don't do anything.
    - toolz 5y ago
      Quoting the results section. > Although the difference observed was not statistically significant I'm not sure I understand your objection, but you most definitely can say there was no statistically significant benefit.
      - gjulianm 5y ago
        > but you most definitely can say there was no statistically significant benefit. Yes, but this study also doesn't point too conclusively that they don't have any effect. If the CI was something like 1% increase in infections - 1% decrease, you could say with a lot of confidence that it doesn't seem that masks did anything at all. But -23% to 46% is a gigantic range to say anything at all about effectiveness. So while this study is, as you say, not supporting the hypothesis that masks are effective, it doesn't support either the hypothesis that masks are not effective.
md_ 5y ago
This comment begins with a call for larger sample sizes, segues to a single anecdote about a colleague, and ends with a sweeping conclusion that's contrary to most empirical research. I'm not trying to be a dick, but maybe this demonstrates the flaws in a lot of our casual reasoning about public health measures.
DiogenesKynikos 5y ago
Masks by themselves aren't enough to eliminate the virus, though they can be part of a larger set of measures. The entire package of measures that bring viral prevalence to zero are well established, and have been implemented in several countries. They include: * Initial lockdowns to drive incidence down to near-zero. * After reopening, strict quarantine for people arriving from regions where the virus is circulating. * Thorough contact tracing, and the ability to quarantine people who come into close contact with infected people. * Temporary restrictive measures (like stopping mass gatherings) during new outbreaks. * The ability to rapidly test large populations during an outbreak, in order to quickly identify and isolate infected people and quarantine their contacts. This is an entire system aimed at keeping viral prevalence at zero over the long term. It actually allows most of society to function normally most of the time, because as long as there is zero prevalence, everyone can go about their lives normally.
denton-scratch 5y ago
> Europe for example, isn't a COVID free haven, quite the opposite. > So the effectiveness of masks is probably marginal IMHO. Non-sequitur.

dagw 5y ago

Europe for example, isn't a COVID free haven, quite the opposite. Do we know if Europe actually has stricter mask mandates (that are observed) and more mask wearing, like you seem to be suggesting? Because based on my casual observation I'd say no.

eythian 5y ago
It'll depend a huge amount on the country in Europe you're referring to. Germany is a lot stricter than the Netherlands, for example.

antocv 5y ago

Masks (the N95 kind not the loose dentist kind), gel, distancing, double Pfizer shots. Still got COVID with severe symptoms not even 4th month in after the second shot. Why is there no good statistics over breakthrough infections, not merely how many double vaccinated are in hospital? Why not blast the non-immunity provided by supposed vaccine the same way as "infections per day" is shown everywhere? Show "failure of vaccine to provide immunity cases per day"

ChuckNorris89 5y ago
>Masks (the N95 kind not the loose dentist kind), gel, distancing, double Pfizer shots. Still got COVID with severe symptoms not even 4th month in after the second shot. Ouch. Anecdotes like this really scare me. I also have friends with double Pfizer shots who got the COVID and had strong symptoms. Maybe Pfizer should go back to the drawing board though. Though I assume, without the vaccine they would have probably ended up in the hospital. Glad I got my 3rd dose now.
- gjulianm 5y ago
  An anecdote in the other direction: I know people that were working in the hospital, treating COVID-19 infected people, before vaccines. Protection was a N95 mask (well-fitted and tight), a gown and gloves. They worked for months without an outbreak, until a bunch of them got infected. The source of that infection was probably in a meeting with a patient (for things unrelated to COVID) in a closed room when they were wearing non-N95 masks. None of them had strong symptoms other than a few days feeling awful. > Maybe Pfizer should go back to the drawing board. Maybe we should look at the data and see that the vaccines are still pretty effective. Think about the difference in restrictions and people behavior between now and before the vaccines: they have pretty much enabled normal life again and made COVID a much less worrying disease, even with high case numbers again.
- bmj 5y ago
  Maybe Pfizer should go back to the drawing board though. The vaccines (on the U.S. market, at least) were never promoted as providing complete protection from Covid. It was about preventing serious illness and keeping people out of the hospital. As others have pointed out, they have been largely successful in those goals. I'm not claiming the vaccines are perfect, but I think a large part of the population was under the impression that these vaccines were some sort of silver bullet that would end the virus in a few short months. edit: spelling
  - antocv 5y ago
    "The vaccines (on the U.S. market, at least) were never promoted as providing complete protection from Covid." Then do not call it a vaccine, because it is not. I did not take my TBE vaccine, to be greeted a year later by TBE.
    - bmj 5y ago
      What definition of "vaccine" are you using? From Wikipedia[0]: Vaccines can be prophylactic (to prevent or ameliorate the effects of a future infection by a natural or "wild" pathogen), or therapeutic (to fight a disease that has already occurred, such as cancer). Some vaccines offer full sterilizing immunity, in which infection is prevented completely. The key word up there is "ameliorate," which is exactly what the Covid vaccines available in United States promise to do. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vaccine https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vaccine
gjulianm 5y ago
I don't know about your country, but in Spain we have those stats each day from the ministry of health. Turns out that the efficacy is still pretty high, around ~80% for infection. There was also a report with rates of hospitalization between vaccinated and non-vaccinated (I can't find it right now, I'll try again later) and it's a pretty clear difference, 6-14 times (depending on the age) more hospitalizations for unvaccinated persons per capita.
ajvs 5y ago
England for one has open source statistics, and most cases are breakthrough. Alex Berenson has some good analysis of these statistics on his Substack.
- gjulianm 5y ago
  > England for one has open source statistics, and most cases are breakthrough I was thinking why one would say this without mentioning that the vaccination rate is pretty high, so one would expect more breakthrough cases than cases in unvaccinated people. For an extreme example, with 100% vaccination rate, all cases would be breakthrough. I can't find the UK data, so can't answer exactly, but not unexpected at all. > Alex Berenson And this explains why you didn't include it. I didn't know this person, but apparently he's a writer, no education in stats/biology/medicine, from the US, and apparently has made multitude of wrong claims [1]. I wonder if it's that you don't know better or you're making a bad faith argument. 1: https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2021/04/pandemics-wrongest-man/618475/ https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2021/04/pandemics-...
  - SuoDuanDao 5y ago
    >I was thinking why one would say this without mentioning that the vaccination rate is pretty high Does that really need to be stated? I don't think even the most suspicious among us think the vaccines make a person more likely to catch Covid all else being equal. It seems more a commentary on the narrative (not promulgated by you, but it is out there) that vaccines+distancing will somehow be able to eliminate the novel coronavirus entirely.
    - gjulianm 5y ago
      > It seems more a commentary on the narrative (not promulgated by you, but it is out there) that vaccines+distancing will somehow be able to eliminate the novel coronavirus entirely. To be honest, the only times I've seen this narrative is when people say it's out there and argue against it. I've never seen it seriously supported.

gjulianm 5y ago

Luckily we have data and not just anecdotes and humble opinions. For example, see https://www.nature.com/articles/s41562-020-01009-0 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41562-020-01009-0: ‘Wearing a mask’ exhibits a significant impact on Rt in three methods (ΔRt between −0.018 and –0.12)' It's not a silver bullet, of course, and there are some situations were masks will be useless: for example, when you get in a closed room with no ventilation with other people for a long time, masks won't do too much. Or if you get together to have dinner with others and take your mask off, well, they won't do much obviously. But masks are effective, and a pretty low cost intervention to reduce the incidence. That's a fact.

toolz 5y ago
There's at least one RCT on masking w.r.t. covid that finds no statistical benefit. I don't think it's appropriate to reference modeling as evidence after we have thorough studies published. https://www.acpjournals.org/doi/10.7326/m20-6817 https://www.acpjournals.org/doi/10.7326/m20-6817
- gjulianm 5y ago
  Inconclusive results != no statistical benefit. A 95% of CI that ranges between 46% decrease and 23% increase is pretty much inconclusive, you can't say masks are better with that study but you wouldn't be justified either in saying they don't do anything.
  - toolz 5y ago
    Quoting the results section. > Although the difference observed was not statistically significant I'm not sure I understand your objection, but you most definitely can say there was no statistically significant benefit.
    - gjulianm 5y ago
      > but you most definitely can say there was no statistically significant benefit. Yes, but this study also doesn't point too conclusively that they don't have any effect. If the CI was something like 1% increase in infections - 1% decrease, you could say with a lot of confidence that it doesn't seem that masks did anything at all. But -23% to 46% is a gigantic range to say anything at all about effectiveness. So while this study is, as you say, not supporting the hypothesis that masks are effective, it doesn't support either the hypothesis that masks are not effective.

md_ 5y ago

This comment begins with a call for larger sample sizes, segues to a single anecdote about a colleague, and ends with a sweeping conclusion that's contrary to most empirical research. I'm not trying to be a dick, but maybe this demonstrates the flaws in a lot of our casual reasoning about public health measures.

DiogenesKynikos 5y ago

Masks by themselves aren't enough to eliminate the virus, though they can be part of a larger set of measures. The entire package of measures that bring viral prevalence to zero are well established, and have been implemented in several countries. They include: * Initial lockdowns to drive incidence down to near-zero. * After reopening, strict quarantine for people arriving from regions where the virus is circulating. * Thorough contact tracing, and the ability to quarantine people who come into close contact with infected people. * Temporary restrictive measures (like stopping mass gatherings) during new outbreaks. * The ability to rapidly test large populations during an outbreak, in order to quickly identify and isolate infected people and quarantine their contacts. This is an entire system aimed at keeping viral prevalence at zero over the long term. It actually allows most of society to function normally most of the time, because as long as there is zero prevalence, everyone can go about their lives normally.

denton-scratch 5y ago

> Europe for example, isn't a COVID free haven, quite the opposite. > So the effectiveness of masks is probably marginal IMHO. Non-sequitur.