9 ms·

> they did a big review of mask studies and found there was no reliable evidence that masks worked against COVID. No, that was a misinterpretation of the revie

> they did a big review of mask studies and found there was no reliable evidence that masks worked against COVID. No, that was a misinterpretation of the review in the Covid-skeptic sphere. Cochrane have had to issue a statement to clarify : https://www.cochrane.org/news/statement-physical-interventions-interrupt-or-reduce-spread-respiratory-viruses-review https://www.cochrane.org/news/statement-physical-interventio... tl;dr : half of the people given masks in these studies didn't wear them consistently or at all, dragging efficacy results down.

db48x 3y ago
Which is actually good proof that _requiring_ people to wear masks doesn’t help. Mask mandates are pointless even when masks are useful.
- penultimatename 3y ago
  [flagged]
- callalex 3y ago
  By that logic why make any laws? Why make murder illegal if some people are going to kill anyways?
  - readthenotes1 3y ago
    That is why we have police officers to try to stop the people who have proven they are willing to murder. Do you want to be the person going around policing mask wearing?
  - s1artibartfast 3y ago
    Three points. First, some laws probably don't have any positive impact. Second, there's a difference between accurately summarizing trial results and extrapolating that to the impact of a new law. If there was a death penalty for not wearing masks, perhaps compliance would be better than in the trials and an effect would be shown. This doesn't mean that the trial analysis is wrong, you just can't draw a conclusion about the law from the trial data. Third, laws have multiple purposes including Justice and Punishment. Some murderers might have zero chance of re-offending but we still want to punish them as a matter of Justice, not because it makes Society safer.
  - concordDance 3y ago
    Presumably less people kill in that case.
    - t0bia_s 3y ago
      Would you kill of that would be legal?
      - Eisenstein 3y ago
        If I did decide to, and it was your spouse/child/parent/sibling, would you then kill me in revenge? Maybe this is a ridiculous metaphor since public health is not what the justice system is trying to accomplish by imprisoning murderers.
        t0bia_s 3y ago
        Point was that some questions are not about law. Im sure you are not going on red just because you could get fined for it. But also, you'll be fine to go on red in the middle of night, where noone is around. Personal responsibility is unfortunately removed by centralised regulations and laws. Thats the problem.
        Eisenstein 3y ago
        In reality things are complicated and one principle[1] cannot account for all situations, so we deal with things differently as they come up. Murder happens to be an extremely old problem; public health is also, but knowledge of microbes and infection mechanisms are brand new, so we are still figuring it out. [1] "personal responsibility" makes little sense as a moral catch-all when ignoring your own health can cause other people problems
        t0bia_s 3y ago
        - ...ignoring your own health can cause other people problems" How much of Netflix cause health problem for you? What about food? How much of junk food are you eating? Or maybe we should ban tabaco and alcohol. Or profesional sport. All of that is potential threat for your health. Being overprotective could damage your mental health... etc. More regulations = less personal responsibilty.
  - lesuorac 3y ago
    Well depends on who you ask. I generally think laws should be codifications of societal norms. Which also implies that as societal norms change so should laws. So even things such as murder which people do and we don't want should be codified as illegal. But even if nobody committed murder anymore it should still be illegal as its against societal norms.
chaxor 3y ago
This is important to point out. I was actually surprised by the mouthwash outcomes as well. Almost no one really talked about mouthwash, but it looked to be useful in the study.
- bena 3y ago
  Mouthwash is typically alcohol based. Alcohol is a pretty good disinfectant in general. But it's efficacy will really only be decent while it's in your mouth. Once it gets diluted past a certain point, it's not going to be doing anything. You'd probably have similar results with vodka.
  - autoexec 3y ago
    I know doctors who recommended drinking whiskey early in the pandemic for that reason (and also the usual reasons people dealing with trauma reach for whiskey)
Izkata 3y ago
That link agrees with what GP actually said: "no reliable evidence".
readthenotes1 3y ago
I'm mass transit where masks will required, most of the people wore the masks covering their chin. I believe the research is accurate and that saying that masking up more people doesn't work because they won't wear them properly
timr 3y ago
> that was a misinterpretation of the review in the Covid-skeptic sphere. No, it wasn't. You should read the paper itself, instead of relying on (sadly) biased editorials about the paper. It literally says what the OP wrote: > Wearing masks in the community probably makes little or no difference to the outcome of influenza‐like illness (ILI)/COVID‐19 like illness compared to not wearing masks (risk ratio (RR) 0.95, 95% confidence interval (CI) 0.84 to 1.09; 9 trials, 276,917 participants; moderate‐certainty evidence. Wearing masks in the community probably makes little or no difference to the outcome of laboratory‐confirmed influenza/SARS‐CoV‐2 compared to not wearing masks (RR 1.01, 95% CI 0.72 to 1.42; 6 trials, 13,919 participants; moderate‐certainty evidence) The only place they found any plausible signal was comparing N95 respirators against surgical masks, but the evidence was extremely weak: > We pooled trials comparing N95/P2 respirators with medical/surgical masks (four in healthcare settings and one in a household setting). We are very uncertain on the effects of N95/P2 respirators compared with medical/surgical masks on the outcome of clinical respiratory illness (RR 0.70, 95% CI 0.45 to 1.10; 3 trials, 7779 participants; very low‐certainty evidence). N95/P2 respirators compared with medical/surgical masks may be effective for ILI (RR 0.82, 95% CI 0.66 to 1.03; 5 trials, 8407 participants; low‐certainty evidence). Evidence is limited by imprecision and heterogeneity for these subjective outcomes. The use of a N95/P2 respirators compared to medical/surgical masks probably makes little or no difference for the objective and more precise outcome of laboratory‐confirmed influenza infection (RR 1.10, 95% CI 0.90 to 1.34; 5 trials, 8407 participants; moderate‐certainty evidence). The editorial you cited was a low point in the history of Cochrane, where they gave in to public outrage and attempted to cast doubt on their own data. https://www.cochranelibrary.com/cdsr/doi/10.1002/14651858.CD006207.pub6/full?utm_source=mp-fotoscapes https://www.cochranelibrary.com/cdsr/doi/10.1002/14651858.CD...
- autoexec 3y ago
  It also literally says "The high risk of bias in the trials, variation in outcome measurement, and relatively low adherence with the interventions during the studies hampers drawing firm conclusions."
  - timr 3y ago
    It does, and that's true, but that doesn't contradict what OP wrote. They found only mid-to-low quality evidence supporting the use of masks to prevent ILI. That evidence, for everything but the question of "n95 vs. other", showed an effect size statistically indistinguishable from zero. You're essentially saying that the error bars on that effect size are big. They are. But they're still centered on zero.
BoringSalad637 3y ago
Also, while this study was inconclusive as to whether masks help prevent covid, it doesn't mean that all studies are inconclusive. For example, https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8768005/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8768005/ is "a detailed performance evaluation of the mask is studied from an engineering point of view," which aim to look at how the physics of N95 masks hold up against covid. What the physics shows is that N95 filtration helps block covid particles.

db48x 3y ago

Which is actually good proof that _requiring_ people to wear masks doesn’t help. Mask mandates are pointless even when masks are useful.

penultimatename 3y ago
[flagged]
callalex 3y ago
By that logic why make any laws? Why make murder illegal if some people are going to kill anyways?
- readthenotes1 3y ago
  That is why we have police officers to try to stop the people who have proven they are willing to murder. Do you want to be the person going around policing mask wearing?
- s1artibartfast 3y ago
  Three points. First, some laws probably don't have any positive impact. Second, there's a difference between accurately summarizing trial results and extrapolating that to the impact of a new law. If there was a death penalty for not wearing masks, perhaps compliance would be better than in the trials and an effect would be shown. This doesn't mean that the trial analysis is wrong, you just can't draw a conclusion about the law from the trial data. Third, laws have multiple purposes including Justice and Punishment. Some murderers might have zero chance of re-offending but we still want to punish them as a matter of Justice, not because it makes Society safer.
- concordDance 3y ago
  Presumably less people kill in that case.
  - t0bia_s 3y ago
    Would you kill of that would be legal?
    - Eisenstein 3y ago
      If I did decide to, and it was your spouse/child/parent/sibling, would you then kill me in revenge? Maybe this is a ridiculous metaphor since public health is not what the justice system is trying to accomplish by imprisoning murderers.
      - t0bia_s 3y ago
        Point was that some questions are not about law. Im sure you are not going on red just because you could get fined for it. But also, you'll be fine to go on red in the middle of night, where noone is around. Personal responsibility is unfortunately removed by centralised regulations and laws. Thats the problem.
        Eisenstein 3y ago
        In reality things are complicated and one principle[1] cannot account for all situations, so we deal with things differently as they come up. Murder happens to be an extremely old problem; public health is also, but knowledge of microbes and infection mechanisms are brand new, so we are still figuring it out. [1] "personal responsibility" makes little sense as a moral catch-all when ignoring your own health can cause other people problems
        t0bia_s 3y ago
        - ...ignoring your own health can cause other people problems" How much of Netflix cause health problem for you? What about food? How much of junk food are you eating? Or maybe we should ban tabaco and alcohol. Or profesional sport. All of that is potential threat for your health. Being overprotective could damage your mental health... etc. More regulations = less personal responsibilty.
- lesuorac 3y ago
  Well depends on who you ask. I generally think laws should be codifications of societal norms. Which also implies that as societal norms change so should laws. So even things such as murder which people do and we don't want should be codified as illegal. But even if nobody committed murder anymore it should still be illegal as its against societal norms.

chaxor 3y ago

This is important to point out. I was actually surprised by the mouthwash outcomes as well. Almost no one really talked about mouthwash, but it looked to be useful in the study.

bena 3y ago
Mouthwash is typically alcohol based. Alcohol is a pretty good disinfectant in general. But it's efficacy will really only be decent while it's in your mouth. Once it gets diluted past a certain point, it's not going to be doing anything. You'd probably have similar results with vodka.
- autoexec 3y ago
  I know doctors who recommended drinking whiskey early in the pandemic for that reason (and also the usual reasons people dealing with trauma reach for whiskey)

Izkata 3y ago

That link agrees with what GP actually said: "no reliable evidence".

readthenotes1 3y ago

I'm mass transit where masks will required, most of the people wore the masks covering their chin. I believe the research is accurate and that saying that masking up more people doesn't work because they won't wear them properly

timr 3y ago

> that was a misinterpretation of the review in the Covid-skeptic sphere. No, it wasn't. You should read the paper itself, instead of relying on (sadly) biased editorials about the paper. It literally says what the OP wrote: > Wearing masks in the community probably makes little or no difference to the outcome of influenza‐like illness (ILI)/COVID‐19 like illness compared to not wearing masks (risk ratio (RR) 0.95, 95% confidence interval (CI) 0.84 to 1.09; 9 trials, 276,917 participants; moderate‐certainty evidence. Wearing masks in the community probably makes little or no difference to the outcome of laboratory‐confirmed influenza/SARS‐CoV‐2 compared to not wearing masks (RR 1.01, 95% CI 0.72 to 1.42; 6 trials, 13,919 participants; moderate‐certainty evidence) The only place they found any plausible signal was comparing N95 respirators against surgical masks, but the evidence was extremely weak: > We pooled trials comparing N95/P2 respirators with medical/surgical masks (four in healthcare settings and one in a household setting). We are very uncertain on the effects of N95/P2 respirators compared with medical/surgical masks on the outcome of clinical respiratory illness (RR 0.70, 95% CI 0.45 to 1.10; 3 trials, 7779 participants; very low‐certainty evidence). N95/P2 respirators compared with medical/surgical masks may be effective for ILI (RR 0.82, 95% CI 0.66 to 1.03; 5 trials, 8407 participants; low‐certainty evidence). Evidence is limited by imprecision and heterogeneity for these subjective outcomes. The use of a N95/P2 respirators compared to medical/surgical masks probably makes little or no difference for the objective and more precise outcome of laboratory‐confirmed influenza infection (RR 1.10, 95% CI 0.90 to 1.34; 5 trials, 8407 participants; moderate‐certainty evidence). The editorial you cited was a low point in the history of Cochrane, where they gave in to public outrage and attempted to cast doubt on their own data. https://www.cochranelibrary.com/cdsr/doi/10.1002/14651858.CD006207.pub6/full?utm_source=mp-fotoscapes https://www.cochranelibrary.com/cdsr/doi/10.1002/14651858.CD...

autoexec 3y ago
It also literally says "The high risk of bias in the trials, variation in outcome measurement, and relatively low adherence with the interventions during the studies hampers drawing firm conclusions."
- timr 3y ago
  It does, and that's true, but that doesn't contradict what OP wrote. They found only mid-to-low quality evidence supporting the use of masks to prevent ILI. That evidence, for everything but the question of "n95 vs. other", showed an effect size statistically indistinguishable from zero. You're essentially saying that the error bars on that effect size are big. They are. But they're still centered on zero.

BoringSalad637 3y ago

Also, while this study was inconclusive as to whether masks help prevent covid, it doesn't mean that all studies are inconclusive. For example, https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8768005/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8768005/ is "a detailed performance evaluation of the mask is studied from an engineering point of view," which aim to look at how the physics of N95 masks hold up against covid. What the physics shows is that N95 filtration helps block covid particles.