[dkonofalski]

This thread looks like it's being astro-turfed by supporters of Vinay Prasad and the nonsense he keeps peddling. There are plenty of studies showing that masks work and that they reduce transmission and spread and there are even studies that show that mask mandates have a drastic positive effect in limiting community transmission and spread.

[dang]

Breaking the site guidelines like this will get you banned here, regardless of how wrong someone else is or you feel they are.

Between this comment, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29419551, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29423080, and https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29419708, you went way over the line and well into bannable offense. You've also been posting flamewar comments elsewhere too. That's not gooo.

If you'd please review https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and stick to the rules when posting here, we'd appreciate it.

[timr]

"Astroturfed"...that's hilarious. I'm a real person. I've been on the site for years. I think for myself and read and interpret data. Big Vinay Prasad is not paying me to come here and spread the gospel of randomized controlled trials and rigorous science.

If you disagree with the data, you're more than welcome to bring rigorous arguments to the debate, and not merely propaganda.

> There are plenty of studies showing that masks work and that they reduce transmission and spread and there are even studies that show that mask mandates have a drastic positive effect in limiting community transmission and spread.

And, as noted, the vast majority of those "studies" are terrible, and the good studies show the opposite.

This is not a game of collecting "papers", and the side with the most papers wins. They're not monopoly money or science points. You have to read them and understand the details. A paper that uses biased or flawed methodology (i.e. most mask studies) is useless for drawing conclusions.

[harpersealtako]

I don't know who that is, the reason I'm skeptical is the sheer amount of cofounders in most observational studies. My pre-pandemic prior was slightly positive towards masking, strongly negative towards government mask mandates.

My personal totally subjective risk estimates after reading a ton of studies and metanalyses is that n95 masks probably reduce transmission at least somewhat (90% confidence), surgical masks probably have a weak or negligible effect (50% confidence), and cloth masks probably don't work at all (50% confidence).

I personally still wear a surgical mask while at work, at the hospital/doctor's office, and in crowded spaces I expect to be in for a long time such as the DMV, airplanes, trains. I don't wear a mask outdoors, in grocery stores and convenience stores, or when visiting family members. I am moderately against government-imposed mask mandates (both for science-based reasons and ideological reasons) though I do comply with them when they are imposed.