The study notes that "80% of US states mandated masks during the COVID-19 pandemic" and while "mandates induced greater mask compliance, [they] did not predict lower growth rates when community spread was low (minima) or high (maxima)." Among other things, the study—conducted using data from the CDC covering multiple seasons—reports that "mask mandates and use are not associated with lower SARS-CoV-2 spread among US states."
https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.05.18.21257385v1
Mask compliance among social gatherings changes everything.
If people wore a mask to the store but not when they visited friends in family, this study is useless.
oh you mean a virus doesn't give a crap about a piece of fabric over your mouth? What a shock.
Star wrote:
Mask compliance among social gatherings changes everything.
If people wore a mask to the store but not when they visited friends in family, this study is useless.
don't read too deep into it. what it means is that mask mandates are not useful.
"Our findings do not support the hypothesis that SARS-CoV-2 transmission rates decrease with greater public mask use,"
Pretty shocking since Blue States have been forcing their citizens to Prolonged mask use (>4 hours per day) leading to..."facial alkalinization and inadvertently encourages dehydration, which in turn can enhance barrier breakdown and bacterial infection risk. British clinicians have reported masks to increase headaches and sweating and decrease cognitive precision."
whoa, ill fitting, improper mask wearing that large percentages of people didn't even do didn't stop exactly the spread when studied on a state-wide basis?
Also, State level seems like the dumbest way to study covid transmission for a variety of reasons. But you want to hang your hat on an-ill conceived study, have at it. The global warming deniers and the pro-tobacco crowd used similar pseudo-science to justify their harm.
high school xc coach wrote:
don't read too deep into it. what it means is that mask mandates are not useful.
No it doesn't.
If you were careful with social gatherings among your friends and family, then mandating people wear masks in the stores where you frequent will provide some protection to them spreading the disease to you.
If the study somehow showed people spread the virus to others in stores while they were masked up, then the mandates were not useful.
At the end of the paper:
"The authors thank Brandy Jesernik, Jay Bhattacharya, Scott Atlas, and Erik Fostvedt for manuscript input."
The study is completely worthless because it does not even attempt to differentiate between the level of non-mask restrictions between different states. So, Texas, which had a mask mandate but did a lousy job otherwise, gets lumped together with WA, which was very restrictive and had about half the cases per capita as Texas. It also treats all mask mandates the same. In Texas, there was a mask mandate, but restaurants were also allowed to have indoor dining without masks at reduced capacity. Thus, the states with mask mandates that otherwise had lousy restrictions pull down the states with mask mandates and very strong restrictions.
Trying to divine out mask efficacy with no regards for its relationship to other restrictions (not to mention the quality of the masks worn and whether people used them correctly instead of letting their nose hang out) is like saying that seat belts are ineffective because people still died when wearing them. Mask wearing has never been intended to be a complete defense to COVID transmission. It is a mitigation measure that reduces transmission risk.
What is actually funny about the COVID deniers' pursuit of anti-mask "research" is that the unintended consequence of a conclusion that masks don't do anything is that even stronger restrictions are needed. If a mask does not stop transmission of the virus in the grocery store, then people shouldn't be doing in person shopping and should only use curbside or delivery. So, watch what you wish for.
Star wrote:
Mask compliance among social gatherings changes everything.
If people wore a mask to the store but not when they visited friends in family, this study is useless.
This is the point. Masks were just a big stupid virtue signal. Even if they do work (debatable), people wear them in public which is low risk and don't wear them in private which is high risk. You're 100x more likely to get sick from your spouse or child than from a stranger in the grocery store, but nobody in their right mind is going to wear a mask in their home for a year.
Wuzzle Wuzzle wrote:
whoa, ill fitting, improper mask wearing that large percentages of people didn't even do didn't stop exactly the spread when studied on a state-wide basis?
Lesson: don't expect uncomfortable solutions to minor problems to be widely adopted.
Star wrote:
high school xc coach wrote:
don't read too deep into it. what it means is that mask mandates are not useful.
No it doesn't.
If you were careful with social gatherings among your friends and family, then mandating people wear masks in the stores where you frequent will provide some protection to them spreading the disease to you.
If the study somehow showed people spread the virus to others in stores while they were masked up, then the mandates were not useful.
You mask-loving Bidenites can never produce a shred of evidence of any value of mask mandates but are quite welcome to continue the mask-erade until Kingdom Come (an appropriate phrase since it is based on religious/ideological belief instead of science).
Precious Roy wrote:
What is actually funny about the COVID deniers' pursuit of anti-mask "research" is that the unintended consequence of a conclusion that masks don't do anything is that even stronger restrictions are needed. If a mask does not stop transmission of the virus in the grocery store, then people shouldn't be doing in person shopping.
Only a demagogue would reach this conclusion. Normal people might accept that life is filled with a certain level of unavoidable risk and go on with their lives.
fully vaxxed, anti-masked wrote:
Wuzzle Wuzzle wrote:
whoa, ill fitting, improper mask wearing that large percentages of people didn't even do didn't stop exactly the spread when studied on a state-wide basis?
Lesson: don't expect uncomfortable solutions to minor problems to be widely adopted.
That's no lesson. It's a poor justification for selfish behavior. And this is typical American pre-school level logic. "If it doesn't work 100 percent, I have to do small things and it doesn't happen instantly, why bother"?
I simply don't expect poorly messaged solutions to the widely adopted in a short time especially by stupid people. It took decades for seat belt use to increase, same for people to not drive drunk. (and it's still not 100%).
Stick this into the large corpus of work that already exists on masks. I would rank this quality of evidence (epidemiological) lower than experimental studies:
https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/science/science-briefs/masking-science-sars-cov2.html
Scott Atlas
That name alone invalidates the study.
Under Dr. Atlas, between August - December cases rose drastically because of an agenda for "herd immunity" in a happenstance , risk-based manner.
Any study in Covid-19 that even makes a fleeting mention of Scott Atlas is already based on a politicized front.
fully vaxxed, anti-masked wrote:
Star wrote:
Mask compliance among social gatherings changes everything.
If people wore a mask to the store but not when they visited friends in family, this study is useless.
This is the point. Masks were just a big stupid virtue signal. Even if they do work (debatable), people wear them in public which is low risk and don't wear them in private which is high risk. You're 100x more likely to get sick from your spouse or child than from a stranger in the grocery store, but nobody in their right mind is going to wear a mask in their home for a year.
So just to be clear you think that a virus that is transmitted through respiratory droplets isnt affected by wearing a barrier over you nose and face? You think nobody getting sick this last year from colds and flu-- All coincidental. All surgeons should stop wearing masks? Everyone working with bone marrow patients can stop wearing masks? Its all a deep state conspiracy according to you trumpers? You are the reason we need to have kids take a logic/philosophy 101 class before graduating high school.
Wuzzle Wuzzle wrote:
fully vaxxed, anti-masked wrote:
Lesson: don't expect uncomfortable solutions to minor problems to be widely adopted.
That's no lesson. It's a poor justification for selfish behavior. And this is typical American pre-school level logic. "If it doesn't work 100 percent, I have to do small things and it doesn't happen instantly, why bother"?
I simply don't expect poorly messaged solutions to the widely adopted in a short time especially by stupid people. It took decades for seat belt use to increase, same for people to not drive drunk. (and it's still not 100%).
Selfish people by definition seek out reasons to justify their selfish anti society behavior. They "google themselves right".
This is Jim Jones-town level stuff that these people are still at square 1 trying to de bunk masks. Major cult behavior.
wazzu1452 wrote:
The study notes that "80% of US states mandated masks during the COVID-19 pandemic" and while "mandates induced greater mask compliance, [they] did not predict lower growth rates when community spread was low (minima) or high (maxima)." Among other things, the study—conducted using data from the CDC covering multiple seasons—reports that "mask mandates and use are not associated with lower SARS-CoV-2 spread among US states."
https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.05.18.21257385v1
There have been studies in Asia regarding people wearing masks during Flu season well before the politicization of Covid. What they found is that the masks actually did nothing to reduce the spread of viruses from sick people to healthy. What they found is people tend to naturally keep a distance from someone who is wearing a mask because they think the individual is sick. So the mask worked as a social cue but not from a standpoint of effectiveness in its designed function. What they found is if the individual wore the mask but people did not separate from the person the spread was just as much as if the person was not wearing a mask. If the person did not wear a mask but they created the physical separation it was just as effective as without a mask.
This is important because if everyone is wearing a mask you have no idea who is sick and who is healthy so the social signal is worthless. The social distancing does work to a point, but if people have a mask on thinking it is doing something and cluster then all that goes out the window.
There are some masks that are more effective. But the only place we've seen studies that show that is in medical settings where you're dealing with medical classes who actually go through training on proper PPE, this a part of the med school curriculum. The idea that Joe 6 pack, or really anyone else wearing the masks Americans have worn around is going to be able to wear a mask in the proper way to reduce spread is absurd, and to argue otherwise you have to have a very academic utopian ideal of the world. Your average person is going to do things like throw the mask on the dashboard, put it in their pocket, rub their face when it itches, not wear it properly, etc. all of which will reduce its effectiveness. The idea that masks were ever going to make a significant impact on the spread of the virus from the start was totally ridiculous. In the real world it has proven to be totally ineffective. The only places that really fared any better were either rural areas which should have been obvious from the start, or areas like Seattle or the Bay Area that were extremely heavy-handed in their measures, never did any meaningful level of opening up, and had a large portion of the population that could work remote. You look at metros like Atlanta, Los Angeles, the Texas and Florida Cities, they all had about the same result. The bottom line is if you were in an environment where people needed to interact with each other in person the virus was going to spread whether you wore masks or not.
Some (most) mods have right-wing/general contrarian leaning.
We get threads for every conservative grievance of the week. And 900 anti-vaxx and -mask threads.
Welcome to LRC.
Faceplant wrote:
You mask-loving Bidenites . . .
I hate the masks.
I don't like condoms either but I wore them back when I was dating.