There's already data that shows masks work.
https://med.stanford.edu/news/all-news/2021/09/surgical-mask...
https://med.stanford.edu/news/all-news/2021/09/surgical-mask...
1) Were people in Scotland (with higher masking) being less cautious in other areas (washing hands, staying further away, etc)
2) Was the weather worse in Scotland, leading to more closed windows
3) Are people in Scotland more likely to be tested and thus more cases caught
The problem I have is that
The Scientific method comes out with great studies (wearing masks, all things being equal, reduces transmission)
That leads to a prediction (enforcing masks reduces cases figures)
That prediction doesn't hold out (Scottish cases figures)
So we need to revisit the prediction,
1) Does a mask mandate increase mask usage (anecdotally it appears so, but I only went to Glasgow and Manchester in October)
2) Does increased mask usage lead to other behaviours which would increase risk
3) Does increased mask usage lead to more awareness in testing
4) Do anti mask people go round licking door handles to try to spread covid to prove their points
These are perfectly valid questions, yet you can't ask them, because half the responses will be some idiotic cultish anti-mask covid denier, and the others will be some cultish mask worshiper
https://wwwnc.cdc.gov/eid/article/26/5/19-0994_article
"At present there is only limited and inconsistent scientific evidence to support the effectiveness of masking of healthy people in the community to prevent infection with respiratory viruses, including SARS-CoV-2 (75). A large randomized community-based trial in which 4862 healthy participants were divided into a group wearing medical/surgical masks and a control group found no difference in infection with SARS-CoV-2 (76). A recent systematic review found nine trials (of which eight were cluster-randomized controlled trials in which clusters of people, versus individuals, were randomized) comparing medical/surgical masks versus no masks to prevent the spread of viral respiratory illness. Two trials were with healthcare workers and seven in the community. The review concluded that wearing a mask may make little or no difference to the prevention of influenza-like illness (ILI) (RR 0.99, 95%CI 0.82 to 1.18) or laboratory confirmed illness (LCI) (RR 0.91, 95%CI 0.66-1.26) (44); the certainty of the evidence was low for ILI, moderate for LCI."
https://apps.who.int/iris/bitstream/handle/10665/337199/WHO-...
https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2021/11/ja...
They saw a significant reduction in covid presence in communities with more masking -- even though total masking was still only 40% in those communities -- which is very much in line with all the other literature.
I literally can't believe people still pretend like masks (especially surgical/KN95s) don't protect people when it's completely self-evident since we've used them forever to protect people in medical settings.
They don't work, at all, across decades of research and dozens of studies. They're not going to magically start working for COVID when they haven't worked for the flu or any other respiratory virus in the past.
>forever to protect people in medical settings.
Surgical masks in medical settings are designed to protect from bacterial infections, not viral ones.
Unfortunately, Tyler Cowen's blog has worse Covid commentary than even HN does, which is pretty impressive given the amount of HCQ/Ivermectin/bioweapon conspiracy theorizing here.
> Surgical masks in medical settings are designed to protect from bacterial infections, not viral ones.
This is patently untrue.. you're not one of those "virus particles can fit through masks" people are you? As just one example of how obvious it is that masks protect against viruses in HCW from the last SARS outbreak;
> Although more research on universal masking in heath settings is needed, it is the expert opinion of the majority (79%) of WHO COVID-19 IPC GDG members that universal masking is advisable in geographic settings where there is known or suspected community or cluster transmission of the SARS-CoV-2 virus.
> 1. In areas of known or suspected community or cluster SARS-CoV-2 transmission, universal masking should be advised in all health facilities (see Table 1).
> All health workers, including community health workers and caregivers, should wear a medical mask at all times, for any activity (care of COVID-19 or nonCOVID-19 patients) and in any common area (e.g., cafeteria, staff rooms).
> Other staff, visitors, outpatients and service providers should also wear a mask (medical or non-medical) at all times
"Experts" supported eugenics, antibacterial soap, breakfast cereal, the food pyramid, lobotomies, and all kinds of other things on the basis of popular "consensus"
The people making those recommendations are experts in the field and have all read the relevant research. Weighting the good studies vs. the bad ones, measuring evidence, etc. They literally exist to give guidance on world health matters based on the spectrum of results from all these different researchers.
And here you are, telling me that in your opinion, we should ignore their assessment and only trust these few specific papers that you choose to emphasize. (At least you've stopped advocating for ivermectin now?)
A bit of a paradox to get people to rely on your opinion when you've previously said we shouldn't rely on opinions isn't it? Or is it just that you don't like the WHO's opinion on World Health issues because they might be in the pocket of "big surgical mask".
I'm not telling you anything in my opinion. I'm telling you what the empirical evidence says or doesn't say.
I have not stopped advocating Ivermectin. The empirical evidence shows that it is still an extremely cheap, safe, and correlated treatment demonstrated across populations of billions through a mechanism of action that has been well established.
There's literally no reason not to try it, and there's a reason it's part of treatment regimens across several countries. Its use doesn't involve eroding the liberty of the populace or solidifying absolute power of state. It has virtually zero side effects medically or socioculturally, unlike things like masks or vaccines that have zero long term data
Even if I disagree with TC on something, I still think he's pretty much intellectually honest, i.e., is not beholden to one political agenda or another simply because it matches his world view or completely unaware of competing data. And he often does a good job in striking a balance on ideology & practicality (State Capacity Libertarianism comes to mind)
However the comments section on MR are often a hot mess of cherry picking or misinformation parroted back by people trying emulate TC's style without anything approaching his intellectual rigor.
Interestingly the DOI does not show up
Here's some further criticisms:
https://www.researchsquare.com/article/rs-1073440/latest.pdf
https://arxiv.org/abs/2112.01296
https://bmcpublichealth.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s...