1. Only two of the studies included are actually about COVID and masks; it's misleading to say, "oh, this big meta-review of all the data shows that they masks didn't do anything against COVID in the pandemic" when at best exactly one study out of the 78 included says that.
2. Even those two studies weren't about mask use but about mask policy. They're interesting from a public health perspective but don't tell us anything about the actual mechanics of whether masks work or not, which seems to be how (some) people are taking it.
It also doesn't speak well to the Cochrane review if they're including a study that you yourself argue is junk!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ad_hominem
> "Re-analysis on the statistical sampling biases of a mask promotion trial in Bangladesh: a statistical replication"
I'm not remotely qualified to have an opinion.
That said...
The open (public) process as well as the critics sharing their source code is just awesome.
https://trialsjournal.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s13...
https://github.com/mchikina/maskRCTnote
I share the reviewer's hope that authors of the original study will respond.
For example, after parsing through the ad hominem attacks and nonsense in that article, their main point is that the Bangladesh study found masks to be effective.
Except that study is junk and all the reported effects were found to be a result of researcher bias [1].
Vox also misrepresents the Danish study, which is probably the best study to date we have on masking effectiveness.
> Progress isn't a straight line.
Yes, but truth is most likely to be found in whatever facts are orthogonal to vox' narrative.
[1] https://trialsjournal.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s13...