6 ms·

Seriously, what's the difference between what OP wrote: " [Cochrane] found there was no reliable evidence that masks worked against COVID/" And the editorial:

Seriously, what's the difference between what OP wrote: " [Cochrane] found there was no reliable evidence that masks worked against COVID/" And the editorial: "the review examined whether interventions to promote mask wearing help to slow the spread of respiratory viruses, and that the results were inconclusive" How is "inconclusive" functionally different from "there was no reliable evidence?" Seriously, how do you justify this pedantry while ignoring and obfuscating the truth? People do much evil by focusing on the wrong facts, the wrong stories, and the wrong lessons learned, while ignoring the right ones. That you are willing to focus on apparently frivolous pedantry while ignoring the fact that so many were forced to use masks without any high-quality scientific evidence that they actually did anything, including children, and all the lessons that should derive from this, is in my opinion, very representative of this type of evil.

sfn42 3y ago
We may not be sure that masks help, but we're completely sure that they don't hurt so I don't see the problem personally.
- dllthomas 3y ago
  I'm completely sure masks hurt my pocketbook and my ability to keep my car tidy, and that forcing people to mask has additional costs. There are cost/benefit questions that aren't as trivial as you imply, and they should be made based on reliable data.
  - hdior 3y ago
    [flagged]
    - dllthomas 3y ago
      Your existence is valuable to me for, if nothing else, potentially interesting Hacker News discussion. I wish your comment was a better example of that. I am engaging in the hopes you can do better. Throughout the pandemic, my family and I have been careful about being around others. We have masked with N95 or KN95 masks when we couldn't stay home. I cut my beard for a better fit. We got vaccinated as we were able, and enrolled one of our children in a vaccine trial (he wound up in the control group). We have tested pretty often, and as best we know none of us has contracted the virus. I'm meeting my responsibilities to society around not spreading coronaviruses. I'm also trying to meet my responsibilities to society around engaging with issues honestly. It's disheartening to see people who probably share my position on an issue behaving poorly. Pretending that downsides don't exist is more likely to lose you the argument than win it. Spouting abuse and insults means people stop listening. Please do better.
- Mountain_Skies 3y ago
  Absolutely false. There are lots of negatives to mask wearing, starting with inducing developmental problems in children and continuing on with massive increases in long lasting trash and then into more speculative issues with breathing. It's not a harmless activity.
- tempurapura 3y ago
  I wouldn’t be so sure they don’t hurt. There are studies that show cheaply made surgical masks shed microplatic fibers which end up in the lungs of those who wear them over prolonged periods. How will that effect us down the road? TBD.
classichasclass 3y ago
"Many were forced" != "there's no value"
ecuaflo 3y ago
I’m reading these as completely different. The latter sounds like advertising and education about masks rather than wearing the masks themselves. ie telling people to wear masks made no difference in spread probably because people’s minds were already made up about masking. I din’t see it making any conclusion about masking itself
CorrectHorseBat 3y ago
It's not "inconclusive" and "there was no reliable evidence" that are different, it's the promoting part that makes them completely different. "We found no reliable evidence that abstinence prevents teen pregnancy" "We examined whether promoting abstinence prevents teen pregnancy and the results were inconclusive" The first is obviously wrong, and if the the second is true it would mean the government should look for other ways to prevent teen pregnancy, but it wouldn't mean that practicing abstinence as an individual doesn't work to prevent pregnancy.
- NoPie 3y ago
  Cochrane review doesn't make this distinction. In medicine you cannot distinguish. It is all about the intervention and not about some theoretical best-case scenario. The intervention is to ask people to wear masks. People comply as they do in real real life and then we measure the results. There was no reliable evidence that this made any noticeable difference. Now you can change the intervention – instead of asking and mandating masks as we did, we could educate masks wearers more. Unfortunately we have no evidence that it helps. Perhaps masking could help to an individual wearer? Alas, we didn't collect such evidence either. Some studies are lab based. In those masks had some effect. But that's not how people use masks in real life, so these results don't mean much.
  - autoexec 3y ago
    > But that's not how people use masks in real life, so they don't mean much. I think saying "Using X is effective, but only if you actually use X" is obvious. The thing people want to know is "do masks stop the virus" which is an entirely different question from "How many people will wear masks", which is a different question from "What is the effectiveness of interventions to promote mask wearing"
    - NoPie 3y ago
      The first question is pointless for someone responsible for public health. People want the answer to it because they don't want to think about all these related issues and have simplistic idea that they can protect themselves. But chances are their compliance is exactly the same as among people in those studies. Therefore the real question is how effective is the intervention. It will be (or should be) asked by people responsible with public health policies. P.S. Cochrane group is not for giving scientific answers to individual people. Its main aim is to evaluate the evidence of different treatments and provide guidance to policy makers and healthcare authorities.

sfn42 3y ago

We may not be sure that masks help, but we're completely sure that they don't hurt so I don't see the problem personally.

dllthomas 3y ago
I'm completely sure masks hurt my pocketbook and my ability to keep my car tidy, and that forcing people to mask has additional costs. There are cost/benefit questions that aren't as trivial as you imply, and they should be made based on reliable data.
- hdior 3y ago
  [flagged]
  - dllthomas 3y ago
    Your existence is valuable to me for, if nothing else, potentially interesting Hacker News discussion. I wish your comment was a better example of that. I am engaging in the hopes you can do better. Throughout the pandemic, my family and I have been careful about being around others. We have masked with N95 or KN95 masks when we couldn't stay home. I cut my beard for a better fit. We got vaccinated as we were able, and enrolled one of our children in a vaccine trial (he wound up in the control group). We have tested pretty often, and as best we know none of us has contracted the virus. I'm meeting my responsibilities to society around not spreading coronaviruses. I'm also trying to meet my responsibilities to society around engaging with issues honestly. It's disheartening to see people who probably share my position on an issue behaving poorly. Pretending that downsides don't exist is more likely to lose you the argument than win it. Spouting abuse and insults means people stop listening. Please do better.
Mountain_Skies 3y ago
Absolutely false. There are lots of negatives to mask wearing, starting with inducing developmental problems in children and continuing on with massive increases in long lasting trash and then into more speculative issues with breathing. It's not a harmless activity.
tempurapura 3y ago
I wouldn’t be so sure they don’t hurt. There are studies that show cheaply made surgical masks shed microplatic fibers which end up in the lungs of those who wear them over prolonged periods. How will that effect us down the road? TBD.

classichasclass 3y ago

"Many were forced" != "there's no value"

ecuaflo 3y ago

I’m reading these as completely different. The latter sounds like advertising and education about masks rather than wearing the masks themselves. ie telling people to wear masks made no difference in spread probably because people’s minds were already made up about masking. I din’t see it making any conclusion about masking itself

CorrectHorseBat 3y ago

It's not "inconclusive" and "there was no reliable evidence" that are different, it's the promoting part that makes them completely different. "We found no reliable evidence that abstinence prevents teen pregnancy" "We examined whether promoting abstinence prevents teen pregnancy and the results were inconclusive" The first is obviously wrong, and if the the second is true it would mean the government should look for other ways to prevent teen pregnancy, but it wouldn't mean that practicing abstinence as an individual doesn't work to prevent pregnancy.

NoPie 3y ago
Cochrane review doesn't make this distinction. In medicine you cannot distinguish. It is all about the intervention and not about some theoretical best-case scenario. The intervention is to ask people to wear masks. People comply as they do in real real life and then we measure the results. There was no reliable evidence that this made any noticeable difference. Now you can change the intervention – instead of asking and mandating masks as we did, we could educate masks wearers more. Unfortunately we have no evidence that it helps. Perhaps masking could help to an individual wearer? Alas, we didn't collect such evidence either. Some studies are lab based. In those masks had some effect. But that's not how people use masks in real life, so these results don't mean much.
- autoexec 3y ago
  > But that's not how people use masks in real life, so they don't mean much. I think saying "Using X is effective, but only if you actually use X" is obvious. The thing people want to know is "do masks stop the virus" which is an entirely different question from "How many people will wear masks", which is a different question from "What is the effectiveness of interventions to promote mask wearing"
  - NoPie 3y ago
    The first question is pointless for someone responsible for public health. People want the answer to it because they don't want to think about all these related issues and have simplistic idea that they can protect themselves. But chances are their compliance is exactly the same as among people in those studies. Therefore the real question is how effective is the intervention. It will be (or should be) asked by people responsible with public health policies. P.S. Cochrane group is not for giving scientific answers to individual people. Its main aim is to evaluate the evidence of different treatments and provide guidance to policy makers and healthcare authorities.