[Mountain_Skies]

Ego and the belief it could be used against them in campaigns this year will keep most politicians from allowing a change in public health policy due to the results in the paper. "We need more studies" likely will be how they proceed though there's a chance they'll simply try to discredit the authors and discourage anyone else from finding similar results.

[AnimalMuppet]

They will get destroyed in the election with that approach. Instead, I think they're looking for a way to declare victory and stop the masks and quarantines. In fact, I think I see signs of them pivoting to that already.

[elil17]

But this isn’t even a study - it’s one person’s interpretation of a variety of studies, none of which directly show what he is suggesting. In this case, more research is literally needed to have any sort of answer to the question the author is bringing up.

[berenza]

while you wait for more research, i suggest looking at the countries that have ended their mandates this year, and how they are doing, as a cheap and expedient form of research into the question of how useful mandates are.

[mlyle]

We're talking about the efficacy of vaccination in preventing infection. I assume you're talking about ending mask mandates, which seems like a bit of a silly thing to bring up.

[berenza]

you could do it for any covid-related public health measure or mandate, depending on the places you compared. denmark and sweden and norway and the UK are all ending, or have ended, all restrictions this quarter. i recall other countries (and states in the US) have done similar at different times in the past 2 years, but i'm not feeling like googling them right now.

[mlyle]

That doesn't seem to be a reasonable kind of logic-- "some places are choosing to end mask mandates, therefore vaccines don't work."

[berenza]

who are you quoting?