Accounting for daily tests, the mask mandate is actually significantly related to an increase in positive tests of about 1.7%. Daily tests has the expected relationship to positivity rates—more testing tends to lower them.
Does this mean that the mask mandate has had a negative impact on the state’s COVID rates? Likely not. But when the effect is in the wrong direction, we can be relatively certain that the mandate has not had the intended impact of mitigating the virus.
When I shared some science about how non-surgical masks increased Influenza infection rates in controlled real-world events, the silence from the “Science, Facts, Experts” gang was amazing. That science came from the CDC. I remember one person bringing up some irrelevant and mildly racist comment about an author of one of the studies being a Hong Kong native.
You’ll find more of the same here Owen, “Science, Facts, Experts” gang only uses Convenient Science, not All Science.
Randall Flagg
on August 20, 2020 at 10:40 am
relatively certain that the mandate has not had the intended impact of mitigating the virus.
Um, no you cannot, as the analysis doesn’t control for other factors that could be leading to the rise. The mask mandate could be keeping us from even higher numbers. A much more comprehensive study would need to be done to determine either way.
Randall Flagg
on August 20, 2020 at 10:42 am
When I shared some science about how non-surgical masks increased Influenza infection rates in controlled real-world events, t
Are you talking about the studies that compared non-surgical to surgical masks without a no-mask control? If so those would not apply. Only studies looking at masks vs no-masks would apply to a discussion on a mask mandate.
Mar
on August 20, 2020 at 11:06 am
Just in my opinion, I don’t think masks work work or if they did, it would be minimal.
One problem is that many people do not change masks regularly, which causes a build up of germs.
The other problem is that a mask gives people a false sense of security and then don’t take social distancing seriously.
The question is how would they determine if a mask works or not? I suppose if you intentionally expose people to the Chinese virus I suppose.
dad29
on August 20, 2020 at 11:31 am
There’s more actual real-life science published by Annals of Internal Medicine. Seems that Covid transmits only with long-term VERY close contact–except for oldsters, who are losing T-cells rapidly and are far more susceptible.
T-cells are important because they fight off COVID-type viruses due to prior exposure–like e.g., the common cold. It now appears that 50% of the population is immune.
Science!
jjf
on August 20, 2020 at 11:52 am
You’ll find more of the same here Owen, “Science, Facts, Experts” gang only uses Convenient Science, not All Science.
Yes, it’s called cherry-picking, and it often shows up in the form of someone not understanding the precise language and fact situation in a scientific paper. You know, like reading a paper about the flu and a particular kind of mask and a particular kind of measurement, and then extrapolating to a different virus in a different situation. It happens when someone just wants to find a paper that matches their preconception or desired outcome. It means ignoring the center of opinion on a topic.
Jason
on August 20, 2020 at 11:58 am
No Randall. Surgical Masks, Cloth Masks, No Mask Control Group. Cloth masks had a higher rate of infection than Surgical and Control.
The mandates for masks are based on computer models of the effect of a mask on breath… nothing more.
Jason
on August 20, 2020 at 12:01 pm
>Yes, it’s called cherry-picking, and it often shows up in the form of someone not understanding the precise language and fact situation in a scientific paper
That might be true generally, it’s not in this case. The Cherry-Picking in this case is the “Science, Facts, Experts” gang glomming onto computer models of spray patterns instead of controlled, real-life, peer-reviewed, published studies.
Randall Flagg
on August 20, 2020 at 2:44 pm
Jason, I would love to read those studies. Please link to them.
>In 2015, we conducted a randomized controlled trial to compare the efficacy of cloth masks with that of medical masks and controls (standard practice) among healthcare workers in Vietnam (4). Rates of infection were consistently higher among those in the cloth mask group than in the medical mask and control groups. This finding suggests that risk for infection was higher for those wearing cloth masks. The mask tested was a locally manufactured, double-layered cotton mask. Participants were given 5 cloth masks for a 4-week study period and were asked to wash the masks daily with soap and water (4). The poor performance may have been because the masks were not washed frequently enough or because they became moist and contaminated. Medical and cloth masks were used by some participants in the control group, but the poor performance of cloth masks persisted in post hoc analysis when we compared all participants who used medical masks (from the control and the medical mask groups) with all participants who used only a cloth mask (from the control and the cloth mask groups)(4).
Mark Hoefert
on August 20, 2020 at 3:01 pm
Yes, it’s called cherry-picking, and it often shows up in the form of someone not understanding the precise language and fact situation in a scientific paper.
Yup, here’s some cherry-picking for you. Just like the “antimaskers” there is an “antiHCZ” contingent. History (and science) will show that the antiHCZ crowd will be the number 1 cause of many needless deaths.
You’ve heard of cherry-picking evidence or results, when advocating for an argument, or product or invention. What followed was a torrent of what could best be called “rotten cherry picking”—media, politicos, and rivals, scouring the internet for any sign that HCZ would kill masses of people. For instance, on the same Anderson Cooper show mentioned above, Dr. Sanjay Gupta listed only the studies that supposedly showed HCQ didn’t work, and none of the studies that showed it did.
“A lot of people have gone crazy,” says Raoult, “claiming that we were dealing with the most dangerous drug in the world, when almost 2 billion people have already taken it.” HCQ, he points out, has been given safely for decades, even to pregnant women, but is being made to look dangerous—even when properly monitored by cardiologists. In a study, his team wrote, “There have probably been more than a billion azithromycin prescriptions around the world since it was first discovered. The toxicity of each of these two drugs does not, therefore, pose a major problem. Their possible toxicity in combination has been suggested in a few anecdotal reports but, to our knowledge, has never been demonstrated.” As he said in an interview, “It is bizarre, but it is part of something, you know, that people are completely turned mad about one of the medics [sic] that have been most prescribed medications in the history of humanity.”
Mark Hoefert
on August 20, 2020 at 3:09 pm
Gee, for Democrats, the risk of dying is preferable to going off the plantation.
From the article above:
But in the United States, HCQ was embroiled in the Republican-Democratic rivalry. On March 12, Michigan state Rep. Karen Whitsett, a Democrat representing the 9th Michigan House District in Detroit, went into quarantine for cornavirus symptoms, and by March 31 got her test results and was diagnosed with such a serious case of COVID-19 that she thought she was dying. She and her physician, Dr. Mohammed Arsiwala, sought permission to use HCQ but could not get it, because the Michigan Department of Licensing and Regulatory Affairs, under Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, had issued an order prohibiting the use of HCQ for COVID-19.
What an interesting twist: Plagues always give rise to new customs, practices, and regulations. If the state can give a medication to some poor decent citizen on compassionate grounds, indeed why can’t it withhold it on vindictive grounds from a traitor and a fool (as someone who wanted the Trump drug must obviously be)?
Karen Whitsett didn’t feel like assenting to this new reality. Her physician got his hands on some and dared to put her on it. After she recovered, in early April, she thanked President Trump for having spoken out about the drug, and visited him at the White House to look into ways it might be made available for others.
In response, her Michigan Democratic colleagues voted unanimously to censure her, the resolution stating she had “misrepresented the needs and priorities” of the Michigan Democratic leadership to the president and public “in contradiction with the scientifically based and action-oriented response” of themselves—i.e., the Michigan leadership—thereby “endangering the health, safety and welfare of her constituents, the city of Detroit, and the state of Michigan.”
Mark Hoefert
on August 20, 2020 at 3:25 pm
Here is some more from the article above, and it even relates to scientific studies by experts. Why do jjf & Leroi da Nerd hate on the Blacks so much? Like the Democrat representing the 9th Michigan House District, they should be expected to stay on the antiHCZ plantation. Seems racist.
On July 1, the cheap, eternally unproven drug seemed, finally, to catch a big break. A large peer-reviewed study of 2,541 patients by the Henry Ford Health Center in Detroit was published in the International Journal of Infectious Diseases. It showed that HCQ lowered mortality in hospitalized COVID-19 patients by over 50%. This was a very large effect, in line with the robust findings Raoult was claiming. Luckily, that study managed to get done between March 10 to May 2—just before the scare tactics about HCQ made it harder to get hold of and had all but eliminated people’s willingness to enroll in such inquiries.
The Henry Ford study of HCQ was very large, and performed in a hospital system, consisting of six hospitals. Fifty-six percent of participants were African Americans, who a number of studies had shown were at higher risk from COVID than other racial groups, for reasons that are still being analyzed. It was not a randomized control trial, but was superior to earlier studies that lumped all patients together and didn’t effectively distinguish how sick different patients were. This study took into account 19 different risk factors, and illness severity. So, unlike the earlier VA study, they did a better partial workaround to make sure that the patients who received medication, and those who didn’t, had similar severity of illness. They were also able to match many of the patients in terms of illness severity of their COVID, and then compare 190 patients who received HCQ, to 190 matched patients that did not. HCQ gave a mortality hazard ratio decrease of 51% for those closely matched patients. Overall, treatment with HCQ decreased the mortality hazard ratio (the risk of death in the defined time period of the study) by 66%.
In that health care system, 26.4% of all patients who had COVID-19, and got the standard treatment but not the study medications, died. Of those who received HCQ, only 13.5% died. So, HCQ cut the death rate in half. As of Aug. 12, over 744,649 people have died of COVID, according to Johns Hopkins University. If this rate held, in other studies, over 350,000 of those people might be alive. Worldwide it might save a million or more people before COVID is tamed.
Randall Flagg
on August 20, 2020 at 5:54 pm
Interesting read Jason. Noted the control group was not “no masks”:
Medical and cloth masks were used by some participants in the control group,
They also never compared cloth masks with no masks, only cloth with surgical.
So I would say that study does not compare masks to no masks. If the control group had been all no masks, it would have.
Randall Flagg
on August 20, 2020 at 5:56 pm
Mark:
If we are going to talk politicization of HCz, we cannot ignore the fact that Trump was touting it way before there was reliable evidence. In my opinion this started the politicization and mistrust.
Mark Hoefert
on August 20, 2020 at 6:40 pm
Trump was touting it way before there was reliable evidence.
Your opinion would be wrong.
Read the article. It is rather long.
Media and Democrats were not waiting for reliable evidence either before piling on.
What is unique about the hydroxychloroquine discussion is that it is a story of “unwishful thinking”—to coin a term for the perverse hope that some good outcome that most sane people would earnestly desire, will never come to pass. It’s about how, in the midst of a pandemic, thousands started earnestly hoping—before the science was really in—that a drug, one that might save lives at a comparatively low cost, would not actually do so.
………………………………………………………………………………………………
And why should anyone facing a pandemic wish to discredit potentially lifesaving medications? Well, in fact, this ability can come in very handy in this midst of a plague, when many medications and vaccines are competing to Save the World—and for the billions of dollars that will go along with that.
…………………………………………………………………………………………
Even in an age smitten by the idea that “Big Data Is Our Savior,” many of medicine’s greatest discoveries begin with precisely these kinds of chance observations, made by perspicacious frontline physicians looking at patients, and not from data sets or models, which can often be so abstract, that they generate only exalted nonsense.
……………………………………………………………………………………
Repurposed drugs are often generics, and so if one worked during an epidemic, a society would not have to spend hundreds of millions on developing new ones, which may or may not work, and may or may not be safe in the long term. The cost of HCQ for a course of COVID treatment is under $10, and the cost of another new medication, being evaluated now, remdesivir, is about $3,500 (which is an entire year’s annual income in some developing countries, and will not be affordable). So, repurposing also has the effect of pissing off Big Pharma and those academic courtiers who make their living from its untold generosity to them.
Randall Flagg
on August 20, 2020 at 7:11 pm
Media and Democrats were not waiting for reliable evidence either before piling on.
I completely agree Mark. A pox on all their houses (Trump, Republicans and Democrats, and Biased Media).
Randall Flagg
on August 20, 2020 at 7:17 pm
Your opinion would be wrong.
Read the article. It is rather long.
I did read the article but the proof Trump jumped the gun is in the first paragraph (emphasis mine):
Early in the coronavirus pandemic, a survey of the world’s frontline physicians showed hydroxychloroquine to be the drug they considered the most effective at treating COVID-19 patients. That was in early April, shortly after a French study showed it was safe and effective in lowering the virus count
Trump started touting it March 19th.
Mar
on August 20, 2020 at 7:57 pm
Randall, you don’t think President Trump may have been given a heads up by someone?
Mark Hoefert
on August 20, 2020 at 8:02 pm
Trump started touting it March 19th.
Well, I guess you missed this part when doing the math on dates.
A study in 10 Chinese hospitals was initiated, beginning as early as January 2020. When they found that 100 Chinese patients did better on chloroquine than controls, a conference was held on the subject on Feb. 15, in China. The preliminary results were published as a letter to an English-language journal, claiming they found the drug was effective against COVID-19-associated pneumonia. Chloroquine was included in the guidelines for the treatment of COVID-19 issued by the National Health Commission of the People’s Republic of China. By Feb. 23, seven Chinese studies of chloroquine or HCQ and COVID-19 had been added to the Chinese Clinical Trial Registry.
Le Roi du Nord
on August 20, 2020 at 8:41 pm
“Why do jjf & Leroi da Nerd hate on the Blacks so much?”
I won’t speak for jjf, but I don’t hate anyone. You caught the trump fever from mar, j, and k. Shame.
Mark Hoefert
on August 20, 2020 at 9:07 pm
@ Le ROi
When that dumb ass major Democrat donor from Arizona fed her husband the fish tank cleaner, you were all over that here.
Here they be talking about you in the article. You were a good soldier in perpetuating the narrative fed to you by KOS or whoever you channel.
Our poor protagonist, HCQ, could now go nowhere in a hyperpoliticized America without being hectored and called “Trump’s drug.” In the media, HCQ was now “touted,” “hyped,” and not “recommended” or “prescribed,” by the physicians who advocated for it. If someone took the do-it-yourself approach, as in the sad story of the Arizona man who, terrified out of his wits of the coronavirus, along with his wife, drank fish tank cleanermixed with soda, because she had noticed it had among its ingredients, “chloroquine phosphate.” His death was blamed on “a chemical that has been hailed recently by President Trump …”
Maybe you don’t hate the negroes – I am sure being “up north” on Wisconsin Retirement pension and nowhere near a significant minority population gives you a healthy dose of white privilege and you just don’t care about the poor and minorities getting a fighting chance to survive COVID.
Here is more of how the antiHCZ faction worked to cause the death toll to be higher than it should have been.
Stories began equating HCQ with Trump (“Trump’s drug”) and emphasized not only that it was dangerous, but that HCQ was old. And old was definitely not good. The implication was that far better than old was some new drug—that wasn’t yet invented, never mind tested—that might be in the utopian “pipeline” to the always better medical future.
What the media, and public health officials, did not report at the time was how poor people’s chances were should they go to hospital and need intensive care for the illness. Hospitals were finding that 80% of people put on mechanical ventilators died. All the commentators who railed that HCQ was “unproven” because there had been no randomized control trials (RCTs) didn’t mention that standard ventilation treatment for COVID-19, which had become treatment-as-usual overnight for severe cases, had no RCTs supporting it either. There was a double standard as far as HCQ was concerned.
Jason
on August 20, 2020 at 10:17 pm
Mark, don’t forget, he was on here at one point defending his Anti-HCQ stand with statements of how he takes it, and he doesn’t want to face a shortage due to increased demand. Yeah.
Randall Flagg
on August 20, 2020 at 10:19 pm
Well, I guess you missed this part when doing the math on dates.
Didn’t miss it. It’s not relevant as Trump has said over and over he does not trust the Chinese vis-a-vis Coronavirus info, so there is no reason to believe he would have used Chinese studies as the rationale for his statement.
However I am willing to entertain any evidence you have to the contrary.
Randall, you don’t think President Trump may have been given a heads up by someone?
He could have said that along with his statement. He has a history of making claims without proof. No reason to believe this one had any credibility, especially given previous claims he made on coronavirus (For example, Feb 26: “You have 15 people, and the 15 within a couple of days is going to be down to close to zero.”)
Randall Flagg
on August 20, 2020 at 10:23 pm
Maybe Steve Bannon should have started a fund raiser to provide HCQ for free :) :) :)
Le Roi du Nord
on August 20, 2020 at 11:15 pm
And don’t forget j, that’s not all I said.
Jason
on August 20, 2020 at 11:22 pm
>Medical and cloth masks were used by some participants in the control group,
You’re right, but those math geniuses calculated out some opinions and couldn’t figure what the outlier was. ie.. If it was the combo masks worn or not…
Combine it with Owen’s data which you haven’t even touched though… there is cherry picking going on with both sides and unlike some I don’t dismiss just one side doing it.
Jason
on August 20, 2020 at 11:24 pm
>And don’t forget j, that’s not all I said
You say a lot. I ignore most of it.
Le Roi du Nord
on August 20, 2020 at 11:44 pm
And that j, is where you map the first of your many mistakes.
Mar
on August 21, 2020 at 1:02 am
“I won’t speak for jjf, but I don’t hate anyone”
And Pathological Liar Le Roi lies again.
He hates the conservatives on this blog because (I assume Le Roi is a male) because of his lying.
He hates this blog because of his lies.
And he/she hate President Trump.
Mar
on August 21, 2020 at 1:12 am
“that’s not all I said.”
You also said hydroxychloroquine doesn’t work and you were and are wrong.
No shock there since you were wrong on just about everything about the Chinese virus.
Jason
on August 21, 2020 at 5:59 am
Leroy: No, you are wrong again. Feel more important now?
Mark Hoefert
on August 21, 2020 at 7:23 am
@ Randall Flagg: Didn’t miss it. It’s not relevant as Trump has said over and over he does not trust the Chinese vis-a-vis Coronavirus info, so there is no reason to believe he would have used Chinese studies as the rationale for his statement.
Well, yes indeed, you did miss that Dr. Raoult is from France, not China.
On March 21, President Donald Trump, referring to Raoult’s group’s study (which had appeared just days before), tweeted: “HYDROXYCHLOROQUINE & AZITHROMYCIN, taken together, have a real chance to be one of the biggest game-changers in the history of medicine… Hopefully they will BOTH (H works better with A, International Journal of Antimicrobial Agents)….. be put in use IMMEDIATELY…
dad29
on August 21, 2020 at 7:54 am
No reason to believe this one had any credibility, especially given previous claims he made on coronavirus (For example, Feb 26: “You have 15 people, and the 15 within a couple of days is going to be down to close to zero.”)
Yah, well, that came after listening to Fraudci.
Jason
on August 21, 2020 at 11:34 am
>Yah, well, that came after listening to Fraudci.
And probably just before the Dem’s attacked him for suggesting travel bans. Who knows, if he had been able to ban travel like he wanted, we might have had 15 and then close to zero.
Tuerqas
on August 21, 2020 at 2:05 pm
You know HCQ won’t be accepted by Democrats until November. Until then they need for it to be an ineffective dangerous drug to headline the ‘Trump has been a failure concerning Corona’. Just like they need the violence to continue.
I still have not found a liberal who can adequately explain what purpose the BLM movement is trying to accomplish, other than getting liberal city or State Governments to back off the police so the riots, er, marches grab more headlines followed by ‘Trump has lost control, vote Biden’. I think the reason is because there is no end game, it has all been about the upcoming election.
If the Democratic damning of HCQ specifically and only to make Trump lose face (possibly costing over a quarter of a million lives in the process) is not enough to prove to liberals that Dems do not care about American lives at all…I don’t know…just amazing. If Trump had denounced the drug, perhaps stating a distrust of the Chinese research, Dems everywhere would have urged the drug on and, in their drive for votes, saved so many lives. Gentlemen, our power mad, capricious Government!
Trump’s “it is what it is” response to thousands of American’s dying every day from COVID is proof he doesn’t care about American lives at all. That is going to be great fodder for political ads.
Randall Flagg
on August 21, 2020 at 10:32 pm
Yah, well, that came after listening to Fraudci.
Yah, well, he said it. He has responsibility for what he says. Or don’t Republican’s believe in personal responsibility any more?
Randall Flagg
on August 21, 2020 at 11:01 pm
Raoult’s group’s study
It’s precious you think what Raoult did was a study.
It was a joke.
Gautret and Raoult evaluated 42 patients with COVID-19. The data in six patients (all treated with HCQ) were excluded and never reported. The 36 remaining patients had all been hospitalized, but inexplicably, six had been asymptomatic and 22 had had only upper respiratory symptoms before treatment. Why would nearly 80% of the patients have been hospitalized with a nonserious COVID-19 infection? Of the 36 patients, 14 received HCQ, six received a combination of HCQ and azithromycin, and 16 received neither drug. Treatment was not randomized or blinded. The investigators did not explain why they chose to prescribe the drugs to some patients and not others.
According to the Gautret-Raoult paper, after a week of therapy, the proportion of patients with SARS-CoV-2-negative swabs was greater in the active treatment groups than in the nontreated group. However, it is not clear that patients in the three groups had the same viral burden before therapy. For unknown reasons, the authors did not report the baseline level of virus in 10 of the 16 patients in the untreated group. This information was always provided in the 20 patients treated with HCQ with or without azithromycin.
Importantly, in this report, the authors made no claims that patients treated with HCQ and azithromycin actually experienced any clinical benefits, as compared to untreated patients. Clinical responses were subsequently reported by the authors, but in a study that had no control group.
It’s precious you think what Raoult did was a study.
It was a joke.
Gautret and Raoult evaluated 42 patients with COVID-19. The data in six patients (all treated with HCQ) were excluded and never reported. The 36 remaining patients had all been hospitalized, but inexplicably, six had been asymptomatic and 22 had had only upper respiratory symptoms before treatment. Why would nearly 80% of the patients have been hospitalized with a nonserious COVID-19 infection? Of the 36 patients, 14 received HCQ, six received a combination of HCQ and azithromycin, and 16 received neither drug. Treatment was not randomized or blinded. The investigators did not explain why they chose to prescribe the drugs to some patients and not others.
According to the Gautret-Raoult paper, after a week of therapy, the proportion of patients with SARS-CoV-2-negative swabs was greater in the active treatment groups than in the nontreated group. However, it is not clear that patients in the three groups had the same viral burden before therapy. For unknown reasons, the authors did not report the baseline level of virus in 10 of the 16 patients in the untreated group. This information was always provided in the 20 patients treated with HCQ with or without azithromycin.
Importantly, in this report, the authors made no claims that patients treated with HCQ and azithromycin actually experienced any clinical benefits, as compared to untreated patients. Clinical responses were subsequently reported by the authors, but in a study that had no control group.
And none of that addresses what Mark has shared. It’s like you’ve watched a great PBS show on how something is made, and you’re saying the entire show was crap because one commercial played for a business you don’t like… on another station… in another country.
jjf
on August 22, 2020 at 9:29 am
If it was obviousthat HCQ helped, wouldn’t every doctor, hospital, and insurance company be all over it?
Le Roi du Nord
on August 22, 2020 at 10:22 am
I’m sure the next big miracle cure will be oleander, promoted and sold by the pillow guy. As 45 would say, “what can it hurt”?
Ed. Note: Oleander is highly toxic.
Mar
on August 22, 2020 at 11:09 am
“If it was obvious that HCQ helped, wouldn’t every doctor, hospital, and insurance company be all over it?”
Many do.
And it only helps in certain situations, like if the Chinese virus is caught early enough and it used in combination with other drugs.
But I guess you Trump haters don’t understand this. Not because of the science but I guess you guys want people to die because of your hatred of President Trump.
Le Roi du Nord
on August 22, 2020 at 11:24 am
And many don’t, including my physician , the clinic he is associated with, my insurance provider, and my local hospital. I’ll stick with the smart folks on this one.
jjf
on August 22, 2020 at 11:51 am
I don’t care if Trump, Mao, or Kevin likes it. The medical establishment doesn’t care about who is promoting it, either… or at least shouldn’t be.
Kevin Scheunemann
on August 22, 2020 at 12:05 pm
jjf,
Did you just lump me in with your Marxist, hero, totalitarian butcher, Mao?
That is despicable.
Mar
on August 22, 2020 at 12:06 pm
Are you now channeling dead communist Chinese leaders jjf?
dad29
on August 23, 2020 at 1:13 pm
We know that wearing a mask outside health care facilities offers little, if any, protection from infection. Public health authorities define a significant exposure to Covid-19 as face-to-face contact within 6 feet with a patient with symptomatic Covid-19 that is sustained for at least a few minutes (and some say more than 10 minutes or even 30 minutes). The chance of catching Covid-19 from a passing interaction in a public space is therefore minimal. In many cases, the desire for widespread masking is a reflexive reaction to anxiety over the pandemic….–NEJM 5/21/20
And yes, the authors raced backwards as fast as their widdle feets could carry them knowing that they would never receive another dime of Fraudci/CDC money unless they did.
Except they did NOT disprove their study. They merely mealy-mouthed about ‘desirable’ and ‘better.’
OK, then. They said exactly what Fraudci did in March.
This mask mandate sucks.
Marxists are just wrong about everything.
When I shared some science about how non-surgical masks increased Influenza infection rates in controlled real-world events, the silence from the “Science, Facts, Experts” gang was amazing. That science came from the CDC. I remember one person bringing up some irrelevant and mildly racist comment about an author of one of the studies being a Hong Kong native.
You’ll find more of the same here Owen, “Science, Facts, Experts” gang only uses Convenient Science, not All Science.
relatively certain that the mandate has not had the intended impact of mitigating the virus.
Um, no you cannot, as the analysis doesn’t control for other factors that could be leading to the rise. The mask mandate could be keeping us from even higher numbers. A much more comprehensive study would need to be done to determine either way.
When I shared some science about how non-surgical masks increased Influenza infection rates in controlled real-world events, t
Are you talking about the studies that compared non-surgical to surgical masks without a no-mask control? If so those would not apply. Only studies looking at masks vs no-masks would apply to a discussion on a mask mandate.
Just in my opinion, I don’t think masks work work or if they did, it would be minimal.
One problem is that many people do not change masks regularly, which causes a build up of germs.
The other problem is that a mask gives people a false sense of security and then don’t take social distancing seriously.
The question is how would they determine if a mask works or not? I suppose if you intentionally expose people to the Chinese virus I suppose.
There’s more actual real-life science published by Annals of Internal Medicine. Seems that Covid transmits only with long-term VERY close contact–except for oldsters, who are losing T-cells rapidly and are far more susceptible.
T-cells are important because they fight off COVID-type viruses due to prior exposure–like e.g., the common cold. It now appears that 50% of the population is immune.
Science!
Yes, it’s called cherry-picking, and it often shows up in the form of someone not understanding the precise language and fact situation in a scientific paper. You know, like reading a paper about the flu and a particular kind of mask and a particular kind of measurement, and then extrapolating to a different virus in a different situation. It happens when someone just wants to find a paper that matches their preconception or desired outcome. It means ignoring the center of opinion on a topic.
No Randall. Surgical Masks, Cloth Masks, No Mask Control Group. Cloth masks had a higher rate of infection than Surgical and Control.
The mandates for masks are based on computer models of the effect of a mask on breath… nothing more.
>Yes, it’s called cherry-picking, and it often shows up in the form of someone not understanding the precise language and fact situation in a scientific paper
That might be true generally, it’s not in this case. The Cherry-Picking in this case is the “Science, Facts, Experts” gang glomming onto computer models of spray patterns instead of controlled, real-life, peer-reviewed, published studies.
Jason, I would love to read those studies. Please link to them.
I’ve done it in the past, a couple of times now.
https://wwwnc.cdc.gov/eid/article/26/10/20-0948_article
>In 2015, we conducted a randomized controlled trial to compare the efficacy of cloth masks with that of medical masks and controls (standard practice) among healthcare workers in Vietnam (4). Rates of infection were consistently higher among those in the cloth mask group than in the medical mask and control groups. This finding suggests that risk for infection was higher for those wearing cloth masks. The mask tested was a locally manufactured, double-layered cotton mask. Participants were given 5 cloth masks for a 4-week study period and were asked to wash the masks daily with soap and water (4). The poor performance may have been because the masks were not washed frequently enough or because they became moist and contaminated. Medical and cloth masks were used by some participants in the control group, but the poor performance of cloth masks persisted in post hoc analysis when we compared all participants who used medical masks (from the control and the medical mask groups) with all participants who used only a cloth mask (from the control and the cloth mask groups)(4).
https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/science/articles/hydroxychloroquine-morality-tale
Yup, here’s some cherry-picking for you. Just like the “antimaskers” there is an “antiHCZ” contingent. History (and science) will show that the antiHCZ crowd will be the number 1 cause of many needless deaths.
Gee, for Democrats, the risk of dying is preferable to going off the plantation.
From the article above:
Here is some more from the article above, and it even relates to scientific studies by experts. Why do jjf & Leroi da Nerd hate on the Blacks so much? Like the Democrat representing the 9th Michigan House District, they should be expected to stay on the antiHCZ plantation. Seems racist.
Interesting read Jason. Noted the control group was not “no masks”:
Medical and cloth masks were used by some participants in the control group,
They also never compared cloth masks with no masks, only cloth with surgical.
So I would say that study does not compare masks to no masks. If the control group had been all no masks, it would have.
Mark:
If we are going to talk politicization of HCz, we cannot ignore the fact that Trump was touting it way before there was reliable evidence. In my opinion this started the politicization and mistrust.
Your opinion would be wrong.
Read the article. It is rather long.
Media and Democrats were not waiting for reliable evidence either before piling on.
Media and Democrats were not waiting for reliable evidence either before piling on.
I completely agree Mark. A pox on all their houses (Trump, Republicans and Democrats, and Biased Media).
Your opinion would be wrong.
Read the article. It is rather long.
I did read the article but the proof Trump jumped the gun is in the first paragraph (emphasis mine):
Early in the coronavirus pandemic, a survey of the world’s frontline physicians showed hydroxychloroquine to be the drug they considered the most effective at treating COVID-19 patients. That was in early April, shortly after a French study showed it was safe and effective in lowering the virus count
Trump started touting it March 19th.
Randall, you don’t think President Trump may have been given a heads up by someone?
Well, I guess you missed this part when doing the math on dates.
“Why do jjf & Leroi da Nerd hate on the Blacks so much?”
I won’t speak for jjf, but I don’t hate anyone. You caught the trump fever from mar, j, and k. Shame.
@ Le ROi
When that dumb ass major Democrat donor from Arizona fed her husband the fish tank cleaner, you were all over that here.
Here they be talking about you in the article. You were a good soldier in perpetuating the narrative fed to you by KOS or whoever you channel.
Maybe you don’t hate the negroes – I am sure being “up north” on Wisconsin Retirement pension and nowhere near a significant minority population gives you a healthy dose of white privilege and you just don’t care about the poor and minorities getting a fighting chance to survive COVID.
Here is more of how the antiHCZ faction worked to cause the death toll to be higher than it should have been.
Mark, don’t forget, he was on here at one point defending his Anti-HCQ stand with statements of how he takes it, and he doesn’t want to face a shortage due to increased demand. Yeah.
Well, I guess you missed this part when doing the math on dates.
Didn’t miss it. It’s not relevant as Trump has said over and over he does not trust the Chinese vis-a-vis Coronavirus info, so there is no reason to believe he would have used Chinese studies as the rationale for his statement.
However I am willing to entertain any evidence you have to the contrary.
Randall, you don’t think President Trump may have been given a heads up by someone?
He could have said that along with his statement. He has a history of making claims without proof. No reason to believe this one had any credibility, especially given previous claims he made on coronavirus (For example, Feb 26: “You have 15 people, and the 15 within a couple of days is going to be down to close to zero.”)
Maybe Steve Bannon should have started a fund raiser to provide HCQ for free :) :) :)
And don’t forget j, that’s not all I said.
>Medical and cloth masks were used by some participants in the control group,
You’re right, but those math geniuses calculated out some opinions and couldn’t figure what the outlier was. ie.. If it was the combo masks worn or not…
Combine it with Owen’s data which you haven’t even touched though… there is cherry picking going on with both sides and unlike some I don’t dismiss just one side doing it.
>And don’t forget j, that’s not all I said
You say a lot. I ignore most of it.
And that j, is where you map the first of your many mistakes.
“I won’t speak for jjf, but I don’t hate anyone”
And Pathological Liar Le Roi lies again.
He hates the conservatives on this blog because (I assume Le Roi is a male) because of his lying.
He hates this blog because of his lies.
And he/she hate President Trump.
“that’s not all I said.”
You also said hydroxychloroquine doesn’t work and you were and are wrong.
No shock there since you were wrong on just about everything about the Chinese virus.
Leroy: No, you are wrong again. Feel more important now?
Well, yes indeed, you did miss that Dr. Raoult is from France, not China.
Yah, well, that came after listening to Fraudci.
>Yah, well, that came after listening to Fraudci.
And probably just before the Dem’s attacked him for suggesting travel bans. Who knows, if he had been able to ban travel like he wanted, we might have had 15 and then close to zero.
You know HCQ won’t be accepted by Democrats until November. Until then they need for it to be an ineffective dangerous drug to headline the ‘Trump has been a failure concerning Corona’. Just like they need the violence to continue.
I still have not found a liberal who can adequately explain what purpose the BLM movement is trying to accomplish, other than getting liberal city or State Governments to back off the police so the riots, er, marches grab more headlines followed by ‘Trump has lost control, vote Biden’. I think the reason is because there is no end game, it has all been about the upcoming election.
If the Democratic damning of HCQ specifically and only to make Trump lose face (possibly costing over a quarter of a million lives in the process) is not enough to prove to liberals that Dems do not care about American lives at all…I don’t know…just amazing. If Trump had denounced the drug, perhaps stating a distrust of the Chinese research, Dems everywhere would have urged the drug on and, in their drive for votes, saved so many lives. Gentlemen, our power mad, capricious Government!
Their “what we believe” isn’t good enough for starters?
Trump’s “it is what it is” response to thousands of American’s dying every day from COVID is proof he doesn’t care about American lives at all. That is going to be great fodder for political ads.
Yah, well, that came after listening to Fraudci.
Yah, well, he said it. He has responsibility for what he says. Or don’t Republican’s believe in personal responsibility any more?
Raoult’s group’s study
It’s precious you think what Raoult did was a study.
It was a joke.
Gautret and Raoult evaluated 42 patients with COVID-19. The data in six patients (all treated with HCQ) were excluded and never reported. The 36 remaining patients had all been hospitalized, but inexplicably, six had been asymptomatic and 22 had had only upper respiratory symptoms before treatment. Why would nearly 80% of the patients have been hospitalized with a nonserious COVID-19 infection? Of the 36 patients, 14 received HCQ, six received a combination of HCQ and azithromycin, and 16 received neither drug. Treatment was not randomized or blinded. The investigators did not explain why they chose to prescribe the drugs to some patients and not others.
According to the Gautret-Raoult paper, after a week of therapy, the proportion of patients with SARS-CoV-2-negative swabs was greater in the active treatment groups than in the nontreated group. However, it is not clear that patients in the three groups had the same viral burden before therapy. For unknown reasons, the authors did not report the baseline level of virus in 10 of the 16 patients in the untreated group. This information was always provided in the 20 patients treated with HCQ with or without azithromycin.
Importantly, in this report, the authors made no claims that patients treated with HCQ and azithromycin actually experienced any clinical benefits, as compared to untreated patients. Clinical responses were subsequently reported by the authors, but in a study that had no control group.
https://www.medpagetoday.com/blogs/revolutionandrevelation/86318
Raoult’s group’s study
It’s precious you think what Raoult did was a study.
It was a joke.
Gautret and Raoult evaluated 42 patients with COVID-19. The data in six patients (all treated with HCQ) were excluded and never reported. The 36 remaining patients had all been hospitalized, but inexplicably, six had been asymptomatic and 22 had had only upper respiratory symptoms before treatment. Why would nearly 80% of the patients have been hospitalized with a nonserious COVID-19 infection? Of the 36 patients, 14 received HCQ, six received a combination of HCQ and azithromycin, and 16 received neither drug. Treatment was not randomized or blinded. The investigators did not explain why they chose to prescribe the drugs to some patients and not others.
According to the Gautret-Raoult paper, after a week of therapy, the proportion of patients with SARS-CoV-2-negative swabs was greater in the active treatment groups than in the nontreated group. However, it is not clear that patients in the three groups had the same viral burden before therapy. For unknown reasons, the authors did not report the baseline level of virus in 10 of the 16 patients in the untreated group. This information was always provided in the 20 patients treated with HCQ with or without azithromycin.
Importantly, in this report, the authors made no claims that patients treated with HCQ and azithromycin actually experienced any clinical benefits, as compared to untreated patients. Clinical responses were subsequently reported by the authors, but in a study that had no control group.
https://www.medpagetoday.com/blogs/revolutionandrevelation/86318
And none of that addresses what Mark has shared. It’s like you’ve watched a great PBS show on how something is made, and you’re saying the entire show was crap because one commercial played for a business you don’t like… on another station… in another country.
If it was obvious that HCQ helped, wouldn’t every doctor, hospital, and insurance company be all over it?
I’m sure the next big miracle cure will be oleander, promoted and sold by the pillow guy. As 45 would say, “what can it hurt”?
Ed. Note: Oleander is highly toxic.
“If it was obvious that HCQ helped, wouldn’t every doctor, hospital, and insurance company be all over it?”
Many do.
And it only helps in certain situations, like if the Chinese virus is caught early enough and it used in combination with other drugs.
But I guess you Trump haters don’t understand this. Not because of the science but I guess you guys want people to die because of your hatred of President Trump.
And many don’t, including my physician , the clinic he is associated with, my insurance provider, and my local hospital. I’ll stick with the smart folks on this one.
I don’t care if Trump, Mao, or Kevin likes it. The medical establishment doesn’t care about who is promoting it, either… or at least shouldn’t be.
jjf,
Did you just lump me in with your Marxist, hero, totalitarian butcher, Mao?
That is despicable.
Are you now channeling dead communist Chinese leaders jjf?
And yes, the authors raced backwards as fast as their widdle feets could carry them knowing that they would never receive another dime of Fraudci/CDC money unless they did.
Except they did NOT disprove their study. They merely mealy-mouthed about ‘desirable’ and ‘better.’
OK, then. They said exactly what Fraudci did in March.
SCIENCE!!!