Before the pandemic, clinical trials repeatedly showed little or no benefit from wearing masks in preventing the spread of respiratory illnesses like flu and colds. That was why, in their pre-2020 plans for dealing with a viral pandemic, the World Health Organization, the CDC, and other national public health agencies did not recommend masking the public. But once Covid-19 arrived, magical thinking prevailed. Officials ignored the previous findings and plans, instead touting crude and easily debunked studies purporting to show that masks worked.
Wednesday, March 01, 2023
This won’t make any difference either …
… to the true believers: The Real Science on Masks: They Make No Difference.
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How many ways to say that the Cochrane review of masks is unacceptable, a thread no one worth their scientific salt would try to hold onto? The masks mask. The science has already shown that. Here is another refutation in plain English, by a MD and MPH, the latter degree making him schooled in what constitutes good research:Do Masks Work? What the Cochrane Review Can and Can’t Tell Us.
ReplyDeleteQuestions for those who insist on over-ruling tens of thousands of fine researchers around the world: Have you, like me, had anyone in your family die from Covid? and Do you, like me, have anyone bedridden for the past year with long-Covid?
People listen to this bullshit and get high on it, and stake their lives on it, thinking there's some grand commie, left-wing conspiracy to make everyone wear masks and get vaccinated against Covid-19. They then encounter others who have done the same. And instead of being the proud country who fought off Covid-19, we suffer and die of it.
How frustrating for those of us who followed the science, and informed our first and second circles of friends and family of the dangers, only to find that someone passed it along to a matriarch who died, and someone else to an adolescent who has horribly disabling side effects from long-Covid. My family is typical.
Not only do masks and vaccinations work to prevent many from catching Covid-19, but when the virus is caught both the vaccination and the mask keeps the disease from getting as powerful a foothold on the victim's body. Now, when the virus is not caught, then it is not spread and the benefits multiply. Less people are out there to pollute or contaminate other people. And when a masked, vaccinated person does contract Covid, and has it for less time, that also has an enormous effect on keeping the spread down. These are all lessons we have learned from real science. Get high in that.
Dude, they work for mask companies: "C Raina MacIntyre receives funding from mask manufacturer Detmold for testing of their masks and is on an advisory board for mask manufacturer Ascend".
ReplyDeleteWhat did you think they would say? Masks don't work? They know who butters their bread.
Here's a better article: https://stevekirsch.substack.com/p/even-more-proof-masks-dont-work
Note that since he's not selling masks, he realizes they don't work to prevent transmission of a respiratory virus.
If masks work for you because you need a placebo effect to feel in control of your life against a virus you can't control, that's fine, but don't be forcing other people to share your delusions by supporting mask mandates and crap like that. Ditto for the vaccines that do at best nothing.
Hi Freddude,
DeleteThe questionable study from Cochrane, only included 6 Covid-19 surveys.
An RCT came out of Stanford and Yale in 2021 that has not been refuted as the Cochrane research has: Surgical masks reduce COVID-19 spread, large-scale study shows. So we know and have known for years from this and other studies and types of studies that show masks reduce virus spread, and from thousands of qualified research gate-keepers, that indeed, properly wearing masks reduces community contamination from Covid-19, a disease that results in chronic debilitating illness, vital organ damage, and deaths in million of people in our country alone.
On your question about MacIntyre, she tests masks for a living. It's who you want. Do you seriously believe there is Big Mask behind this? Or rather, do you think the mask companies really want the best researchers they can find to approve or disapprove of their masks -- because the will get re-tested for approval. Indeed, all 4 researchers are at least as qualified to address the subject as the 2 in the Cochrane review.
On the Steve Kirch reporting. Pretty bad. He is hanging his hat, or mask as it were, on the idea that if 96% of airplane air samples contain the virus, then masks don't. That's a pretty large leap of illogic. Call it stupidity. It's like saying that because putrid garbage is in a public place, take off your mask to get the full benefit of the diseases you might catch. We know that masks work to reduce your contracting the virus and, if you are a spreader, from spreading the virus, then surely we would all want to wear masks, like wearing bullet-proof vests when the bullets are flying all around, knowing you could stil catch a bullet to the brain, but your chance of survival goes way way up. And now, we can put that warning out to public places everywhere, that as cautious as airlines try to be in not allowing people with Covid-19 to board their flights, they still get through. This will be the same in all public places.
Quote from the above-linked article: “We now have evidence from a randomized, controlled trial that mask promotion increases the use of face coverings and prevents the spread of COVID-19,” said Stephen Luby, MD, professor of medicine at Stanford. “This is the gold standard for evaluating public health interventions. Importantly, this approach was designed be scalable in lower- and middle-income countries struggling to get or distribute vaccines against the virus.” Note that he says, "mask promotion". So when public health issues warnings, people tend to listen, which reduces the spread.
It is irresponsible, certainly deadly, to know masks work and for political reasons, ignore the evidence. We have been heading into omicron-variant area that we have not yet designed the best vaccines for. If you have the Moderna booster from 6 months ago, that's still as good as it gets. They have no approved booster for you. Yet, the variant alert went out 4 months back.
Masks and distancing are still best practice. When hospitals such as Mount Sinai stop requiring masks from visitors, we will have a good idea that the best science has shown the virus is no longer a serious safety issue.
On the idea of masks being a placebo, there was nothing in the Cochrane study that addressed this issue. What was in the study, leaned toward the virus spreading through touch. Interesting, because no science ever showed it didn't. Effective research and mass media shifted to the airborne contamination, because that spread has been killing us. Then again, it apparently only took several covid-19-contaminated mail items in China to start a deadly spread to untold millions there.
Masks are effective. But, politics aside, we already knew this.