Are you suggesting they lied even more about the thing that never worked like it was supposed to?

Conspiracy theorist

If you can't take a position on the mandates, then why are we even discussing this?  The fundamental issue is whether or not the mask policies are grounded in science or a total lack of it.  Surely you can make a comment about your feelings on that as it relates to good science versus bad psuedo-science.

You might not want to admit it, but if people are still contracting COVID wearing masks properly and having been vaccinated and boosted, and a study shows no real difference in the rate of infection between that protected  group and unmasked, unvaccinated people, are you really unable to concede that maybe masks really are useless?

If i told you rubbers prevented 98.2% of disease, and not using one avoids 97.8% of disease, are you really going to take the position that rubbers are better than nothing at all?

#Statistically_insignificant

I keep discussing it because people keep spreading information that isn’t backed up by any logic or real evidence that can seriously mislead people.  Maybe somebody’s considering getting vaccinated, and then they hear that there’s a mass die-off caused by the vaccine, so they don’t.  Then maybe they get COVID and have a really bad outcome because they didn’t get vaccinated because were influenced by some garbage information, for which there’s no evidence, that’s being peddled by fear-mongers to drive eyeballs to their bitchute channel.  I think on the whole good/bad scale, that’s on the bad side.

If a single study “shows” that the rate of infection between masked and/or vaccinated and unmasked and/or unvaccinated is not significantly different, I’m not going to take the position based on that one single study that masks are useless… because, once again, protecting the wearer is only part of the reason for wearing a mask.  There’s also a protective factor to those you come into contact with.  But every time I bring that up, somebody comes back with a study concluding that masks don’t do much to protect the person wearing them.  And then I say again that that’s only half of the point, and around and around we go.

If something makes a 0.4% difference in infection rates, yes, I’m going to take the position that using whatever it is will reduce your risk of infection by 0.4%. Whether or not it’s “better than nothing” depends on a lot of other factors.  If a rubber reduces risk of disease by 0.4%, but increases risk of dying from rubber poisoning by 75%, no, I don’t think it’s better than nothing.  If it reduces risk by 0.4% and there’s no downside whatsoever, then yes, I’m going to say it’s better than nothing.

I keep discussing it because people keep spreading information that isn’t backed up by any logic or real evidence that can seriously mislead people.  Maybe somebody’s considering getting vaccinated, and then they hear that there’s a mass die-off caused by the vaccine, so they don’t.  Then maybe they get COVID and have a really bad outcome because they didn’t get vaccinated because were influenced by some garbage information, for which there’s no evidence, that’s being peddled by fear-mongers to drive eyeballs to their bitchute channel.  I think on the whole good/bad scale, that’s on the bad side.

If a single study “shows” that the rate of infection between masked and/or vaccinated and unmasked and/or unvaccinated is not significantly different, I’m not going to take the position based on that one single study that masks are useless… because, once again, protecting the wearer is only part of the reason for wearing a mask.  There’s also a protective factor to those you come into contact with.  But every time I bring that up, somebody comes back with a study concluding that masks don’t do much to protect the person wearing them.  And then I say again that that’s only half of the point, and around and around we go.

If something makes a 0.4% difference in infection rates, yes, I’m going to take the position that using whatever it is will reduce your risk of infection by 0.4%. Whether or not it’s “better than nothing” depends on a lot of other factors.  If a rubber reduces risk of disease by 0.4%, but increases risk of dying from rubber poisoning by 75%, no, I don’t think it’s better than nothing.  If it reduces risk by 0.4% and there’s no downside whatsoever, then yes, I’m going to say it’s better than nothing.

Given your belief the only way to protect yourself with masks is to force others around you to use them, it follows that you are a supporter of mask mandates.  Good to have to almost admit that.

Have you ever taken a statistics class (one that you actually passed  )?

There's this thing called the margin of error.  Having a study conclude a 0.03% difference in a comparison is statistically insignificant when the delta (difference in the two numbers) is less than or equal to the margin of error.

Let's say the margin of error is +/-3%.  That means the results could be anywhere up to 3% more or less than the number reported.

i think the numbers were 98.1 and 97.8, a difference of 0.03%.  i mistyped them in the last post.  Not that 0.01% makes much of a difference.

That means, using a +/-3% margin of error which means a range of 6%, the protected group could be in the range of 95.1% to 100%.  Likewise, the unprotected group could be anywhere between 94.8% to 100%.

To argue over a statistical value being 0.03% or 0.04% better or worse when it's likely within the margin of error based on the statistical methodology used shows a lack of understanding.

I never expressed a belief that the only way for a mask to protect someone is to force everyone around them to wear one, and I never said whether I support or don’t support mask mandates.  You can keep trying, but I’m not going to take a position here on whether or not I think the mandates were good policy.

I was going to take a stats class, but I couldn’t get through the prerequisites of “lies” and “damned lies.”  My background is in a different kind of math, but I’m familiar with the basic concepts like sampling and margin of error.

The numbers in your original post were 98.2 and 97.8, which makes a difference of 0.4.  Your revised numbers of 98.1 and 97.8 have a difference of 0.3… not 0.03.  That order of magnitude difference is likely to be statistically significant.

Your original post about rubbers didn’t include a margin of error, so I didn’t consider one.  I agree that a 0.3 or 0.4 difference with a margin of error of 3 would make that data way less useful.

For data gathered from an observed population, which is what I think you’re going to see in most of the studies we’re talking about here, margin of error has more to do with the accuracy of your measurement technique than with sample size.

...because, once again, protecting the wearer is only part of the reason for wearing a mask.  There’s also a protective factor to those you come into contact with. But every time I bring that up, somebody comes back with a study concluding that masks don’t do much to protect the person wearing them.  And then I say again that that’s only half of the point, and around and around we go.

I never expressed a belief that the only way for a mask to protect someone is to force everyone around them to wear one, and I never said whether I support or don’t support mask mandates.  You can keep trying, but I’m not going to take a position here on whether or not I think the mandates were good policy.

I was going to take a stats class, but I couldn’t get through the prerequisites of “lies” and “damned lies.”  My background is in a different kind of math, but I’m familiar with the basic concepts like sampling and margin of error.

The numbers in your original post were 98.2 and 97.8, which makes a difference of 0.4.  Your revised numbers of 98.1 and 97.8 have a difference of 0.3… not 0.03.  That order of magnitude difference is likely to be statistically significant.

Your original post about rubbers didn’t include a margin of error, so I didn’t consider one.  I agree that a 0.3 or 0.4 difference with a margin of error of 3 would make that data way less useful.

For data gathered from an observed population, which is what I think you’re going to see in most of the studies we’re talking about here, margin of error has more to do with the accuracy of your measurement technique than with sample size.

Still, any number I mistyped (I don't care enough about this thread to be hyper-accurate) is still less than 1%.  The margin of error for the study has to be a whole number greater than 1, because there's no way a sample size in a clinical study can be anything smaller.  Feel free to research the actual write-up for the study.  Again, i don't care enough to do that.

 You said:
Sounds to me like you are tossing out the "fact" that masks protect people other than the wearer -- in fact, CDC has publicized that wearing masks are more effective protecting people other than the wearer than they protect the wearer.

Seems like a lot of the "around and around' is because you make comments that imply and elude to a specific, known narrative, but you refuse to concede you agree with said narrative.

Margin of error doesn’t have to be a whole number, and is usually expressed as a percentage, and that percentage can be less than one.  If those numbers you’re talking about came from a study, I think they’re probably giving measurement error instead of margin of error; similar, but different.

“Sounds to me like you are tossing out the ’fact’ that masks protect people other than the wearer -- in fact, CDC has publicized that wearing masks are more effective protecting people other than the wearer than they protect the wearer.”

Yes, that’s one of the things I’ve been saying needs to be considered when determining whether masks are helpful in reducing the spread of COVID.  And every time I mention it, somebody comes back with a study that claims that masks don’t do much to protect the wearer.  And then I say we also need to consider whether masks protect others from being infected by someone who may not know they have the virus.  The “around and around” happens because people cite studies that don’t have anything to do with what I was talking about (masks protecting the wearer vs. masks reducing spread from unknowing carriers to others).

“Do masks help reduce the spread of the virus” and “do I support mandated mask wearing” are two very different questions, and can have very different answers.  I’m not alluding to anything about mandates.  I’m saying that I haven’t seen the “masks are totally useless” position supported by evidence.

You should read this, Sodie.  it's 'The Danish Face Mask Study", not a report of a report.

Let me know if any of the reporters made any critical errors in their retelling of the facts.

https://www.acpjournals.org/doi/10.7326/M20-6817

Annals of Internal Medicine

Effectiveness of Adding a Mask
Recommendation to Other Public Health
Measures to Prevent SARS-CoV-2
Infection in Danish Mask Wearers

A Randomized Controlled Trial

Since the stats are based on the trial population, and no statistical analysis was done to extrapolate the findings to the population at large, the whole standard error discussion is moot.

Just fyi.  But, still, the differences between the subgroups are 0.03 and 0.04 (they had mask wearers who complied with wear instructions, and others who didn't).

So, that margin of safety you are interested in (0.01) only applies if you always follow complete mask protocol every hour of every day without exception.  Otherwise, you lose a hundredth of a point of that safety margin.

Enjoy.

Thanks, I’ll take a look.

https://twitter.com/MarkChangizi/status/1506267677840617475

Was I talking about mandates?  No, I was not talking about mandates.

I think I said that before…?

0/ Key Points on Masks
only the first couple are on mandates...

A collage of all the celebrities that “died suddenly” in 2022

If they added in athletes the picture would probably be 10 times as big

All a coincidence of course…