Beldar Conehead cites a small randomized study on the effect of wearing masks on the wearer saying “In other words, the preponderance of evidence still shows that masks have virtually no impact on viral transmission. This is NOT the conclusion of the study. The study only assessed the personal protective effect of a mask intervention, not the potential for masks to hamper spread of the virus to others. Conehead says “The first randomized controlled trial1,2 to assess the effectiveness of surgical face masks against SARS-CoV-2 infection specifically — which journals initially refused to publish — is finally seeing the light of day.” This is an example of a little knowledge being dangerous. The study was too small to detect a moderate effect on the individual’s wearing of a mask It did find an 18% reduction in risk but this was not statistically significant due to the relatively small sample size; the data is consistent with a decrease as high as 46%. An accompanying editorial in the journal says “results of this trial should motivate widespread mask wearing to protect our communities and thereby ourselves while we await more definitive evidence during this pandemic.”
Conehead says “we are destroying economies and lives around the world, for what, exactly? To protect a small minority from getting a positive PCR test result” What nonsense!!! 300,000 people have died from the virus in the US>
We have known all along that the main benefit of mask wearing is preventing transmission to others; the incidence of infection in the Trump circle where mask wearing is denigrated supports this. You can read more about this in
https://www.factcheck.org/2020/11/danish-study-doesnt-prove-masks-dont-work-against-the-coronavirus/
Date: Mon, 14 Dec 2020 12:12:55 -0500
From: Elliot Cramer
Subject: effectiveness of wearing masks – Lies, damn lies, and statistics