If you stick a mask on a dummy in a lab and fire COVID at it, it might show pretty good protection. However, at the population level there is no evidence that masking confers any benefit in preventing the spread of COVID.
The Cochrane Review demonstrated this: https://www.cochranelibrary.com/cdsr/doi/10.1002/14651858.CD...
There are also numerous dis-benefits of masking, especially among young children.
https://www.cidrap.umn.edu/covid-19/commentary-wear-respirat...
People wear N95s to protect against COVID transmission because they work. Yet every time the topic comes up online, someone is always quick to reach for the flawed Cochrane review.
In gen pop with patchy adherence to usage not so much.
1) Several studies from India seem to contradict this and barely had enough statistical power to be useful.
2) The fact that we can't generate a masking study with sufficient statistical power does NOT disprove the hypothesis--either direction.
Citing your source: "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."
This one REALLY grinds my gears. "Well the study said that masks don't work". No, it fucking didn't. It said they couldn't prove they worked given the data and quality of data they had. And the data was lousy as adherence by the general population was terrible.
Things can work and still not be provable--especially when the experiment involves human beings since morally we can't just create two groups and infect one.
Here's your counterexample: take a look at what hospitals are still doing when handling Covid patients. Hospitals get to collect data and enforce adherence. They absolutely do not want to transfer Covid between patients. And they do not want to transfer Covid to their staff as that throws things into disarray. Whatever they're doing seems to be working. I had a stint in the hospital recently, and they had several Covid patients on my floor--they weren't isolated to a specific wing or anything anymore. The hospital managed to not give Covid to me, so something they are doing is working.
So, what that suggests is that procedures and masks work just fine. What seems to be problematic is lack of adherence to said procedures and masks.
Basically, what all of these studies manage to prove is that the general population has enough non-compliant dipshits that active interventions don't work at the population level. Consequenctly, vaccines and other passive interventions that take into account the stupidity of the general population are required.
So you admit people were calling for mask-wearing with no evidence. Sounds like we agree.
>>Things can work and still not be provable--especially when the experiment involves human beings since morally we can't just create two groups and infect one.
You don't have to infect one. Just see which one gets infected. This happens all the time with vaccine etc testing of have thought.
>>Basically, what all of these studies manage to prove is that the general population has enough non-compliant dipshits that active interventions don't work at the population level
It sounds like we're pretty much in agreement here as well. Unless you have some magical solution to ensure perfect adherence.
Of course, you may be super-diligent as an n=1 and nobody ever sneezes on you without warning or anything and you stay free of a disease the CDC says should be treated like the flu.
And the other name for "non-compliant dipshits" is "children".
That’s certainly what I called them only they didn’t seem to like it.
Also doesn't claim what people like you says it claims.
Also, look at the history. Date of the original review is 2007. You know what didn't exist in 2007?
It's a meta-analysis of other trials.
>>Also doesn't claim what people like you says it claims.
By people like me, you mean people who believe in science? This is what it claims:
"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)."
>>Also, look at the history. Date of the original review is 2007. You know what didn't exist in 2007?
It has been updated several times. The latest edition was published in January 2023. https://www.cochranelibrary.com/cdsr/doi/10.1002/14651858.CD...
Airborne viruses?
