It seems incredible to me that if I said "I used to get colds and lung infections all the time but I started gargling with pond water and now I'm much healthier" people would try it, and if I say that actually I got healthier when I started wearing masks, they act like I'm a fucking lunatic.

@detachedspork I am a massive fan of masks, i think, like reading glasses, they are a wee minor miracle, a wee bit of paper over your gob and lives can be saved! Miracle!

@ritawild @detachedspork

🤣 I might use that one: “Why are you afraid of a wee bit of paper over your gob?”

@ritawild @detachedspork

Interesting that the first “face diaper” troll I get on Mastodon is from an instance that is “A Mastodon instance for scholars in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) and all yearning to learn.”
Sigh… the honeymoon was nice while it lasted.
…and of course it’s wonderful to know there’s no algorithm maliciously amplifying this voice; my condolences to anyone who has them in their local feed.

@DavidM_yeg @ritawild @detachedspork

There is a beauty to the randomness of the #fediverse that breaks the darkness of the echo chambers of cults, social conformity and politics. It spreads the light of science and facts, like this major study on this topic:
https://www.cochranelibrary.com/cdsr/doi/10.1002/14651858.CD006207.pub6/full

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-11702865/Masks-make-little-no-difference-Covid-infections-massive-cross-country-meta-analysis-finds.html

#masks #COVID #facemask #covid19

@voidabyss @ritawild @detachedspork

You should actually read the review rather than just spreading pretty pictures about it. Lots of red flags, including:

“Many studies were conducted during non‐epidemic influenza periods. […] in the context of lower respiratory viral circulation and transmission”
“The risk of bias for the RCTs and cluster‐RCTs was mostly high or unclear”

Not to mention that there are many ways to study the effectiveness of masks beyond RTCs

@DavidM_yeg @ritawild @detachedspork

Cherry picking bits and pieces of a meta analysis is not "reading".

Why didn't you cherry pick this part for example:

> The pooled results of RCTs did not show a clear reduction in respiratory viral infection with the use of medical/surgical masks. There were no clear differences between the use of medical/surgical masks compared with N95/P2 respirators in healthcare workers when used in routine care to reduce respiratory viral infection.

Since you like "reading" so much, I would like to share with you two more research publications on this subject:

- Respiratory Performance Offered by N95 Respirators and Surgical Masks: Human Subject Evaluation with NaCl Aerosol Representing Bacterial and Viral Particle Size Range

https://academic.oup.com/annweh/article/52/3/177/312528?login=false

>Most of the tested N95 respirators and surgical masks in this study were observed to perform at their worst against particles approximately between 0.04 and 0.2 μm, which includes the sizes of coronavirus and influenza virus.

- The Foegen effect
A mechanism by which facemasks contribute to the COVID-19 case fatality rate

https://journals.lww.com/md-journal/Fulltext/2022/02180/The_Foegen_effect__A_mechanism_by_which_facemasks.60.aspx

> This study revealed that wearing facemasks might impose a great risk on individuals, which would not be mitigated by a reduction in the infection rate. The use of facemasks, therefore, might be unfit, if not contraindicated, as an epidemiologic intervention against COVID-19.

@voidabyss @ritawild @detachedspork

“Cherry picking bits and pieces of a meta analysis is not “reading”.

I wasn’t cherry picking, I was quoting the *authors’ own conclusions*

🙄