CDC Mask Mandate Study... Debunked
- Thread starter coloradonoles
- Start date
Why, then, is he citing a military study which has NOTHING to do with assessment of "mask effectiveness"?
In fact, the outcomes of that study - 2% total infected, clearly indicate the opposite.
This is an OP ED; NOT a journal submission
The CDC’s Mask Mandate Study: Debunked – AIER
www.aier.org
Who said it was?This is an OP ED; NOT a journal submission
The CDC’s Mask Mandate Study: Debunked – AIER
It's clowning on the CDC... just like I clown on you.
You did. You're citing it as something debunking CDC science.
It is an Op Ed on masks, printed in an economics journal.
And the ONLY reason it's published there, is they could not print it in anything scientifically peer-reviewed.
You're too gullible to understand the difference. It's why you get dunked on so much here.
You didn't read the study either... lol
A total of 1848 recruits volunteered to participate in the study.... within 2 days...16 (0.9%) tested positive for SARS-CoV-2, 15 of whom were asymptomatic. An additional 35 participants (1.9%) tested positive on day 7 or on day 14.
Break here for some math for you... .9 + 1.9 = 2.8% of participants were positive after 14 days. In the study.
Of the recruits who declined to participate in the study, 26 (1.7%) of the 1554 recruits with available qPCR results tested positive on day 14.
Some more math.... 2.8 is greater than 1.7. Not in the study.
The recruits who engaged in a STRICT 2 week quarantine had a HIGHER positivity rate than those who did not.
During the supervised quarantine, public health measures were enforced to suppress SARS-CoV-2 transmission .... All recruits wore double-layered cloth masks at all times indoors and outdoors, except when sleeping or eating; practiced social distancing of at least 6 feet; were not allowed to leave campus; did not have access to personal electronics and other items that might contribute to surface transmission; and routinely washed their hands.
Even if you took the .9% who could have caught it before the 2nd quarantine started they STILL had a higher infection rate!!!
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So masks work when you’re isolated from others, but are ineffective when you’re not.
In other words, they don’t work.
“..evidence from 14 randomized controlled trials of these measures did not support a substantial effect on transmission....”
It’s science!
I think the author assumed that the non-participants were maskless during the quarantining at the base. That appears to be an incorrect assumption.
It appears that the military believed it works and are satisfied with only a 2.0% positivity rate after 14 days of living with roommates and sharing meals.
Guthrie County, Iowa has that beat. Just 1% positivity rate with no masks required.
There are no towns, schools or homes where people congregate?
Churches? Casey's? Grain elevators?
Bars? Restaurants? Stores?
So... should places where there are only 10 people per SM be required to wear a mask?
It wouldn't do any good. Those places are full of people who "know the risks" and who don't listen to anything anyway. But yeah I dont see why masks wouldn't work to limit the spread when they gather indoors in groups with people who have been traveling back and forth to Des Moines (because they know the risks and are willing to take them).
So how should mandates be handled in that situation? Should it still be at the state level, should it be at the county or local level, or should it be handled by individual businesses?
Yes. I did.
Has nothing to do with "masks".
Has everything to do with "proximity", which was already noted.
I do think that which is one of my biggest complaints about DeSantis. He has taken local control away.
A
anon_89hvcc2uyzmki
Guest
The right type of mask and setting can help slow spread of viral diseases. Nobody should be forced to wear a mask against their will.
Actually, I was asking what you think is best?
Certainly, DeSantis was at odds with mayors in SoFla. I think the fear was they would go too far with restrictions, like closing beaches in the summer. I don't know what the right approach should have been, but it seems a lot of politicians were extreme, one way or another. Georgia's governor seemed to get it right. When he reopened various businesses, a long list of rules came along with each category of business.
People applauded DeSantis when he wouldn't inpose a statewide mask mandate because it gave the local officials the ability to govern their area the way they felt was best. Those same people say nothing now that he has taken that away entirely. He shouldn't be able to have it both ways.
It's probably splitting hairs, but he didn't take away the local ability to mandate. He took away the ability to criminalize or fine people and businesses for non-compliance. Pensacola still has a mandate, but it's not enforceable by the police. Businesses are able to use it as leverage though.
No. He took away the ability to mandate. Broward County tried to place a curfew on bars. They sued and won due to the language in DeSantis' EO.
Judge opens the door to late-night bars at a time when COVID-19 is raging
A federal court has rejected Broward County’s curfew on bars and restaurants, raising the possibility that nightclubs in much of Florida could operate through the night as COVID-19 rages. The…
www.sun-sentinel.com
Just FTR, the OP's op-ed is penned by perhaps the only person kicked out of the Trump administration for over-zealously defending POTUS.
Let's get to know Mr. Alexander...
Paul Alexander is a Canadian health researcher and a former Trump administration official at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. He attracted attention in 2020 when, as an aide to HHS assistant secretary for public affairs Michael Caputo, he participated in efforts by the administration to control COVID-19 messaging from federal scientists and public health agencies.[1] Within the administration, Alexander advocated for a strategy of mass infection of the public with COVID-19 to build herd immunity.[2] He advocated for colleges to be open with the goal of mass infecting infants, kids, teens, and young adults.[2] He sought to muzzle federal scientists and public health agencies to prevent them from contradicting the rhetoric coming from the Trump administration.[3]
Not a great opening paragraph for your Wikipedia entry. And since @coloradonoles loves to tout Mr. Alexander's bona fides:
McMaster University also distanced itself from Alexander, saying, "As a consultant, he is not speaking on behalf of McMaster University or the Department of Health Research Methods, Evidence, and Impact."[5]
It's fun to criticize the CDC for flip-flopping, but Alexander was the reason why:
Two days after Alexander was ousted and Caputo went on leave, the CDC reversed its much-criticized statement saying that asymptomatic people who have been in close contact with a person infected with the coronavirus did not need to receive COVID-19 testing;[39] the statement had been forced through at the direction of HHS leadership and the White House over the objections of scientists and without going through the usual CDC scientific review process.[40]
And finally:
In an interview with the Toronto Globe and Mail after his departure from HHS, Alexander defended his actions, stating that he had wanted the CDC to make their reports "more upbeat so that people would feel more confident going out and spending money", and that he "did not think agencies should contradict any president's policy".[15] Alexander also asserted that he was better suited than CDC scientists to assess data, saying: "None of those people have my skills. I make the judgment whether this is crap."[10][2]
The guy is a nut.
Let's assume he's a nut. What was incorrect in the article he wrote?
I'm struggling to understand your point here. Masks are for when people gather with others - it really makes no difference how sparsely populated an area might be. Fifty people side-by-side in a church is...fifty people side-by-side in a church. One positive case is all it takes to make that a potential super-spreader event regardless of population density.
I don't know. But I know that it flies in the face of tens of thousands of experts that are smarter than me, smarter than him, and smarter than you. And that he has an agenda and a history of pushing that agenda even when it is contradicted by scientific consensus. Oh, and he definitely has an axe out for the CDC. If someone is going to espouse something that contradicts basic tenets of their field, their data should be iron clad and their reputation squeaky clean. He is neither.
The question is, why do OP & you give him any credence at all? He is yet another example of conservatives & conspiracy theorists finding that one, singular guy/gal that says "the entire world has got this (health, climate, economics, evolution, etc) thing wrong and only my position is the correct one". And they hoist this person up, as if a single person can outsmart an entire discipline, just because they're saying what some folks want to hear.
I've got an idea...next time you go in for invasive surgery, make sure you tell everyone in the operating room to forgo masks since they do nothing to protect you from their exhalations.
The assumption that it was a mask v maskless study.
It's amazing. In the country that has had the worst response to covid in the civilized world we still have people arguing against even the crap mitigation that we have managed to get in place.
Yeah, masks don't work. That's why next time I'm getting surgery done I'm going to demand that all the medical staff remove theirs!!!
Morons. We're a country of morons.
Yeah, masks don't work. That's why next time I'm getting surgery done I'm going to demand that all the medical staff remove theirs!!!
Morons. We're a country of morons.
That’s certainly a moronic statement. Comparing working on an open body cavity to picking up some eggs at the grocery store.
Yes. Every recruit was masked, socially distant (as can be), quarantined. The recruits who did not participate were only tested at the end of 2 weeks. All the study proved was the spread was most likely between roommates and members of the same platoon.
