[iso1631]

It's interesting how Scotland, which kept a mask mandate, and England, which dropped it, affected cases.

From start to end of October, cases per 100k, 7 day average

Glasgow -- 300->220

Edinburgh -- 210->250

Manchester -- 290->220

Birmingham -- 250->280

4 similar cities, two with mask mandates, two without.

And smaller ones

Aberdeen -- 267->330

Southampton -- 300->410

Perth -- 320->260

Hereford -- 290->580

So there may be something there, would need more data to really see, but it certainly isn't a glowing mandate for masks

[roywiggins]

There's already data that shows masks work.

https://med.stanford.edu/news/all-news/2021/09/surgical-mask...

[iso1631]

Perhaps, but given there's doesn't seem to be a clear difference between Scotland and England, that leads to questions like

1) Were people in Scotland (with higher masking) being less cautious in other areas (washing hands, staying further away, etc)

2) Was the weather worse in Scotland, leading to more closed windows

3) Are people in Scotland more likely to be tested and thus more cases caught

The problem I have is that

The Scientific method comes out with great studies (wearing masks, all things being equal, reduces transmission)

That leads to a prediction (enforcing masks reduces cases figures)

That prediction doesn't hold out (Scottish cases figures)

So we need to revisit the prediction,

1) Does a mask mandate increase mask usage (anecdotally it appears so, but I only went to Glasgow and Manchester in October)

2) Does increased mask usage lead to other behaviours which would increase risk

3) Does increased mask usage lead to more awareness in testing

4) Do anti mask people go round licking door handles to try to spread covid to prove their points

These are perfectly valid questions, yet you can't ask them, because half the responses will be some idiotic cultish anti-mask covid denier, and the others will be some cultish mask worshiper

[defaultprimate]

https://boriquagato.substack.com/p/bangladesh-mask-study-do-...

https://wwwnc.cdc.gov/eid/article/26/5/19-0994_article

"At present there is only limited and inconsistent scientific evidence to support the effectiveness of masking of healthy people in the community to prevent infection with respiratory viruses, including SARS-CoV-2 (75). A large randomized community-based trial in which 4862 healthy participants were divided into a group wearing medical/surgical masks and a control group found no difference in infection with SARS-CoV-2 (76). A recent systematic review found nine trials (of which eight were cluster-randomized controlled trials in which clusters of people, versus individuals, were randomized) comparing medical/surgical masks versus no masks to prevent the spread of viral respiratory illness. Two trials were with healthcare workers and seven in the community. The review concluded that wearing a mask may make little or no difference to the prevention of influenza-like illness (ILI) (RR 0.99, 95%CI 0.82 to 1.18) or laboratory confirmed illness (LCI) (RR 0.91, 95%CI 0.66-1.26) (44); the certainty of the evidence was low for ILI, moderate for LCI."

https://apps.who.int/iris/bitstream/handle/10665/337199/WHO-...

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7546829/

[roywiggins]

Look, I'm not qualified to evaluate a study like this, but between Science and "el gato malo" published on Substack, I think I'm going to have to go with Science on this one, pending some recognized expert in the field with a human name saying otherwise.

[mikeyouse]

The author of the study that the bad cat is trying to discredit wrote a long, persuasive rebuttal to the simplistic critiques he's been reading on Tyler Cowen's blog;

https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2021/11/ja...

They saw a significant reduction in covid presence in communities with more masking -- even though total masking was still only 40% in those communities -- which is very much in line with all the other literature.

I literally can't believe people still pretend like masks (especially surgical/KN95s) don't protect people when it's completely self-evident since we've used them forever to protect people in medical settings.

[defaultprimate]

It doesn't address the primary criticisms of the bad cat, and you should really read the comments on the article you linked, as well as they meta-analyses I provided on mask effectiveness when it comes to respiratory illnesses in healthcare and community settings.

They don't work, at all, across decades of research and dozens of studies. They're not going to magically start working for COVID when they haven't worked for the flu or any other respiratory virus in the past.

>forever to protect people in medical settings.

Surgical masks in medical settings are designed to protect from bacterial infections, not viral ones.

[mikeyouse]

> and you should really read the comments on the article you linked, as well as they meta-analyses I provided on mask effectiveness when it comes to respiratory illnesses in healthcare and community settings.

Unfortunately, Tyler Cowen's blog has worse Covid commentary than even HN does, which is pretty impressive given the amount of HCQ/Ivermectin/bioweapon conspiracy theorizing here.

> Surgical masks in medical settings are designed to protect from bacterial infections, not viral ones.

This is patently untrue.. you're not one of those "virus particles can fit through masks" people are you? As just one example of how obvious it is that masks protect against viruses in HCW from the last SARS outbreak;

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7112437/

[ineedasername]

you should really read the comments on the article you linked

Even if I disagree with TC on something, I still think he's pretty much intellectually honest, i.e., is not beholden to one political agenda or another simply because it matches his world view or completely unaware of competing data. And he often does a good job in striking a balance on ideology & practicality (State Capacity Libertarianism comes to mind)

However the comments section on MR are often a hot mess of cherry picking or misinformation parroted back by people trying emulate TC's style without anything approaching his intellectual rigor.

[defaultprimate]

Skepticism and methodological criticism are definitionally "science". Not cult like faith. Ad hominems and appeals to authority are not valid arguments.

[roywiggins]

Paying more attention to information in a peer-reviewed journal than information in a pseudonymous substack is not "cult-like faith." Of course the study could be wrong.

[defaultprimate]

The study is not and has not passed peer review.

[sjg007]

There are plenty of scientific studies showing that masks work.

[kansface]

Obviously, the material a mask is made from stops medium sized particles from flowing through some highish percentage of the time. No good faith actor is disputing that. Studies don't control for real world usage, actual public adoption, actual masks, etc. They also do not control for changes in behavior that we'd expect to occur contemporaneously to the time periods mask mandates are adopted (ie, during spikes in infection). When infections go up, I personally stop going places where lots of people congregate - a huge percentage of people change their behavior in ways that are both germane and impossible to track in response to perceived risk. They also do not or can not control for the differences in behavior in the societies that can actually adopt and enforce mask mandates in the first place; ie, a city that refuses a mandate in the face of a spike has citizens that are more risk tolerate (or something) as compared to eg SF.

[adolph]

I think the number analyzing actual mask usage is fewer than you’d think.

[spookthesunset]

All conducted in the heat of the moment where saying anything that gives the slightest wiff of "masks don't work" gets you shunned, your career destroyed, and all social media platforms labeling your content as "misinformation".

Yeah... I'm sure all these studies done post-2019 are totally legit though.

[iso1631]

But do they show how much mask mandates work in the real world, do they explain why Edinburgh and Glasgow are indistingishable from Mancehster and Birmingham in numbers of cases detected?

[Aloha]

I think in reality, COVID fatigue has set in, and thats the issue.

[iso1631]

Via what mechanism? Were people not wearing masks in Scotland despite the mandate? Were they wearing masks in England despite no mandate? Is there enough difference in behaviour between Glasgow and Manchester to explain the difference?