So what were they saying? Let’s dissect.
> Good to see an article calling this out. Temperature-screening might catch a few people who know that they have a temperature (or are just not feeling well) and are going to "tough it out".
The article says that 30000 people were tested. 4 people were false positives, 0 people were true positives. This is called ‘many false positives’. Yet the people who actually had high temperatures were supposed to be at home anyway, right?
4 out of 30000 is not many, they are not real false positives and the design is flawed anyway because people are going to self select, as stated. So the article is just bullshit. Let’s not even go into the rest which tells some unrelated anecdotes about Ebola and other diseases that are not the same diseases and serve nothing but to indicate vague trends under the guise of evidence.
> Here in the Portland, OR area I've noticed a definite change in how many people are wearing masks. At the grocery store, 2 months ago there were about 5% of the people not wearing masks and they all tended to be men in their 30s and 40s. At convenience stores in more suburban area, I was the only one in a mask. Now it seems like 100% of the people are wearing masks.
This is a completely unrelated tangent. According to this anecdotal non evidence mask use has increased among some stereotyped group and in some establishments. Even if taken at face value this tells nobody anything about the effect of the masks.
> Wearing masks, not temperature checks, is what seems to be our best option.
That’s an opinion, based on nothing, which even if assumed true means nothing. To the writer something seems to be the best option.
That’s fine and maybe it even is the best option.
But does it really help to announce they jumped on the mask bandwagon before ‘men in their 30s and 40s’ and people in ‘convenience stores in more suburban area’?