Do Masks Work?
Powerline,
by
John Hinderaker
Original Article
Posted By: Dreadnought,
10/28/2020 1:45:02 PM
With regard to COVID, we are awash in unreliable or even intentionally misleading empirical claims. A neurosurgeon from D.C. who understands statistics analyzes a popular claim that is being made on behalf of mask mandates.
I encountered a Washington Post figure making its way through social media, suggesting that not wearing masks is conclusively the reason for COVID spread: If you look at the figure closely, the y-axis is “% who know someone with COVID-19.” Why on earth would any reasonable scientist or public health official use this “survey” variable to honestly study a scientific/public health effect? The reason is, it is not true.
Reply 1 - Posted by:
curious1 10/28/2020 1:54:43 PM (No. 587533)
The politicized medical journals are also refusing the Norwegian study on mask efficacy.
12 people like this.
Reply 2 - Posted by:
Hazymac 10/28/2020 1:55:28 PM (No. 587535)
Hinderaker reaches the ultimate conclusion (and the entire quotation is in italics): "This kind of fake science is rampant, and as our correspondent says, the motivation is political. The Washington Post is like the New York Times; no one should take anything it says seriously."
Yep. Put 'em OB. Out of business.
14 people like this.
Reply 3 - Posted by:
IowaDad 10/28/2020 2:14:25 PM (No. 587567)
Scientists accumulate data and publish it. Scientists analyze the data to generate usable information, and interpret that information to help policy makers make policy.
So let's start with two typical data points:
1. To what extent (percentage reduction +- experimental error) does wearing a mask decrease the probability of an individual infecting an adjacent person?
1. To what extent (percentage reduction +- experimental error) does wearing a mask decrease the probability of an adjacent person infecting an individual?
OK, pundits, editors, commentators, news anchors, politicians, administrators: If you don't know the answer to these simplest of questions, please do not say anything about masks! Why? Because you don't know what you are talking about!
10 people like this.
Reply 4 - Posted by:
DVC 10/28/2020 2:14:32 PM (No. 587568)
Masks work on the same principle as using a chain link fence to protect from mosquitoes.
20 people like this.
Reply 5 - Posted by:
czechlist 10/28/2020 2:15:50 PM (No. 587570)
Way back when I was employed performing R&D we had a name for data manipulation - "specmanship" ; Presenting the data in the manner most likely to support the objective.
Whether it was Disraeli or Twain: "...lies, damned lies and statistics"
5 people like this.
Reply 6 - Posted by:
Toby Ten Bears 10/28/2020 2:17:38 PM (No. 587575)
Masks work as a way to pick out the sheeple.
12 people like this.
Reply 7 - Posted by:
nina584 10/28/2020 2:31:50 PM (No. 587592)
Masks are for preventing bacterial infection not viral infections
14 people like this.
Reply 8 - Posted by:
Enoch Powell 10/28/2020 2:57:40 PM (No. 587617)
Go to the Public Health Agency of Sweden's website. COVID FAQ. Quite interesting.
4 people like this.
Reply 9 - Posted by:
kono 10/28/2020 3:03:39 PM (No. 587626)
#7 refers to hand sanitizers, like Purell, whose labels always said for eliminating bacteria, not viruses. For many years they said that, anyway ... now the very same chemical formulation is effective against a killer virus?
That's blatant contradiction, and the silence about it bespeaks the bogosity of the media coverage.
#4 is hilariously relevant. Except to make that metaphor fit today's mask/virus scenario, those mosquitos are traveling in beach balls. (The masks stop most cough or sneeze droplets from flying 20 feet. But virus cells that aren't in droplets pass right through the mask, in either direction, relatively unhindered.)
7 people like this.
Reply 10 - Posted by:
kono 10/28/2020 3:22:02 PM (No. 587650)
Should have said #7 APPLIES to hand sanitizers, not #7 refers to hand sanitizers. Wish we could edit our own posts...
0 people like this.
Reply 11 - Posted by:
DVC 10/28/2020 3:25:32 PM (No. 587657)
From the Public Health Agency of Sweden, in their FAQs.
"We do not currently recommend face masks in public settings since the scientific evidence around the effectiveness of face masks in combatting the spread of infection is unclear. However, there may be situations where face masks can be useful despite the uncertain state of knowledge about the effects.
We will therefore, in dialogue with the County Medical Offices, decide on situations where recommendations to wear a face mask could be valuable at national or regional level. Examples of such situations could be a visit to the optician or when you cannot avoid using public transport even though it is crowded.
Face masks must always be seen as complementary to other recommendations: stay at home when you have symptoms, wash your hands regularly and keep at a distance from others."
https://www.folkhalsomyndigheten.se/the-public-health-agency-of-sweden/communicable-disease-control/covid-19/
0 people like this.
Reply 12 - Posted by:
Geoman 10/28/2020 3:28:13 PM (No. 587661)
The introduction of subjective, non-observed variables violates every norm in empirical research and is less than worthless, as it reflects intentionally deceptive ideological bias worthy of tar, feathering, and a long ride on a short rail.
2 people like this.
Reply 13 - Posted by:
Catherine 10/28/2020 3:47:08 PM (No. 587681)
Well, I don't speak math and this article wasn't very clear to my limited knowledge of the subject, but I'm pretty sure it said wearing masks is a waste of time. I also personally think we are breeding another vicious virus, especially in our children wearing them all day, and it will be nastier than covid, which is 99% survivable.
12 people like this.
I just know that we have had mask edicts in place for months now, along with crowd restrictions in restaurants, etc. Yet the "news" is full of stories about "skyrocketing" new infections and hospitalizations.
Looks like the masks don't do squat in stopping the virus. But they do keep the peasants on edge and in their place.
12 people like this.
Reply 15 - Posted by:
AltaD 10/28/2020 4:52:44 PM (No. 587724)
Masks have been required in IL for the past 6 months. IL is ranked in the top 10 states for covid deaths per capita. Therefore, masks don't work. (I can play the "experts" game too)
5 people like this.
Reply 16 - Posted by:
red1066 10/28/2020 5:29:01 PM (No. 587747)
If masks were an answer to preventing the spread of the Chinese virus, then why is there a spike in positive cases around the country? Remember a long time ago when all the so called experts were telling everybody not to wear a mask, or if one did, it had to be an N-95 type mask. Now, it appears anything can pass as a mask. Why not just tape a Kleenex to one's face. It's as good as any of the other material parading around as a mask.
2 people like this.
Reply 17 - Posted by:
coldborezero 10/28/2020 5:47:53 PM (No. 587757)
The answer to the question posed by this article depends on what one means by "work". If by work one means that the mask serves as a Veil of Abject Submission then, yes, it works exceptionally well. However, if one means that the mask is effective in warding off the Chinese Communist Bio-warfare attack; not bloody likely.
2 people like this.
Reply 18 - Posted by:
stablemoney 10/28/2020 6:16:34 PM (No. 587789)
The windows are sealed with weatherstripping, the windows are pulled down and locked, the curtains are pulled, and yet there is a film of dust on the end table. I don't think masks work. They do keep you breathing your own germs, which your body has expelled with its natural immune system. You would not breath your 1 and 2 expulsions, and I don't think it is sanitary to breath back in your breath. Ideology is not science, and science only seeks the truth, seldom finding it, and the business is filled with crackpots.
4 people like this.
Reply 19 - Posted by:
doctorfixit 10/28/2020 7:29:09 PM (No. 587850)
#4 Best analogy I have seen.
0 people like this.
Reply 20 - Posted by:
bighambone 10/28/2020 7:54:22 PM (No. 587876)
The Democrats are milking COVID for all it is politically worth. The Democrat leader Joseph Biden continuously said that after he is elected President he will immediately get COVID under control by closing down the country and mandating that everyone in the USA wear a face mask at all times like he does, in fact recently Biden has been wearing two masks at times, one mask over the other, a white mask underneath that may well be an N-95 mask, that are supposed to be limited to first responder and healthcare use that are not available to the public and then a dark colored mask on top, covering the white colored mask. When Biden says he knows how to control COVID, other than by wearing masks, the liberal media never asks Biden in detail how he will control COVID and Biden never volunteers any sort of intelligent answer other than say he will listen to science. But that’s what President Trump has been doing all along, that’s why there are new therapeutics out there that have knocked the fatality rate down to less than 1% of all the people that test positive and show COVID symptoms, along with a number of new vaccines that are on the way. There is no politician in the entire world who can bring COVID under control as COVID is a very contagious virus that only advanced medical science has a chance of bringing under control after much experimentation and study. All the Monday morning quarterbacking that Biden has done for months will not do the trick. If Biden is elected there is a much bigger chance that Biden will be in cahoots before long through his family members to set up the importation of some Chinese Communist developed bogus vaccine into the USA allowing his family members to take in many millions in profit, then the chance that Biden will ever get the virus under control in the USA. Remember the very contagious COVID virus pandemic imported from China is something that the USA or the world has never experienced before, and when that became evident early this year to President Trump and his team of medical scientists, they swung into action in connection with academic and corporate medical science to develop the therapeutics and vaccines that have a chance to control the spread of COVID. When that happened Trump was essentially back on his own one yard line and had to drive with his COVID team all the way down the field to where they are on the other team’s twenty yard line and driving ahead towards the goal, with medical science created therapeutics and vaccines. The only thing that Biden has actually done is to stand there trying to get in position to take fraudulent credit for the work that has already been done. You have to hope that America will see through the Biden Monday morning quarterbacking and re-elect President Trump.
1 person likes this.
Reply 21 - Posted by:
XCenturion 10/28/2020 8:38:18 PM (No. 587911)
Yes, for bank robbers!
1 person likes this.
Reply 22 - Posted by:
DVC 10/30/2020 2:49:30 AM (No. 589269)
At Halloween, yes. Otherwise, no.
0 people like this.
Reply 23 - Posted by:
franq 10/30/2020 5:54:59 AM (No. 589301)
Why, #16? I'll tell you how.
Masks keep us safe - lie.
Skyrocketing cases - lie.
0 people like this.
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