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It's interesting how Scotland, which kept a mask mandate, and England, which dropped it, affected cases. From start to end of October, cases per 100k, 7 day av

It's interesting how Scotland, which kept a mask mandate, and England, which dropped it, affected cases. From start to end of October, cases per 100k, 7 day average Glasgow -- 300->220 Edinburgh -- 210->250 Manchester -- 290->220 Birmingham -- 250->280 4 similar cities, two with mask mandates, two without. And smaller ones Aberdeen -- 267->330 Southampton -- 300->410 Perth -- 320->260 Hereford -- 290->580 So there may be something there, would need more data to really see, but it certainly isn't a glowing mandate for masks

sjg007 5y ago
There are plenty of scientific studies showing that masks work.
- spookthesunset 5y ago
  All conducted in the heat of the moment where saying anything that gives the slightest wiff of "masks don't work" gets you shunned, your career destroyed, and all social media platforms labeling your content as "misinformation". Yeah... I'm sure all these studies done post-2019 are totally legit though.
- iso1631 5y ago
  But do they show how much mask mandates work in the real world, do they explain why Edinburgh and Glasgow are indistingishable from Mancehster and Birmingham in numbers of cases detected?
  - Aloha 5y ago
    I think in reality, COVID fatigue has set in, and thats the issue.
    - iso1631 5y ago
      Via what mechanism? Were people not wearing masks in Scotland despite the mandate? Were they wearing masks in England despite no mandate? Is there enough difference in behaviour between Glasgow and Manchester to explain the difference?
- adolph 5y ago
  I think the number analyzing actual mask usage is fewer than you’d think.
- kansface 5y ago
  Obviously, the material a mask is made from stops medium sized particles from flowing through some highish percentage of the time. No good faith actor is disputing that. Studies don't control for real world usage, actual public adoption, actual masks, etc. They also do not control for changes in behavior that we'd expect to occur contemporaneously to the time periods mask mandates are adopted (ie, during spikes in infection). When infections go up, I personally stop going places where lots of people congregate - a huge percentage of people change their behavior in ways that are both germane and impossible to track in response to perceived risk. They also do not or can not control for the differences in behavior in the societies that can actually adopt and enforce mask mandates in the first place; ie, a city that refuses a mandate in the face of a spike has citizens that are more risk tolerate (or something) as compared to eg SF.
roywiggins 5y ago
There's already data that shows masks work. https://med.stanford.edu/news/all-news/2021/09/surgical-masks-covid-19.html https://med.stanford.edu/news/all-news/2021/09/surgical-mask...
- defaultprimate 5y ago
  https://boriquagato.substack.com/p/bangladesh-mask-study-do-not-believe https://boriquagato.substack.com/p/bangladesh-mask-study-do-... https://wwwnc.cdc.gov/eid/article/26/5/19-0994_article https://wwwnc.cdc.gov/eid/article/26/5/19-0994_article "At present there is only limited and inconsistent scientific evidence to support the effectiveness of masking of healthy people in the community to prevent infection with respiratory viruses, including SARS-CoV-2 (75). A large randomized community-based trial in which 4862 healthy participants were divided into a group wearing medical/surgical masks and a control group found no difference in infection with SARS-CoV-2 (76). A recent systematic review found nine trials (of which eight were cluster-randomized controlled trials in which clusters of people, versus individuals, were randomized) comparing medical/surgical masks versus no masks to prevent the spread of viral respiratory illness. Two trials were with healthcare workers and seven in the community. The review concluded that wearing a mask may make little or no difference to the prevention of influenza-like illness (ILI) (RR 0.99, 95%CI 0.82 to 1.18) or laboratory confirmed illness (LCI) (RR 0.91, 95%CI 0.66-1.26) (44); the certainty of the evidence was low for ILI, moderate for LCI." https://apps.who.int/iris/bitstream/handle/10665/337199/WHO-2019-nCov-IPC_Masks-2020.5-eng.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y https://apps.who.int/iris/bitstream/handle/10665/337199/WHO-... https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7546829/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7546829/
  - roywiggins 5y ago
    Look, I'm not qualified to evaluate a study like this, but between Science and "el gato malo" published on Substack, I think I'm going to have to go with Science on this one, pending some recognized expert in the field with a human name saying otherwise.
    - defaultprimate 5y ago

sjg007 5y ago

There are plenty of scientific studies showing that masks work.

spookthesunset 5y ago
All conducted in the heat of the moment where saying anything that gives the slightest wiff of "masks don't work" gets you shunned, your career destroyed, and all social media platforms labeling your content as "misinformation". Yeah... I'm sure all these studies done post-2019 are totally legit though.
iso1631 5y ago
But do they show how much mask mandates work in the real world, do they explain why Edinburgh and Glasgow are indistingishable from Mancehster and Birmingham in numbers of cases detected?
- Aloha 5y ago
  I think in reality, COVID fatigue has set in, and thats the issue.
  - iso1631 5y ago
    Via what mechanism? Were people not wearing masks in Scotland despite the mandate? Were they wearing masks in England despite no mandate? Is there enough difference in behaviour between Glasgow and Manchester to explain the difference?
adolph 5y ago
I think the number analyzing actual mask usage is fewer than you’d think.
kansface 5y ago
Obviously, the material a mask is made from stops medium sized particles from flowing through some highish percentage of the time. No good faith actor is disputing that. Studies don't control for real world usage, actual public adoption, actual masks, etc. They also do not control for changes in behavior that we'd expect to occur contemporaneously to the time periods mask mandates are adopted (ie, during spikes in infection). When infections go up, I personally stop going places where lots of people congregate - a huge percentage of people change their behavior in ways that are both germane and impossible to track in response to perceived risk. They also do not or can not control for the differences in behavior in the societies that can actually adopt and enforce mask mandates in the first place; ie, a city that refuses a mandate in the face of a spike has citizens that are more risk tolerate (or something) as compared to eg SF.

roywiggins 5y ago

There's already data that shows masks work. https://med.stanford.edu/news/all-news/2021/09/surgical-masks-covid-19.html https://med.stanford.edu/news/all-news/2021/09/surgical-mask...

defaultprimate 5y ago
https://boriquagato.substack.com/p/bangladesh-mask-study-do-not-believe https://boriquagato.substack.com/p/bangladesh-mask-study-do-... https://wwwnc.cdc.gov/eid/article/26/5/19-0994_article https://wwwnc.cdc.gov/eid/article/26/5/19-0994_article "At present there is only limited and inconsistent scientific evidence to support the effectiveness of masking of healthy people in the community to prevent infection with respiratory viruses, including SARS-CoV-2 (75). A large randomized community-based trial in which 4862 healthy participants were divided into a group wearing medical/surgical masks and a control group found no difference in infection with SARS-CoV-2 (76). A recent systematic review found nine trials (of which eight were cluster-randomized controlled trials in which clusters of people, versus individuals, were randomized) comparing medical/surgical masks versus no masks to prevent the spread of viral respiratory illness. Two trials were with healthcare workers and seven in the community. The review concluded that wearing a mask may make little or no difference to the prevention of influenza-like illness (ILI) (RR 0.99, 95%CI 0.82 to 1.18) or laboratory confirmed illness (LCI) (RR 0.91, 95%CI 0.66-1.26) (44); the certainty of the evidence was low for ILI, moderate for LCI." https://apps.who.int/iris/bitstream/handle/10665/337199/WHO-2019-nCov-IPC_Masks-2020.5-eng.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y https://apps.who.int/iris/bitstream/handle/10665/337199/WHO-... https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7546829/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7546829/
- roywiggins 5y ago
  Look, I'm not qualified to evaluate a study like this, but between Science and "el gato malo" published on Substack, I think I'm going to have to go with Science on this one, pending some recognized expert in the field with a human name saying otherwise.
  - defaultprimate 5y ago