This gold standard clinical trial appears to show that surgical face masks are highly protective but cloth ones not so much.
It would be great to hear some people's thoughts on this trial.
Pointing out that masks are effective will not make you popular on this forum, even if it is true.
Study seems to have large sample sizes, so show the benefit to be statistically significant.
He wasn’t the only critic. Professor Francois Balloux, director of the UCL Genetics Institute and professor of computational biology at UCL, tweeted that it’s “not obvious” from the study that masks are “statistically significantly associated with reduced transmission at the level of the population.”
Nick Hudson, chairman of Pandata.org (PANDA), tweeted a blog post by Substack writer el gato malo titled, “bangladesh mask study: do not believe the hype,” calling it “sound commentary.”
From el gato malo’s https://boriquagato.substack.com/p/bangladesh-mask-study-do-not-believe?justPublished%3Dtrue&source=gmail&ust=1631152480356000&usg=AFQjCNEKsaVzq14_VPbrMK09M68kYzM9N A">analysis:
To claim that masks caused any given variance in outcome, you need to isolate masks as a variable. They didn’t. This was a whole panoply of interventions, signage, hectoring, nudges, payments, and psychological games. It had hundreds of known effects and who knows how many unknown ones.
We have zero idea what’s being measured and even some of those variables that were measured showed high correlation and thus pose confounds. when you’re upending village life, claiming one aspect made the difference becomes statistically impossible. the system becomes hopelessly multivariate and cross-confounded.
The authors admit it themselves (and oddly do not seem to grasp that this invalidates their own mask claims)
Harvard's Dr. Martin Kulldorff called it “odd” that “mask advocates are excited by this study.”
David Chavous, an attorney with a PhD in molecular biology, called the fact that results were only seen for those over 50 years old a “HUGE red warning sign.”
When someone says things like ...."that it’s “not obvious” from the study that masks are “statistically significantly associated with reduced transmission at the level of the population.”
They need to include the maths to justify their statement. The answer to statistical significance is yes or no based on calculations. Anything else is just arm waving.
The fact that they don't probably means their statement is not justified and just an opinion, which is quite possibly just their prejudice.