41–50 of 118 posts
We also know obesity and other chronic illness associated with diet is a horrific risk factor for covid.
Why in the hell haven't these options been blared across every channel and drilled into our minds?
If you're concerned about dying, enough to jail yourself in your house for a year, how about put down the freaking donut and get some sunshine.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Because population density and culture are the other factors. In most cases, combined with limiting large groups and reducing the frequency of meetings, it is doing what it is intended to do - reduce the R0 factor. Even in LA. Every Internet pundit who can take one number and divide by another, announces they have proven something or other. Give it a rest.
There’s always an excuse, but there’s never any data backing your claims. Provide even a single shred of evidence that masks affect the R0 of the virus in the real world. Modeling studies and correlations observed in April don’t count: most of the papers published this year looked at areas where case counts subsequently skyrocketed in the fall. My personal favorite is the mask study from Jena, Germany in the spring,…
> we conclude that 20 d after becoming mandatory face masks have reduced the number of new infections by around 45%
A later increase in infections does not invalidate statistical significance for earlier studies. It’s just math, not “an excuse”. You’ll never see the data for how many cases would have been recorded without the measures in place.
You can see the full paper here: http://ftp.iza.org/dp13319.pdf
The second link you posted earlier also says conclusively that higher reported mask usage correlated with lower reports of symptoms. Are you even reading your own sources?
Or maybe you just have very skewed expectations of the impact? The Jena study estimates a 0.23 reduction in R rate. It is nowhere close to eliminating the disease, but this small reduction in transmission rate has an outsized effect on the total number of cases, hospitalizations and deaths, and that is what really matters (roughly, a 50% increase in transmission would result in 10x more deaths).
The inconvenience of wearing a mask is an insignificant price to pay even if the numbers are off by an order of magnitude.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I have doubts about some of these "mask wearing" studies too. I'm still wearing a mask. I'm still taking Vitamin D. These are low-risk interventions. I'm not going to wait for some p value to get smaller to take action.
I'm not sure what aspect of the "mask wearing" you doubt, but I don't have much doubt in the germ theory of disease, and I've been suggesting wearing a mask since Feb, because it works against just about every communicable respiratory disease from bacteria to virus (or pollen or asbestos). I'd recommend eye protection for COVID as well, because the eyes (along with the lungs) appear to be a higher risk aerosol entry…
ignoring that masks are a perfect environment for debris and bacteria growth, as well as impeding natural expiration of all these gross things
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The open letter for face masks is a great example for why this kind of thing is dubious. All prior high-quality evidence disputed the claim: https://www.cidrap.umn.edu/covid-19/podcasts-webinars/specia... The subsequent evidence of real-world effectiveness isn’t great: cases are skyrocketing around the northern hemisphere, and mask mandates aren’t making a difference. The only randomized controlled trial ever conduct…
Science is built on consensus Also the fact that mask mandates are poorly enforced, or that masks arent a replacement for other forms of prevention, or that some materials dont offer the same level of prevention dont change the fact that masks work
I am a professional scientist. Nobody has ever given me a pass on publication simply because they want to believe me.
That said, science is a human institution, and all humans have cognitive biases that can be exploited - particularly in large groups.
Get everyone back to their right latitude won't be any need for all this fuss
It's a harsh way to phrase that it's practically abusive to make people live at certain latitudes where they can't absorb the amount of sun that creates vitamin-d adequate for their body.
Of course the way to combat this is just identifying deficiency and prescribing the right amount.
Get everyone back to their right latitude won't be any need for all this fuss
I mean - there's more truth to this than people want to admit. It's a harsh way to phrase that it's practically abusive to make people live at certain latitudes where they can't absorb the amount of sun that creates vitamin-d adequate for their body. Of course the way to combat this is just identifying deficiency and prescribing the right amount.
185 experts. Over 100 medical doctors. Roughly 100 professors, including many of the most respected vitamin D experts in the world---check out the list of names and qualifications yourself. Please read the link before posting about correlation or other opinions on the topic. The point is to note the aggregate credibility of the backers here. This is analogous to the open letter done for face masks last spring.
The open letter for face masks is a great example for why this kind of thing is dubious. All prior high-quality evidence disputed the claim: https://www.cidrap.umn.edu/covid-19/podcasts-webinars/specia... The subsequent evidence of real-world effectiveness isn’t great: cases are skyrocketing around the northern hemisphere, and mask mandates aren’t making a difference. The only randomized controlled trial ever conduct…
The blog post also reaches a semi-hard lined conclusion yet still leaves room for additional work as it should.
Problems with the study:
- Not everyone the participants are interacting with also have a mask (Blog post references this with "protects you, not me")
- The result is "Although the difference observed was not statistically significant, the 95% CIs are compatible with a 46% reduction to a 23% increase in infection."
- "The recommendation to wear surgical masks to supplement other public health measures did not reduce the SARS-CoV-2 infection rate among wearers by more than 50% in a community with modest infection rates, some degree of social distancing, and uncommon general mask use."
My point is "Masks are in effective" can't be concluded from this. It failed to show a reduction of 50%, sure, but what about 25% at a higher CI? Was it literally 0% at 5 sigma? Clearly more work needs to be done to show 0% at any meaningful CI.
If you don't believe in masks fine, don't go see other people - it's way more effective anyway.
185 experts. Over 100 medical doctors. Roughly 100 professors, including many of the most respected vitamin D experts in the world---check out the list of names and qualifications yourself. Please read the link before posting about correlation or other opinions on the topic. The point is to note the aggregate credibility of the backers here. This is analogous to the open letter done for face masks last spring.
The open letter for face masks is a great example for why this kind of thing is dubious. All prior high-quality evidence disputed the claim: https://www.cidrap.umn.edu/covid-19/podcasts-webinars/specia... The subsequent evidence of real-world effectiveness isn’t great: cases are skyrocketing around the northern hemisphere, and mask mandates aren’t making a difference. The only randomized controlled trial ever conduct…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Since most mask studies are done in high/extended exposure environments like hospitals, they are not the best model for most people’s use. This summer, the state of Kansas did an (inadvertent) infield experiment where some counties implemented mask mandates and other counties did not. After a few week, the non-mask mandate counties infection rates increased rapidly. The mask mandate counties’ infection rate increased…
You should look more deeply into that Kansas study. They cherry-picked their data in a way that is extremely dubious: https://mobile.twitter.com/ianmsc/status/1332407421151576064... Turns out that if you pick slightly different start and end dates, you can get dramatically different results. Even if you think there’s a justification for it, plotting the counties’ data next to each other shows that they’re torturing t…