[ThTh1] So yesterday my Twitter feet lit up with the claim. Masks don’t work. Even the New York Times says so!
The most rigorous and comprehensive analysis of scientific studies conducted on the efficacy of masks for reducing the spread of respiratory illnesses — including Covid-19 — was published late last month. Its conclusions, said Tom Jefferson, the Oxford epidemiologist who is its lead author, were unambiguous.
“There is just no evidence that they” — masks — “make any difference,” he told the journalist Maryanne Demasi. “Full stop.”
But, wait, hold on. What about N-95 masks, as opposed to lower-quality surgical or cloth masks?
“Makes no difference — none of it,” said Jefferson.
What about the studies that initially persuaded policymakers to impose mask mandates?
“They were convinced by nonrandomized studies, flawed observational studies.”
What about the utility of masks in conjunction with other preventive measures, such as hand hygiene, physical distancing or air filtration?
“There’s no evidence that many of these things make any difference.”
Wow. This must be definitive right? Doctors have been wearing masks for no reason. We imagined that a strain of flu was straight up murdered by anti-COVID measures. It’s over? Masks are kaput?
Not quite.
If you look at the actual study, such bold conclusions are … a bit suspect. It combines 78 studies but only six were done during the pandemic and only two looked specifically at COVID-19 and masking. Moreover, it looked at mask mandates not necessarily masking itself. This has long been a confounding factor in studies of the efficacy of masks because because people don’t always comply with mandates and many people mask without them. Even the study itself concedes this in its conclusions, saying “The high risk of bias in the trials, variation in outcome measurement, and relatively low adherence with the interventions during the studies hampers drawing firm conclusions.”
Given that, why is the lead author making such definitive statements? Well, because he has a long history of saying things like the flu vaccine doesn’t work (it does) and that the COVID-19 virus didn’t emerge from China (it did). He has associated himself with the Great Barrington crowed and runs a substack where he repeats anti-mask talking points. So it’s no surprise that while the paper is very circumspect in its conclusions, his statements are far from it.
As pointed out by Kelsey Piper, the biggest study in the sample showed fairly conclusively that masks worked. And this Twitter thread runs through the fundamental reasons why masks probably work. However, in the end, to borrow a phrase from Starslate Codex, it’s difficult to do randomized control studies of masks for the same reasons it’s difficult to do them of parachutes. You can’t convince someone they’re wearing a mask when they are not. The best we can do is try to monitor compliance in different communities and see how fast diseases spread. But monitoring mask compliance is difficult in a free society so here we are.
There are more specific confounding factors with COVID-19. Different states, cities and countries had different set of policies and, in the middle of the pandemic, vaccines were rolled out that were far more effective than masks. So the question of mask effectiveness may not only be unanswered, it may not be answerable.
In the end, I stand by my recommendation that people should mask when COVID or flu or at high levels and preferably with N-95 masks. There is little evidence that it does harm, good evidence that it does some good and lots of evidence that the people telling you they are useless either have an agenda or don’t know what they’re talking about. Or both.
[ThTh2] I’ve been hearing my entire life that robots are going to take over our lives. I’ll believe it when I see it.
[ThTh3] Sometimes science leads us to terrible but inevitable conclusions.
[ThTh4] Or good ones if, like me, you drink lots of Cokes.
[ThTh5] More data from JWST is showing that galaxies formed faster than we though, building up to large sizes fairly quickly. This is why we built the thing.
[ThTh6] You my have heard that vaccines are increasing infant mortality. What you heard was nonsense. Anti-vaxxers lie. It’s what they do.
[ThTh7] And speaking of the Great Barrington folks … they’re finally admitting they got it wrong.
[ThTh8] Exhibit 4,321 of why you shouldn’t get your science coverage from The Daily Fail. The science is that, when we detected the source of a gravitational wave event a few years back, we figured out the mystery of how gold is made in the cosmos. It comes from the smashing together of two neutron stars — the shriveled husks of dead massive stars. Recently, we identified a system in our own Galaxy that may one day — millions of years from now — suffer the same fate. When it does, the debris will enrich our galaxy with heavy elements, including gold. The Daily Mail’s headline? It will “shower space with gold”.
I’m just glad they didn’t go for the other phrasing.
[ThTh9] We know about aurorae on Earth. We now about them on other planets like Jupiter. Now we’re finding them on moons.
[ThTh10] Now that’s an acknowledgement.
I’m still vaguely irritated that there haven’t been more mask studies. I’ve mentioned the Nature Study ad nauseum and it concluded that N95 and KN95 masks worked, two-layer t-shirt masks released expiratory particles, and one-layer masks released a *LOT* of expiratory particles.
Large-scale studies showed that surgical masks worked well and cloth masks “fell short“.
You probably remember the WaPo story that explained how gaiters were worse than nothing and then a whole bunch of fallout where the scientists said “THAT’S NOT WHAT WE WERE TESTING!” and then Scientific American explained how screwed up everything got from the get-go because the reporting on the study was awful and scientists aren’t great communicators. Here’s the last line from the story: “Training scientists to effectively communicate to, or at least think about, diverse audiences is a necessary part of science.”
But I still think that the most damage was done by politicians who didn’t follow their own mandates.
How important is the mandate? Oh. I see.Report
Let’s also remember that PART of the gov’t policy was to LIE to the Americana public that masks were not needed because Fauci was concerned there wasn’t enough PPE for doctors and nurses. Since the admin didn’t walk that back publicly, it’s de facto endorsement. Let’s also remember that at first it was any mask, then not cloth, then N95, so, based only on what was coming out as recommendations, they didn’t know or were so disorganized, they couldn’t find a hole in their head.Report
We bought cloth masks from a small batch artisanal mask maker. The doctors and nurses could get their PPE, we would still be protected.
They were pretty nice masks, all told. Steamed up my glasses but, hey. What can you do? We’re all in this together.Report
I wore a mask in stores when it was mandatory. Stopped after. My gym basically ignored the mandate. The owner said “do what you want”. No one wore one. Some kids still wear them today, but no one else has in quite a long timeReport
LOL. At least we’ve found a way to bring new commenters to this site.Report
ThTh1:
The conclusion is obvious that masking works, but mandates only work to the extent we comply with them, or not. And in America there were and are vast swaths of the populace who refuse to wear them.Report
Mayors, for one.
Chip, are you still masking?Report
Now that I am triple vaxxed I only mask when I am in a congested place like a subway car.
Why do you ask?Report
Only triple vaxxed?
I ask because I saw “people who refuse to wear them” and I have trouble telling the difference between “people who refuse to wear them” and “people who have measured the risk and come to the conclusion that the pandemic is very close to being over and close to being over to the point where they don’t mask anymore.”
Did you hear that Biden is going to say the emergency is over in May? That’s great news! Dark Brandon beat the virus!Report
“Now that I am triple vaxxed I only mask when…”
so, no, not maskingReport
arguably, in some places, the whiff of “mandates” made it worse: hence the people (allegedly) throwing screaming fits in the Target that they then posted online, for “clout”
(“clout” will be the death of us).
I dunno. I wore a mask until early this year, I’ve mostly stopped. Still wear one at my doctor’s office because they ask people to, it makes absolute sense to me to in a medical setting, and I am not an a-hole. But I got REALLY weary of walking into the wal-mart in one, getting the stink-eye and wide berth (I guess they thought I was infectious?) from unmasked folks.
And yes, before anyone asks: the regular 2-shot series, 2 regular boosters, and bivalent booster, and if recommended, will get the annual booster “like the flu shot” that’s currently being developed.
I’d still wear one if I were visiting someone at very high risk of bad COVID. I’d still wear one if asked. But I’ve mostly stopped.
I don’t GO congested places so that’s not an issue. I don’t go to movie theaters and very rarely go to restaurants any more. Mostly go to work, the store, and church – which has less than 50 people any given sunday and a big sanctuary
I will say the whole fight over masks, and all the ugliness I heard people spouting (on both sides, to an extent, but one side more than the other) REALLY has soured me on humanity, I’m at least 75% more misanthropic than I was before 2020. Probably will serve me well when the bird flu pandemic gets going, I can remind myself “people, faugh, who needs them” as I nail my front door shut from the inside.Report
If you want to retain even a shred of love for humanity, don’t move to Idaho:
Idaho bill would criminalize giving mRNA vaccines – the tech used in popular COVID vaccines
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2023/02/21/idaho-mrna-covid-19-vaccines/11316055002/Report
that’s gonna make treating cancer a tad problematic, since mRNA is likely the tech that will deliver effective new cancer treatments.Report
that cannot possibly be legal/constitutional. The vaccines are voluntary. If this goes anywhere, some states need to quickly make being “vaccine sanctuary” states a thing indelibly in their constitution before the madness spreads. Man, we’re on a headlong path to go back to the 1300s, aren’t we?Report
They let states have their own controlled substances lists, which may have more or fewer drugs than the federal CSA, with similar or wildly different schedules. The SCOTUS seems inclined these days to allow the states greater freedom from federal regulation, at least in conservative directions.Report
You’re right, on the theory that such a law lacks a rational basis for the promotion of health and public safety. But the Idaho Legislature hasn’t worried about the rational basis test for decades. Why should they start now?Report
I masked religiously with K95 masks. I got my vaccines and boosters as soon as possible. I got COVID anyway and said “screw it, it’s not worth it,” and ended up giving up on masks. I still got my fourth vaccine dose. I was going to get it the end of last year, but I caught COVID, so I waited a few months. Came down with COVID the third time when I got the vaccine (unfortunate timing). I initially thought it was just my reaction to the vaccine, but it kept getting worse.
That being said, every time I have gotten COVID, it was milder than the previous time. I have not had any long-term effects (to the best of my knowledge).Report
Which is a success story.
Masks on the unvaccinated help prevent getting it. The vaccines make getting it milder. And continuing masking in congested spaces helps prevent transmitting a mild case to those who might be immunocompromised, a case for whom it may be fatal.Report
Would the study’s author consent to open heart surgery by unmasked surgeons and nurses? No, he certainly would not. He would find some benefit to masking in such a situation.
Oh wait, we’ve all been having this discussion since April of 2020. Well, I guess the horse ain’t dead yet.Report
ThTH10 – may we all have such neighbors!Report
ThTh10: thank goodness now, with cheap thumbdrives and the cloud we really not worry about that. Back in the day I knew someone who thought he was going to become a famous writer; he kept his drafts on his hard drive but also regularly backed up (twice) to floppies (remember those?), one of which he kept in a different building from his computer, the other which he kept in his safety deposit box.
Most of my “important” files are teaching stuff and I am trusting the campus cloud to hang on to them for me.
(when I do write, the first draft is longhand, and often I do the editing longhand. It’s how I think)Report
[ThTh8] And Zeus will cheat with hot chicks all over the galaxy.Report
ThTh10 — I have a new hero and his name is Gary. What an absolute chad.Report
Seriously, I’d be making holiday cookies for him for sure!Report
Tradeoffs:
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