There's one from Stanford & Yale that says they do.
https://www.poverty-action.org/sites/default/files/publicati...
It said that it can’t support an impact of cloth masks usage on infection rates, but associates them with reduced severity/symptoms.
That’s a notably distinct proposition from “no effect.”
What this should tell you is that "symptoms" are a bad endpoint for a randomized-controlled trial, not that if the good endpoint doesn't show you what you want, you should rely on the bad one.
They found a tiny effect in symptomatic seroprevalence at a single point in time.
First, the study conflates distancing and mask-wearing. They admit this in the paper (there is a significant increase in distancing amongst the mask wearers). There is also a large change in the size of the populations that could easily swamp the effect size (i.e. the size of the mask population was something like 9% bigger than the control).
Second, just because you observe effect size X at time T does not mean that you will see an equivalent effect at T+1. It also doesn't mean that you will see a compounding effect. In human terms: maybe you get a surge of behavior at the start of the intervention that doesn't continue, due to burnout or non-compliance. Or maybe you got lucky at time T, and randomly saw a population that yielded a result. You can't make the assumption.
No, you want to measure if an intervention works if you do everything reasonable to enact it. You don't get to invent an alternate reality where people are 100% compliant and there are chocolate rivers and gumdrop trees.
Otherwise, I have the perfect diet plan that will end all obesity, worldwide: don't eat if you're fat. Simple! If it fails, it's because you didn't follow my brilliant advice.
The point of these studies is to show people that the intervention works if people do it. And, yes, there are public policy studies showing that mask mandates don't work, but that doesn't mean they don't work for the people actually wearing them. It just means people who refuse are cutting their noses off to spite their faces. As noted in another comment, this isn't the beginning of the Third Reich, and should not be controversial at all.
If you show that a drug works in a petri dish, that's completely irrelevant if it's so toxic that people don't take it because of side-effects.
If you show that full-face respirators work on a mannequin in a box, that's completely irrelevant if real-world people don't wear full-face respirators because they suck.
> If you show that full-face respirators work on a mannequin in a box, that's completely irrelevant if real-world people don't wear full-face respirators because they suck.
And these examples are straw men. That's completely irrelevant to the point.
All of the good evidence (RCTs) on masks is extremely marginal, at best, and there hasn't been a single RCT I'm aware of that showed any effect of the other interventions.
https://vinayprasadmdmph.substack.com/p/do-masks-reduce-risk...
We've had two years to increase the output of N95s and expand the hospital facilities to handle severe COVID. Almost nothing has been accomplished.
Compliance in public transport and supermarkets is extremely high, pretty much never see any adult with just a mask, everybody wearing actual respirators.
Would you chill out? People are disagreeing with you & presenting evidence, not burning you at stake. When did everyone get so damn fragile??
Here we see the GP disappointed that every time he and others bring up salient points, they are silenced by an angry mob. It's a real stretch to call him the snowflake in this situation. Nobody calls people a snowflake for disagreeing, it's the way that traditional snowflakes disagree that people have a problem with.
> The researchers enrolled nearly 350,000 people from 600 villages in rural Bangladesh. Those living in villages randomly assigned to a series of interventions promoting the use of surgical masks were about 11% less likely than those living in control villages to develop COVID-19, which is caused by infection with the SARS-CoV-2 virus, during the eight-week study period. The protective effect increased to nearly 35% for people over 60 years old.
https://med.stanford.edu/news/all-news/2021/09/surgical-mask...
Earlier studies said there wasn’t sufficient evidence, not that masks aren’t effective:
> Results: Fourteen studies were included in this study. One preclinical and 1 observational cohort clinical study found significant benefit of masks in limiting SARS-CoV-2 transmission. Eleven RCTs in a meta-analysis studying other respiratory illnesses found no significant benefit of masks (±hand hygiene) for influenza-like-illness symptoms nor laboratory confirmed viruses. One RCT found a significant benefit of surgical masks compared with cloth masks.
> Conclusion: There is limited available preclinical and clinical evidence for face mask benefit in SARS-CoV-2. RCT evidence for other respiratory viral illnesses shows no significant benefit of masks in limiting transmission but is of poor quality and not SARS-CoV-2 specific. There is an urgent need for evidence from randomized controlled trials to investigate the efficacy of surgical and cloth masks on transmission of SARS-CoV-2 and user reported outcomes such as comfort and compliance.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33565274/
The cost of wearing a mask is basically zero when there is sufficient supply. While waiting to gather evidence, it seems like an easy low cost precaution while gathering evidence.
Slate Star Code (March 2020):
> Please don’t buy up masks while there is a shortage and healthcare workers don’t have enough.
> If the shortage ends, and wearing a mask is cost-free, I agree with the guidelines from China, Hong Kong, and Japan – consider wearing a mask in high-risk situations like subways or crowded buildings. Wearing masks will not make you invincible, and if you risk compensate even a little it might do more harm than good. Realistically you should be avoiding high-risk situations like subways and crowded buildings as much as you possibly can. But if you have to go in them, yes, most likely a mask will help.
https://slatestarcodex.com/2020/03/23/face-masks-much-more-t...
Once we agree that the evidence for masks is weak and mixed, then sure, we can debate costs and benefits of the intervention. Or...we can do more studies.
It's been almost two years now. I think it's rather shameful that we haven't done the science, and we're still guessing, don't you?
A mask is not a respirator, yet the two of these are regularly confused not just in the public discourse, but were even confused in official messaging during the beginning of the pandemic.
The WHO and health agencies the world over were suddenly asking people to "prioritize masks for at risk groups", which in some places was parsed as "no need to wear masks", as everybody was struggling to get medical masks, and particularly respirators, for the HCW treating infected patients.
Here's a review of every mask study ever performed:
https://www.cato.org/working-paper/evidence-community-cloth-...
Here's a summary written by the same author, in case you're too busy to read 30,000 words:
https://vinayprasadmdmph.substack.com/p/do-masks-reduce-risk...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intention-to-treat_analysis#Ad...
Otherwise, I have a brilliant plan to end all obesity, worldwide: don't eat when you're fat. Guaranteed to work. If it fails, it's your fault for not following the plan.
> When democratically elected systems transform into totalitarian regimes, the transition is subtle, stepwise, and involves a combination of pre-planned as well as serendipitous events. Indeed, this was the case with Germany in the years 1929-1939, where Hitler was given a chance at governing, the president subsequently died, a key general resigned after a scandal and the pathway to the Fuhrer was inevitable.
It's a mask & a vaccine, not the beginning of the Third Reich. The fact that your sources can't see the two as different things (and not as part of some slippery slope), tells me they've already arrived at a conclusion and will ignore all contrary evidence.
I know masks & vaccines feel oppressive -- but facts simply do not concern themselves with your feelings. There is a world of difference between the Third Reich and public health measures to slow the tide of preventable deaths. To be honest, I can't believe I'm having this debate here.
I am calling for scientific studies. More data to justify our actions and guide our decisions. You are...calling me hysterical.
Please -- you're not being silenced, you are not some martyr, people are just disagreeing with you.
I'm sure the downvoting here has nothing to do with the fact that comments get sorted to the bottom and grayed out.
Would you stop with the hysteria? You're getting downvoted not only because people disagree with you, but also because you've managed to turn that disagreement into some kind of cause for martyrdom.
To quote you:
"projection, plain & simple"
I'm just feeding into the problem by replying to you, but none of us can expect any discourse with you to be productive when you are working from a position that relies on believing someone acting in obvious bad faith.
Facts simply do not concern themselves with your feelings. I know it feels like oppression (a new Third Reich!!111!) & like there is no metric to get rid of masks, but your feelings alone do not make these true statements. The fact -- and we should concern ourselves with facts, not vague feelings or bouts of hysteria -- is that all of these measures will go away once the pandemic has abated to such an extent that it no longer poses a substantial threat to human lives. It's as simple as that: given that masks do an excellent job of slowing the spread, ceteris paribus, wearing a mask is better than not wearing one.
This kind of "feelings logic" is why Trump lost, more or less -- most people are willing to undergo mild inconvenience to save lives & slow the spread of a deadly virus. Despite the feelings of frustration, which we all have.
COVID is never going away. There is so much more to live for than being treated as a vector for exactly one disease.
And what I said is a value statement. Facts or science have nothing to do with it besides they guided and informed my opinions.
They absolutely should, and I think this is an intractable disagreement we have. Sorry.
But I agree that COVID is never going away -- I'm saying that all of these measures should go away once the pandemic has abated to such an extent that it no longer poses a substantial threat to human lives. I.e. there is a version of COVID where we have tamed its lethality to the point where it's a shadow of its former self.
We have that today.
And you don't see that as a problem?
Masks help prevent you from spreading the virus to other. As a vaccinated individual, you are highly unlikely to have serious illness from CV19, but you can still get it and spread it to others, even if you are only mildly symptomatic.
And this is based on data from the prior variants. Who knows how things are with Omicron - we need more data.
>Humans are meant to see faces.
Humans are/aren't meant to do X is a bad argument. We have made all sorts of behavioral changes over our time as a species. We adapt. I like having cars, and planes, and an industrialized society. But humans weren't "meant" to do any of that, until we did. All of these things have real, serious, drawbacks. But the overwhelming majority of people would agree that having these things is better than not having them.
If the new normal is to have a deadly and highly transmissible disease with us from now until forever, then yes, masks should also be the new normal. I don't think that's the case - the stakes and motivation for figuring out alternatives is quite high - but if it is, then, well, it's better than the alternative.
For those who wish to wear them, sure. But for those who don’t? That is fine too. Masks should be a personal choice at this point. Not something forced by the state.
We have vaccines. Getting one ends your obligation to participate in this Covid stuff. Forcing these NPI’s on vaccinated individuals is completely immoral in my opinion.
But vaccines do not prevent you from catching and transmitting covid to others. And some people are precluded from getting vaccinated for legitimate medical reasons, same as they are precluded from other vaccines. A vaccinated person wearing a proper mask is less likely to transmit the virus to an unvaccinated person than they would be without the mask.
I’m sorry, your argument just doesn’t make sense. You are arguing we should always be masked forever.
Yes, I did say this is a possibility. I don't think it's likely, but it is a possibility.
>We never took this kind of moral grandstanding before. Why are we doing this for this one specific virus?
This is the first virus with this sort of reach in the era of modern science. It's pretty simple - we have never before had a virus that has infected and killed this many people while also having an understanding that masking cuts down on transmission rates.
>I’m sorry, your argument just doesn’t make sense.
You disagreeing with it doesn't mean it doesn't make sense, it just means that you, for whatever reason, value people not having to wear a mask over cutting down on the loss of human life during a global pandemic.
>You are arguing we should always be masked forever.
If we live in a state of perpetual covid-esque pandemic from now until forever, yes, that would be a perfectly prudent thing to do.
So far, our track record isn't that great. The two RCTs for masks and Covid showed minimal (if not zero) effect [1], and you can barely say the results out loud lest you get silenced by the angry mob (as you can see from the color of this comment). I'm not hopeful.
But please let me know when someone actually does an unbiased study of travel restrictions. I have yet to see one. The biggest tragedy of this pandemic is the number of people who are willing to substitute their (popular) opinions for evidence and call it "science".
I guarantee that every response to this comment will be from someone asserting that "masks work", and linking to a paper that they haven't actually read, or worse: an editorial about papers they haven't read. Most people have literally no idea what the data is on any of this.
[1] https://vinayprasadmdmph.substack.com/p/do-masks-reduce-risk...