Here's Why the Science Is Clear That Masks Work (Cochrane study was wrong)

[Nevilledog]

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/10/opinion/masks-work-cochrane-study.html

No paywall
https://archive.is/hef1p

The debate over masks’ effectiveness in fighting the spread of the coronavirus intensified recently when a respected scientific nonprofit said its review of studies assessing measures to impede the spread of viral illnesses found it was “uncertain whether wearing masks or N95/P2 respirators helps to slow the spread of respiratory viruses.”

Now the organization, Cochrane, says the way it summarized the review was unclear and imprecise, and that the way some people interpreted it was wrong.

“Many commentators have claimed that a recently updated Cochrane Review shows that ‘masks don’t work’, which is an inaccurate and misleading interpretation,” Karla Soares-Weiser, the editor in chief of The Cochrane Library, said in a statement.

“The review examined whether interventions to promote mask wearing help to slow the spread of respiratory viruses,” Soares-Weiser said, adding, “given the limitations in the primary evidence, the review is not able to address the question of whether mask wearing itself reduces people’s risk of contracting or spreading respiratory viruses.”

She said that “this wording was open to misinterpretation, for which we apologize,” and that Cochrane would revise the summary.

Soares-Weiser also said, though, that one of the lead authors of the review even more seriously misinterpreted its finding on masks by saying in an interview that it proved “there is just no evidence that they make any difference.” In fact, Soares-Weiser said, “that statement is not an accurate representation of what the review found.”

*snip*

[Meadowoak]

1. A lot of people are dead because of poor wording.

[Hugh_Lebowski]

2. Very irresponsible of that study author

He should be fired, frankly.

[underpants]

3. Between this and the Energy "low confidence" report on the lab

the rightwing is taking a COVID victory lap. It’s legend lore and dogma over there and they’ll never know (nor believe) anything different.

[Nevilledog]

4. They don't care about facts. Everything they believe is based on "feelings"

[Samrob]

5. Who cares what they say? Wear your mask if you want to help yourself and be safer. nt

[303squadron]

6. If only Magats had the courage of their convictions.....

the surgical team for their next operation would be maskless!

[unblock]

7. At a high level, there are 3 levels of contagion

At a low enough level, masks don't change outcomes because you're not catching or spreading it anyway.

But that was obviously not the case with a rapidly spreading pandemic

At a high enough level, masks don't change outcomes because you're catching and spreading it anyway.

But that's not an argument for going out without a mask, that's an argument for either staying home or wearing a hazmat suit if you have to go out.

In between, there's the middle, where masks do make a difference. Once it became clear that Covid was spreading through airborne particles, this middle level was the obvious default assumption until proven otherwise, and nothing has ever come out to change this position.


Yes I know infectious diseases and epidemiology are more complicated than this, but there really is no basis for the right-wing view that masks are useless.

I mean this was common knowledge over 50 years ago, even in movies and tv hospital shows. Right-wingers didn't become idiots about masks until the exact moment when their leaders told them to be idiots about masks.

[wnylib]

9. Pictures from the 1918 flu pandemic show people

wearing masks, especially doctors and nurses. They rolled up layers of gauze and other cloth to wear.

I have never doubted that masks could help. If they are not effective, why do surgeons and their assistants wear them in the OR? Granted they were doing that before the pandemic and were wearing surgical masks, not N95s, but they were not dealing with a highly transmissible virus like covid then. They were avoiding breathing commonly known germs on their patients.

Even though masks might not prevent infection with covid in a highly infectious atmosphere, they could at least reduce the amount of viral load being exposed to. Add a vaccination to the N95 mask and the chances of getting a high enough load to cause severe infection are lowered.

[JudyM]

14. Your last point, exactly. It reduces exposure and so incoming viral load even in high level

environments.

[ProfessorGAC]

8. The Cochrane Study Had To Be Flawed

I didn't read the whole thing so i can't say for certain how the methodology of conclusions were wrong, but the notion that masks don't help flies in the face of the physics of filtration.
There is always a distribution of the percent efficacy (capture) based on particle size of the filter target component. Also, there are multiple mechanisms of capture, particularly when one of the phases (filtration is always 2 phase flow) is a gas.
A filter does NOT have to have a pore size smaller than a virus to trap at least some of the viruses, particularly given that a high percentage of the viruses shed are contained with droplets of sputum hundreds of time larger than the virus.
The study simply didn't make sense, scientifically.

[Fiendish Thingy]

11. See my reply #10. Nt

[harumph]

17. Brownian movement insures that even with purely airborne particles

some will be captured in a fibrous matrix having a pore size bigger than the particle.
Initial viral load has been shown to affect the seriousness of infections. Hence it makes sense that
even sub-optimal masks are better than nothing. Of course Brett Stephens is just scoring
points with the "Gubment is stoopid" crowd of mouthbreathers.

[ProfessorGAC]

20. Exactly Correct

I did a lot of coallesence work during my career, plus I had a quite deep knowledge of 2 phase flow behavior (which all filtration involves, by definition.) I was a physical organic chemist. Examples include centrifugal removal of unwanted calcium salts from overbased sulfonates & removal of sterolglucosides from biodiesel esters.
People who say only perfect is effective are revealing an utter lack of understanding how filtration works.
As you said, something is always better than nothing.

[Fiendish Thingy]

10. The Cochrane "study" wasn't a study

It was a meta-analysis, cherry picking results from other studies to achieve the desired outcome.

Meta-analyses are very unreliable because of bias in selecting the studies to review, and because there is no review of the selected studies for bias or methodology flaws.

[Ms. Toad]

15. And not only that - it was a meta-analysis of whether mandates - not masks - work. n/t

[Ms. Toad]

12. Pretty much what said.

The report conflated whether masks work (the science is clear- they do) with whether the policies implemented to encourage people to wear them properly and consistently worked. All it did was evaluate the latter, but was characterized as evaluating the former.

[Midnight Writer]

13. Often the same people who claim masks don't work also complain they can't breath with masks.

If your breath can't penetrate the mask, then a virus can't, either.

[Duppers]

16. Thank you!

Better tell Madville.

N95 are the only ones we wear here.

[Tickle]

18. I was just going to post that

We once attacked people for not wearing masks and now you can't go into a store in NYC with a mask on or they will call someone who cares, I guess.
Sometimes I want to get off this ride. Why can't people wear a mask if they chose to? Not everyone with a mask is going to cause violence and the same holds true for not wearing a mask.
I realize it is not a popular opinion, but I still get to have my opinion. I was never comfortable wearing a mask, but I still wore one when I was around people.
Now people seem to handle COVID in a nonchalant kind of way and I don’t find that too comforting