Posted on 05/18/2022 9:56:24 AM PDT by Kaslin
Science recently published the largest cluster-randomized trial to date on face coverings, a massive study that the science community had been calling for since the start of the pandemic.
As the fear of Covid wanes with its news coverage, one of the remaining vestiges of the narrative involves face coverings. The premier journal Science recently published the largest cluster-randomized trial to date on masks, a massive study that the science community had been calling for since the start of the pandemic.
This study divided rural villages in Bangladesh into those encouraged to wear either medical or cloth masks, or no mask. At the conclusion of the trial, participants volunteered information on whether they experienced “COVID-like symptoms.”
Villagers with self-diagnosed Covid-like symptoms were asked to take an antibody test to determine if they carried SARS-CoV2 antibodies, suggesting they had been infected at some point (i.e., were “seropositive”). The authors concluded that masks reduced “symptomatic seropositivity” by 9.5 percent. In response, The Washington Post triumphantly declared: “We conducted the largest study on masks and COVID-19: They work.”
As with almost everything, the truth is more complicated. In a series of blog posts, University of California at Berkeley engineering professor Ben Recht meticulously detailed why he believes the findings more accurately reflect statistical sleight of hand rather than actionable data: “One of the dark tricks of biostatistics is moving away from absolute case counts to measures of risk such as relative risk reduction, efficacy… all these measures are relative, and they tend to exaggerate effects.”
The Bangladesh study authors did not include the total number of “symptomatic seropositive” villagers in their paper, forcing Recht to calculate those numbers. “There were 1,106 symptomatic individuals confirmed seropositive in the control group (i.e., unmasked) and 1,086 such individuals in the treatment (i.e., cloth or medical mask) group. The difference between the two groups was small: only 20 cases out of over 340,000 individuals over a span of 8 weeks. I have a hard time going from these numbers to the assured conclusions that ‘masks work.’”
Even the prestigious journal Nature reported the study findings in a deceptive way, with a large bold title stating: “Face masks for COVID pass their largest test yet.” However, below the bold title is a less enthusiastic, small-print interpretation of the findings: “A rigorous study finds that surgical masks are highly protective, but cloth masks fall short.”
Alarmingly, the Bangladesh study authors doubled down on their findings: “we persuaded only about a third of the population to change their masking behavior. It is possible that more aggressive efforts could lead to even more change and produce greater health benefits.” Was more “persuasion” (i.e., coercion) really what was lacking in our pandemic response?
A quick look at data from New York City in 2020 reveals their epidemic curve was already falling before mask mandates were in place, and that coercion in the form of hefty fines did nothing to prevent the next wave, whose peak was higher than that of the previous wave’s pre-mask mandate peak and lasted longer despite the coercive measures.
The bottom line: any policy so intrusive and divisive as forced masking should have significant, indisputable effectiveness in “real-world” application. The largest mask study to date failed in this regard, yet public health authorities and most scientists continue to cling to reflexive health policies, while politicized journalists are complicit in amplifying their one-sided message.
Mask do not work so they have to lie
Look at that graph. With that enormous drop in “cases”, they STILL kept up all of the masks and other crap, right through to this year. It could not be more obvious that none of the “COVID” nonsense was anything other than political.
There were something like 70 scientific studies on the effectiveness of masks against respiratory viruses PRIOR to COVID, and none of them found any effectiveness at all in preventing transmission.
Only now that the government has a vested interest in finding that masks work, magically a study that says that appears, in contradiction to all previous studies on the matter.
None of the studies consider where masks are and are not being worn as a data variable, yet the actual use of masks - as we all know - is not where it means always masked in all situations 100% of the time and never unmasked. That meaning is unreal. Without the data variable of where masks are being worn, and not worn, they will not identify most optimum uses and least optimum uses of wearing masks.
The problem is that most of the time people are masked - out in the public where most contact is brief, not close and not in enclosed spaces. And the one time they are seldom or never masked is in their home where contact is of a long duration, and in enclosed areas.
What does infection need - viral load, close contact in an enclosed area, and some duration of time.
In the home is the third largest area of infectious contact, after medical/health care settings and nursing homes. How often someone is masked or unmasked during daily shopping is not the primary masking issue.
Nothing is learned about this study by reading someone’s summary of it, or the story of an engineering professor who did whatever he did.
If you did not read the study itself, you know nothing about it. There is so much agenda going on at the CDC and political opposition that no interpretation of a study can be trusted.
Doesn’t matter what the science says, it,only matters what the msm says (according to,the left)
“Math is really hard....for SJW and College Professors”
If masks worked, my son wouldn’t have gotten CoVid a couple of weeks ago when he went in to his workplace. He wore his mask the whole time he was in the building, a KN-95. I’ve tried to explain it to him many times. He just wants to believe the lie. Confirmation bias in a nutshell. You’ll find plenty of FReepers here who think they work, too, since they haven’t gotten sick yet. Or at least, they THINK they haven’t been exposed to CoVid yet. LOL.
<10% impact is crappola.
WHO/CDC funded tests in 2015 in SE Asia in dozens of clinics with hundreds of med professionals (docs, nurses, techies) showed that N95 caught <50% and cloth masks <5%. CAUGHT!
Meaning most the bugs got right thru.
Feeling symptoms is crappola. Do a test on every subject like a real science test or shut the ‘Ell up.
My wife is a retired nurse who has swallowed the mask lie hook, line and sinker. She tells me “...doctors and nurses have been wearing masks for decades and they work...”. So I respond “Why do so many people get sick in the hospital then?” She just tells me to shut up.
That's because the previously mentioned parties aren't very good at washing their hands properly and frequently. The worst offenders are physicians.
They masks.
They’re muzzles.
They aren’t masks.
They’re muzzles.
“They’re muzzles.”
Correct, they can’t have US going to bars, churches, gyms, and talk about the STOLEN ELECTION.
That was it in a nutshell.
Months ago, I went to the CDC website. They stated that masks work. They linked to a number of studies. The studies demonstrated that masks catch droplets. They did not demonstrate that masks lower transmission of the virus.
Some months later, I went back to the CDC website. More studies showing masks catch droplets. If I remember correctly, one small study showing slightly reduced transmission.
If masks reduced transmission significantly, it would be easy to show this and, one would think, someone would have done this already.
The NIH site “scrubbed” research showing the ineffectiveness of masks in public settings.
They changed the search algorithm so that you have to work very hard to find them. Most that I found at the beginning of covid I was unable to find after masking became an official policy. But at the same time there was a proliferation of study abstracts showing how great masks are.
I can’t prove the manipulation, but I’d bet money on it. My money.
Even if the masks worked a little, their effects on breathing and normal human communication are worse than this far-from-lethal disease.
My wife is a retired nurse who has swallowed the mask lie hook, line and sinker. She tells me “...doctors and nurses have been wearing masks for decades and they work...”. So I respond “Why do so many people get sick in the hospital then?” She just tells me to shut up.
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May you stand your ground, remembering her virtues to give you the strength.
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