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.
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 on slightly.
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 the data. That is a perfect example of the horrible, flawed methodology that has been getting published all year.
The mechanism by which masks would reduce transmission has been repeatedly studied in a laboratory environment, so in the absence of a properly designed randomized control trial, the prior should be that it works. Instead, in this thread, you have cherry picked tortured data and used flawed methodologies to say that they don't work. Saying that there are similar poor studies on the other side does not update my prior.
I have “cherry picked“ nothing. That’s the data from the study. The researchers picked the start date, arbitrarily, to produce the outcome they liked. It’s obvious.
By the way: there was a randomized controlled trial for masks and covid published just recently. They were able to detect no statistically significant protective effect:
I was referring to other studies that cherry picked for your position you posted "in this thread," not that study that supposedly cherry picked for the pro-mask position.
The study you just linked to is an excellent example of using poor methodology to support your position. If a study is not powered to detect the expected change (for the mask wearer, which is expected to be very small) with full compliance, I would certainly not expect to get a statistically significant result with partial compliance. It did not attempt to measure the effect on transmission from the mask wearer to others at all.
Nothing is stopping anyone from doing what they think makes sense to them -- scientific studies should still be just that though, following sound principles to be able to draw realistic conclusions. If we use flawed studies to convince others that something is true, that doesn't seem fine to me.
Most studies are flawed. We don't know that Vitamin D works. We also don't know that it doesn't work.
Therefore, we need to consider either possibilities. Given that it is such a low-risk intervention, even a 99% chance that Vitamin D doesn't work would make supplementing worthwhile.
No offense, but this logic makes no sense to me. It's like, most studies are flawed so let's try random things I saw on the internet in hopes they might help. I don't get it. Don't really care if someone takes Vitamin D but don't get this argument/logic. That's ok, I'll move on.
It's not "a random thing on the internet". The Vitamin D correlation has been observed early in the pandemic. Most people are generally deficient and should supplement either way.
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 point than the stomach through the mouth.
Whether vitamin D has any effect is still very much unknown.
"(CNN) World Health Organization officials Monday said they still recommend people not wear face masks unless they are sick with Covid-19 or caring for someone who is sick.
"There is no specific evidence to suggest that the wearing of masks by the mass population has any potential benefit. In fact, there's some evidence to suggest the opposite in the misuse of wearing a mask properly or fitting it properly," Dr. Mike Ryan, executive director of the WHO health emergencies program, said at a media briefing in Geneva, Switzerland, on Monday."
Certain institutions seem to use the epistemic standard "if something hasn't been rigorously proven to be a good idea, then you shouldn't do it". It's the kind of logic that, consistently applied, would say you shouldn't use parachutes in skydiving because there haven't been randomized controlled studies establishing their effectiveness. I think this is what incrudible is arguing against.
How did such logic take hold in the first place? My first guess is that it's something like, that's the type of logic that lets them definitively say "you shouldn't take xyz homeopathic remedy" instead of "well, our expert doctor says he doesn't expect it to help but he can't completely rule it out, and there isn't any good evidence that it does work".
The point is that half of all carriers and many of the superspreaders are "asymptomatic" as far as they are concerned so how would you know if you were sick to protect others or yourself. That article sounded fairly idiotic then and still does now. Would you want your surgeon operating on you without a mask? Why not? Should they wash their hands, if they think they're clean?
This, to me, sounds like the people who claim seat belts cause more deaths than they prevent because they think "being thrown clear of the car" in an accident is safer than being inside during the crash.
I wash my mask with soap after every use, and let it dwell in the soap for half a minute or so. When the weather is right for it, I leave it in the sun to dry. I have a small collection of masks that I rotate through. How infrequently do you disinfect your mask that you worry about it being a petri dish?
Secondly, those gross things you mention at the end were already inside your mouth and lungs. If they are infectious, you probably already have the infection.
I've been following all the COVID related studies (via /r/COVID19, which is one of very few Reddit subs I've found worthwhile) and there is an incredible abundance of garbage studies about COVID19 in general. Tiny sample sizes and ridiculous methodologies run wild. It's unfortunate because some of them get reported on by lazy media and muddy the waters on several things that might reduce the diseases severity.
I hope some bored science writer someday makes a book compiling and critiquing some of the ridiculous "studies" that got written during the pandemic.
I appreciated the linked article's subtle shade-throwing:
> As for Vitamin D administration to hospitalized COVID-19 patients reducing ICU admission, the best one can say about the Córdoba study is that nothing can be learned from it.