The visual channel is far more important for understanding speech than most people with normal hearing realize. Take a video recording of someone speaking. Add noise to the audio until the threshold of intelligibility. Around the point where many words are lost and it's hard to follow, but you can still catch snippets and hear at least parts of most words. Listen to the audio for a bit. Then switch on the video too. Many people will suddenly understand the speaker effortlessly. It's quite jarring if you're particularly susceptible! Similarly, visual information will sometimes take priority over what is heard when decoding speech if you set it up so they conflict: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McGurk_effect
I've had instances where I was in the room with someone speaking a language I only partially understood. The non-verbal queues often were the major mechanic for communicating.
This has been known for decades. It's just that this fact conflicts with the mask-mandate crowd so any talk of it was cause for being banned from YouTube, Reddit, and Twitter. I am so disappointed with the level of allowed debate over the last two years. Warring ideological factions with absolutely no qualms with suppressing uncomfortable facts which were not in service to their chosen dogma. I'm not sure what the path forward is here but we need a collective retrospective to make sure we never, ever do this again.
And this kind of discourse framing the side you consider hysterical as "the mask-mandate crowd" is just playing into the exact thing you are criticising.
So I'm very sure we all need to look ourselves in the mirror.
"So I'm very sure we all need to look ourselves in the mirror."
The problem with this "everyone's to blame, lets just heal and move on" is that what happened never gets addressed. There have been serious policy failures, along with possible corruption and collusion between institutions that are supposed to be above reproach. Institutions that we need to trust. People were told to "listen to the science" - and they did, largely. They trusted "the science" with their lives. Now it seems Pfizer petitioned a court to keep their vaccine trial data private for 75 years. That doesn't sound very scientific to me. Nor does the published video call between two UK scientists arguing about the suppression of data related to Ivermectin. But no, "science" is fine - we're all to blame, so lets just move on, right?
History will remember our response to Covid as one of the greatest outbreaks of mass hysteria, and the time when a supposedly atheistic society developed their own religion.
Sensationalist garbage "science". Scientific American should be ashamed of itself. The author, David J. Lewkowicz from Yale, is trying to shove his totally unrelated study on lip reading into the debate in order to get exposure. As a scientist, I'm ashamed that a colleague would do this on such a serious issue.
There is literally zero evidence that masks are harmful provided in the article or in any of the research done. Not a single study. Not even one number. This article should be titled "I think that masks can be detrimental". And that thought should carry all of the weight of a random conjecture by a random person who knows nothing on the topic because it simply hasn't been studied.
PS: Blind children learn language just fine. There is no significant evidence anywhere that blind children's understanding of language and their ability to speak is any lesser than that of sighted children. So this conjecture by this disgraceful researcher is probably very false.
> There is no significant evidence anywhere that blind children's understanding of language and their ability to speak is any lesser than that of sighted children.
I'm not an expert but this is from a 2015 paper which does a literature review citing many papers arguing just that.
> In summary, although the research to date is not fully supportive of a link between VI and SSP deficits, the mixed evidence provokes compelling reasons to hypothesize that access to visual cues supports early speech perception and subsequent auditory discrimination and phonological mapping.
I would agree it's not exactly an air-tight case (as would Brouwer et al given their hedging), but you are making a very strong claim with "no significant evidence anywhere".
There are many visual cues still apparent with a mask on, therefore it’s challenging to make any assertions on “evidence” on correlations between mask-wearing and the experience of children with visual impairment. (Nevermind the article mostly (and sloppily) addresses
the mere existence of masks and not their likely-relevant usage patterns.)
I agree, the article doesn't argue the case very well. It's particularly tricky with the claim about babies, since most of the research on this (in general) deals with older children. (It's hard to study language acquisition in those who can't speak yet!)
I think you may be confusing emotional/gesture communication with visual speech cues. Because there really aren't that many visual cues for speech apparent with a mask on. Lipreading focuses on the lips, jawline, tongue, teeth, and nostrils (all covered up) along with the eyes and eyebrows and throat.
Anecdotally, I'm pretty much deaf, and I can lipread pretty well. I sometimes cannot even tell if someone is speaking or not behind a mask, let alone figure out what they're saying. I am poor at localizing sound. I'll hear a voice, or think I hear a voice, and I'm scanning all the masks trying to figure out which one is wiggling. With my residual hearing and lipreading I used to be able to pass as hearing in most contexts. These days I just do the "No, I'm deaf" up front because I just can't understand most people who are masked. The severity of it surprised me. I knew I relied on lipreading, I just didn't realize it was that much.
From that, it seems almost obvious to me that I would have had a much more language-poor environment in school under such conditions. Unfortunately I don't have much more than anecdote to rely on here; most deaf and HoH people I know have expressed similar sentiments.
There is literally no evidence at all that masks affect development. Never mind significant evidence. None.
That study is a survey of people that work with children who have visual impairments to see what they think. Not only does this have nothing to do with masks, it doesn't even claim there is a link! It just says that we should probably look into seeing if there is a link.
About that study, there are many reasons why they would see this correlation, ones that have nothing to do with anything sensational. Not the least of which is that they don't correct for multiple comparisons and have very weak statistical evidence for a correlation (tables 4 and 5; you give me 20 tries, I'll eventually see something significant if I don't correct for multiple comparisons). That there can easily be simple explanations for their data (the folks being studied who have visual impairments may have them due to genetic causes which are correlated with speech). That their data is biased toward seeing an effect (many children have undiagnosed language deficits or delays, of course if you have a population where experts are paying more attention you will see more deficits when you compare those statistics to the wider population).
This Scientific American article is just shameless propaganda by a scientist who wants to promote his research above the well being of people and society.
I linked that for the extensive literature review at the beginning of the study that touches many papers which largely support their claim. (I find the survey of speech-language-pathologists itself, to be quite uncompelling for the same reasons you do; too subjective.)
If your going to say "as a scientist, I'm ashamed..." because of this, then you should have been ashamed a dozen times by now by the CDC for the equivalent the past two years. Are you? Or is it acceptable when an "authority" does it?
The CDC and the American Academy of Pediatricians has both said very clearly that there is no evidence linking masks with developmental delays or language deficits.
But if you're asking if I'm ashamed of the CDC's pandemic response? A lot of scientists and medical professionals have complained about the CDC. Yes. They have completely botched the messaging on both masks and vaccines. There should have been a simple statement in March 2020: wear a mask. That's it. Instead, they made the issue so incredibly complicated and polarized that almost a million people died.
> The CDC and the American Academy of Pediatricians has both said very clearly that there is no evidence linking masks with developmental delays or language deficits.
In what way is this not simply a naked appeal to authority? Have the CDC or AAP conducted long-running randomized trials to determine what the effects of mass masking might be? From what you have linked, this seems like nothing more than that well-worn rhetorical jibe where they just proclaim "there is no evidence" of some thing they're not actually looking for in the first place.
> Instead, they made the issue so incredibly complicated and polarized that almost a million people died.
Is it your impression that more consistent messaging or public compliance would have prevented all of those deaths?
Frankly, in my opinion this is obvious. The role of the whole face in the social development of babies is very well known - I'm sure we all heard the story about ducklings being imprinted with human faces after being hatched in an incubator. It's not limited to life in the home either - I really don't like that most of the people my small children have seen outside the house have been masked. In fact, when people try to interact with our kids with the typical smiling and cooing, and get limited response, I have taken to telling them that it might be because my kids can't see their expressions.
The issue I see is that, at least where I live, the public messaging has been "there is no downside to wearing a mask, just put it on". This has, in my opinion, done huge damage to the credibility of science-based public messaging. A much more honest and accurate message would have been "there are some downsides, but based on our understanding of the evidence, we think the benefits outweigh the risks".
1) A mask probably won't protect you.
2) a mask might protect someone else if you spit while talking or sneeze/cough without covering yourself
3) however, a mask might make people who run on feelings feel better around you
4) masks might cause anxiety and developmental issues due to lack of human connection if it is widespread and consistent
Above you are citing the DANMASK study that found a tiny effect size of −0.3 (!) percentage points with no statistical significance to mask wearing.
In what world would that be evidence that masks work?
For what is worth, at this point there is little reason to cite and refer to these early publications and estimates anyway. Those were early guesses in a hysterical world.
Empirical, observable direct evidence from countries where masks are mandatory, from Germany (N95! is mandatory) to South Korea, Hong Kong etc makes it evident that masks have no effect on the spread of this particular disease.
Yeah I linked it last because it's fairly weak. The CDC page I think shows the most solid evidence, consolidating a large number of different studies with different methodologies.
You mention:
> Empirical, observable direct evidence from countries where masks are mandatory, from Germany (N95! is mandatory) to South Korea, Hong Kong etc makes it evident that masks have no effect on the spread of this particular disease.
Seems South Korea's infections per million is 90 000, Hong Kong's is 63 000, Germany's infections per million is around 190 000, compared to countries with no mask mandate, these numbers seem relatively low.
Could you share specifically what data you're looking at that contradicts what I'm saying?
because it is ain't over in those countries not one bit.
How can you possibly even bring any data about South Korea or Hong Kong into this discussion when these place have the highest caseloads ever right at this moment?
The caseload today (March 7, 2022) in Hong Kong per 100K people is 5000 cases, more the double (!) of the highest caseload ever observed in the US. Same story with South Korea.
If anything, empirical data shows that using whatever measures they were doing lead to sudden, explosive caseloads.
Let’s come back and talk once their combined cases reach higher than the US’s. Also I think worth noting that South Korea has better testing infrastructure, so their number is likely to be fairly accurate, while the number for the US is likely under-reported.
Hong Kong’s number already seems to be dropping off.
If you care about current assesments read this (published March 7, 2022):
Unravelling the Role of the Mandatory Use of Face Covering Masks for the Control of SARS-CoV-2 in Schools: A Quasi-Experimental Study Nested in a Population-Based Cohort in Catalonia (Spain)
> Interpretation: FCM mandates in schools were not associated with lower SARS-CoV-2 incidence or transmission, suggesting that this intervention was not effective. Instead, age-dependency was the most important factor in explaining the transmission risk for children attending school.
Thank you for sharing this. It is definitely very interesting and worthy of further study - especially given what we know already about how children and adults differ in response to COVID. I'd imagine we'll start to see more of these studies in the near future.
It is astounding that, in 2022, people are still throwing around simplistic, authoritative statements and providing links to articles that do not support those statements. This style of discourse has done "your side" an enormous dis-service over the past two years, and I suspect the damage is permanent. Are you relying on people not being able to fully understand the linked articles?
None of those articles lend much support to the idea that masks protect the wearer, and if anything, conclude that they do not. This makes perfect sense, as the entire efficacy of mask wearing is based on the idea that even the coarse weave of cloth can reduce the larger aerosols and droplets found at the source. (As a side note, I find even this premise shaky - you could make an equally convincing mental model of the weave of cloth masks instead acting to split larger aerosols and droplets and thus project a a finer mist. Much like squeezing jelly through a colander. )
It is also surprising that you are trying to make this point. Very little public messaging has contained the idea that masks protect yourself - it's all about protecting others.
Whether mass mask wearing achieves this outcome is another discussion entirely.
Which articles conclude that wearing a mask does not protect the wearer?
I'm not sure about public messaging in your locality, but where I am, the messages have very much been that wearing a mask protects both you and others, with a focus on higher standards (FFP2 or above) and proper fit protecting you better.
I'm quite happy to concede that masks have downsides, but I would highlight that I was responding to a simplistic authoritative statement, rather than making one of my own out of nowhere.
Your last linked article, which specifically tests the idea that wearing a surgical mask protects the wearer from airbourne disease, concludes this:
>The between-group difference was −0.3 percentage point
The others, which consist largely of wide-ranging statistical analyses with low n values, mostly analyse the overall effect of public mask wearing and have very little to say on the cause (for example, the long list of articles on the CDC page). Are you able to point to any in particular that do say this? As the person making the positive statement ("wearing a mask protects the wearer"), I'm sure you are fully aware where the burden of proof lies.
The article is based on an imperfect study, which found that masks could reduce infection rates by almost 50%, but I can accept your criticism on this, and probably should not have used it to support my argument. However, if you're telling me that it's not evidence that masks can protect you, then it can't possibly be evidence that 'a mask probably won't protect you' for the same reason.
I agree that the majority of the studies cited by the CDC are statistical analyses, but not sure I agree about the low n-values. There is definitely strong evidence that mask wearing reduces overall transmission in the community. It is conceivable that the only reason for this reduced transmission is because it stops people infecting others.
The studies which look specifically at whether a mask protects a wearer individually or not do have lower n-values (Payne, Doung-Ngern, Wang X), but all of them find that it does [note: I haven't looked for studies that don't find this, if you would like to share some, I'd be happy to look at them]. It's unlikely you'll get experimentally tested results because it would be unethical to create the circumstances which would allow you to test this experimentally.
> As the person making the positive statement [...] I'm sure you are fully aware where the burden of proof lies.
I'm not sure you understand how burden of proof works. Anyone who makes an assertion carries a burden of proof, whether it's a positive assertion ('wearing a mask protects the wearer') or a negative one ('wearing a mask does not protect the wearer' or 'a mask probably won't protect you').
I think I'm arguing my part clearly, offering significant (although not irreproachable) evidence that wearing a mask DOES protect the wearer. The only evidence I've seen that wearing a mask DOES NOT protect the wearer is my own citation, which can't rule out masks being 46% effective in reducing the likelihood of catching COVID-19.
Best OP can get away with, even if you don't accept the evidence I've presented, would be 'there's no irrefutable evidence that masks will protect you'.
The Payne study on USS Roosevelt has a very small sample size compared to the number of confounding variables (the paper reports that they allowed the ~300 respondents to select multiple responses, including adherence to social distancing, interacting with people later known to have Covid, etc, etc. It also covered one outbreak over 4 days). Wang's study, as well has having a very small sample number, concludes that other things like "taking a taxi one or more less times per week", "having a pet", and "not going to a farmer's market" are about as effective in reducing risk to the person as wearing a mask. The Doung-Ngern study is a little better, but still I am not sure how they can conclude that one risk can be narrowly identified with a relatively small sample size and relatively many confounding factors (ie, mask wearers are probably less likely to go out, go indoors in public spaces, etc).
>or a negative one ('wearing a mask does not protect the wearer' or 'a mask probably won't protect you').
No, you need to make a positive, proven statement in the first place (ie, "wear this mask to protect yourself"), otherwise you fall victim to the "Lucky Underpants" effect. I wear my lucky underpants to every sports game, and my team always win. If you tell me "no, they don't, that's ridiculous", then are you saying that you will also need to prove that to me?
>offering significant (although not irreproachable) evidence
None of those studies you linked are significant evidence. They are weak-sauce.
> I wear my lucky underpants to every sports game, and my team always win. If you tell me "no, they don't, that's ridiculous", then are you saying that you will also need to prove that to me?
I bring a baseball bat to every baseball game. One time, I didn't bring a baseball bat, and I didn't hit a single run. Do I have to prove it to you that having a baseball bat helps me hit runs?
Again, it's the person who makes the assertion who needs to back it up. I didn't assert that 'a mask probably won't protect you', I responded to it.
Yes, you do. Bringing a bat or not does not necessarily mean you will hit a run.
>Again, it's the person who makes the assertion who needs to back it up.
It sure is. I'm not going to wear a bit of cloth over my face to filter out viruses until someone convinces me that it does me any good (note, we are talking about masks helping the wearer). Much like I'm not going to wear my lucky underpants to every sports game, unless someone convinces me it is necessary.
> I'm not going to wear a bit of cloth over my face to filter out viruses until someone convinces me that it does me any good (note, we are talking about masks helping the wearer).
You are misrepresenting the course of the discussion. Someone asserted masks probably aren’t helpful. I countered with some studies suggesting that that’s wrong. You’ve attacked (fairly) the studies I’ve presented, but not offered any support for the original assertion.
Anyway, even if I have failed to convince you, would you consider wearing a mask for the benefit of those around you?
Is "wearing the correct mask, and in the correct method, could provide some protection" correct in your mind?
Or have you not seen people walking around with cut off shirt sleeves on their face as a "mask"? Or half their face hanging out of it? Or wearing a cotton mask? All effectively useless
I'd accept 'a mask probably won't protect you if you don't wear it properly', or even 'you can still catch COVID even if you wear a mask', because those things are both true.
I object though to the phrasing that a 'mask probably won't protect you'. A mask MAY NOT protect you, but PROBABLY will.
As a parent I’ve had tons of concern around this, instinctively felt this is the case but most people I spoke to about it (mostly non-parents) rolled their eyes and didn’t want to hear it. Here we are.
I think most rational people know masks are terrible for children and infants, but its good to have documented science to back it up. That wont convince pro maskers but maybe its enough to let the kids see each other smile.
I guess someone forgot to tell Asia about this western scientific “discovery”. I can’t take anything written in the West—-both for and against—seriously regarding mask wearing. Both sides have lost their minds regarding masks wearing, something that is incredible common in Asia before Covid.
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[ 5.0 ms ] story [ 29.3 ms ] threadSo I'm very sure we all need to look ourselves in the mirror.
I take your point though - we all have a lot to learn about how we are going to come back together as a society.
The problem with this "everyone's to blame, lets just heal and move on" is that what happened never gets addressed. There have been serious policy failures, along with possible corruption and collusion between institutions that are supposed to be above reproach. Institutions that we need to trust. People were told to "listen to the science" - and they did, largely. They trusted "the science" with their lives. Now it seems Pfizer petitioned a court to keep their vaccine trial data private for 75 years. That doesn't sound very scientific to me. Nor does the published video call between two UK scientists arguing about the suppression of data related to Ivermectin. But no, "science" is fine - we're all to blame, so lets just move on, right?
I even made a quick guide: https://www.bicyclerepairman.cc/laymans_guide/
There is literally zero evidence that masks are harmful provided in the article or in any of the research done. Not a single study. Not even one number. This article should be titled "I think that masks can be detrimental". And that thought should carry all of the weight of a random conjecture by a random person who knows nothing on the topic because it simply hasn't been studied.
PS: Blind children learn language just fine. There is no significant evidence anywhere that blind children's understanding of language and their ability to speak is any lesser than that of sighted children. So this conjecture by this disgraceful researcher is probably very false.
I'm not an expert but this is from a 2015 paper which does a literature review citing many papers arguing just that.
> In summary, although the research to date is not fully supportive of a link between VI and SSP deficits, the mixed evidence provokes compelling reasons to hypothesize that access to visual cues supports early speech perception and subsequent auditory discrimination and phonological mapping.
- Brouwer et al.: SSP Deficits in Children With Visual Impairment (2015) https://pubs.asha.org/doi/pdf/10.1044/cicsd_42_S_33
I would agree it's not exactly an air-tight case (as would Brouwer et al given their hedging), but you are making a very strong claim with "no significant evidence anywhere".
I think you may be confusing emotional/gesture communication with visual speech cues. Because there really aren't that many visual cues for speech apparent with a mask on. Lipreading focuses on the lips, jawline, tongue, teeth, and nostrils (all covered up) along with the eyes and eyebrows and throat.
Anecdotally, I'm pretty much deaf, and I can lipread pretty well. I sometimes cannot even tell if someone is speaking or not behind a mask, let alone figure out what they're saying. I am poor at localizing sound. I'll hear a voice, or think I hear a voice, and I'm scanning all the masks trying to figure out which one is wiggling. With my residual hearing and lipreading I used to be able to pass as hearing in most contexts. These days I just do the "No, I'm deaf" up front because I just can't understand most people who are masked. The severity of it surprised me. I knew I relied on lipreading, I just didn't realize it was that much.
From that, it seems almost obvious to me that I would have had a much more language-poor environment in school under such conditions. Unfortunately I don't have much more than anecdote to rely on here; most deaf and HoH people I know have expressed similar sentiments.
That study is a survey of people that work with children who have visual impairments to see what they think. Not only does this have nothing to do with masks, it doesn't even claim there is a link! It just says that we should probably look into seeing if there is a link.
About that study, there are many reasons why they would see this correlation, ones that have nothing to do with anything sensational. Not the least of which is that they don't correct for multiple comparisons and have very weak statistical evidence for a correlation (tables 4 and 5; you give me 20 tries, I'll eventually see something significant if I don't correct for multiple comparisons). That there can easily be simple explanations for their data (the folks being studied who have visual impairments may have them due to genetic causes which are correlated with speech). That their data is biased toward seeing an effect (many children have undiagnosed language deficits or delays, of course if you have a population where experts are paying more attention you will see more deficits when you compare those statistics to the wider population).
This Scientific American article is just shameless propaganda by a scientist who wants to promote his research above the well being of people and society.
https://www.healthychildren.org/English/health-issues/condit...
https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/science/science-br... "The limited available data indicate no clear evidence that masking impairs emotional or language development in children."
But if you're asking if I'm ashamed of the CDC's pandemic response? A lot of scientists and medical professionals have complained about the CDC. Yes. They have completely botched the messaging on both masks and vaccines. There should have been a simple statement in March 2020: wear a mask. That's it. Instead, they made the issue so incredibly complicated and polarized that almost a million people died.
In what way is this not simply a naked appeal to authority? Have the CDC or AAP conducted long-running randomized trials to determine what the effects of mass masking might be? From what you have linked, this seems like nothing more than that well-worn rhetorical jibe where they just proclaim "there is no evidence" of some thing they're not actually looking for in the first place.
> Instead, they made the issue so incredibly complicated and polarized that almost a million people died.
Is it your impression that more consistent messaging or public compliance would have prevented all of those deaths?
The issue I see is that, at least where I live, the public messaging has been "there is no downside to wearing a mask, just put it on". This has, in my opinion, done huge damage to the credibility of science-based public messaging. A much more honest and accurate message would have been "there are some downsides, but based on our understanding of the evidence, we think the benefits outweigh the risks".
1) A mask probably won't protect you. 2) a mask might protect someone else if you spit while talking or sneeze/cough without covering yourself 3) however, a mask might make people who run on feelings feel better around you 4) masks might cause anxiety and developmental issues due to lack of human connection if it is widespread and consistent
Then let people decide.
https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/science/science-br... https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2014564118 https://www.acpjournals.org/doi/10.7326/m20-6817
In what world would that be evidence that masks work?
For what is worth, at this point there is little reason to cite and refer to these early publications and estimates anyway. Those were early guesses in a hysterical world.
Empirical, observable direct evidence from countries where masks are mandatory, from Germany (N95! is mandatory) to South Korea, Hong Kong etc makes it evident that masks have no effect on the spread of this particular disease.
You mention:
> Empirical, observable direct evidence from countries where masks are mandatory, from Germany (N95! is mandatory) to South Korea, Hong Kong etc makes it evident that masks have no effect on the spread of this particular disease.
Seems South Korea's infections per million is 90 000, Hong Kong's is 63 000, Germany's infections per million is around 190 000, compared to countries with no mask mandate, these numbers seem relatively low.
Could you share specifically what data you're looking at that contradicts what I'm saying?
How can you possibly even bring any data about South Korea or Hong Kong into this discussion when these place have the highest caseloads ever right at this moment?
The caseload today (March 7, 2022) in Hong Kong per 100K people is 5000 cases, more the double (!) of the highest caseload ever observed in the US. Same story with South Korea.
If anything, empirical data shows that using whatever measures they were doing lead to sudden, explosive caseloads.
That is not flattening for sure, it is more explosive - spiking the curve not flattening it.
Hong Kong’s number already seems to be dropping off.
Unravelling the Role of the Mandatory Use of Face Covering Masks for the Control of SARS-CoV-2 in Schools: A Quasi-Experimental Study Nested in a Population-Based Cohort in Catalonia (Spain)
https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4046809
FCM = Face Covering Mandates
> Interpretation: FCM mandates in schools were not associated with lower SARS-CoV-2 incidence or transmission, suggesting that this intervention was not effective. Instead, age-dependency was the most important factor in explaining the transmission risk for children attending school.
None of those articles lend much support to the idea that masks protect the wearer, and if anything, conclude that they do not. This makes perfect sense, as the entire efficacy of mask wearing is based on the idea that even the coarse weave of cloth can reduce the larger aerosols and droplets found at the source. (As a side note, I find even this premise shaky - you could make an equally convincing mental model of the weave of cloth masks instead acting to split larger aerosols and droplets and thus project a a finer mist. Much like squeezing jelly through a colander. )
It is also surprising that you are trying to make this point. Very little public messaging has contained the idea that masks protect yourself - it's all about protecting others.
Whether mass mask wearing achieves this outcome is another discussion entirely.
I'm not sure about public messaging in your locality, but where I am, the messages have very much been that wearing a mask protects both you and others, with a focus on higher standards (FFP2 or above) and proper fit protecting you better.
I'm quite happy to concede that masks have downsides, but I would highlight that I was responding to a simplistic authoritative statement, rather than making one of my own out of nowhere.
>The between-group difference was −0.3 percentage point
The others, which consist largely of wide-ranging statistical analyses with low n values, mostly analyse the overall effect of public mask wearing and have very little to say on the cause (for example, the long list of articles on the CDC page). Are you able to point to any in particular that do say this? As the person making the positive statement ("wearing a mask protects the wearer"), I'm sure you are fully aware where the burden of proof lies.
The article is based on an imperfect study, which found that masks could reduce infection rates by almost 50%, but I can accept your criticism on this, and probably should not have used it to support my argument. However, if you're telling me that it's not evidence that masks can protect you, then it can't possibly be evidence that 'a mask probably won't protect you' for the same reason.
I agree that the majority of the studies cited by the CDC are statistical analyses, but not sure I agree about the low n-values. There is definitely strong evidence that mask wearing reduces overall transmission in the community. It is conceivable that the only reason for this reduced transmission is because it stops people infecting others.
The studies which look specifically at whether a mask protects a wearer individually or not do have lower n-values (Payne, Doung-Ngern, Wang X), but all of them find that it does [note: I haven't looked for studies that don't find this, if you would like to share some, I'd be happy to look at them]. It's unlikely you'll get experimentally tested results because it would be unethical to create the circumstances which would allow you to test this experimentally.
> As the person making the positive statement [...] I'm sure you are fully aware where the burden of proof lies.
I'm not sure you understand how burden of proof works. Anyone who makes an assertion carries a burden of proof, whether it's a positive assertion ('wearing a mask protects the wearer') or a negative one ('wearing a mask does not protect the wearer' or 'a mask probably won't protect you').
I think I'm arguing my part clearly, offering significant (although not irreproachable) evidence that wearing a mask DOES protect the wearer. The only evidence I've seen that wearing a mask DOES NOT protect the wearer is my own citation, which can't rule out masks being 46% effective in reducing the likelihood of catching COVID-19.
Best OP can get away with, even if you don't accept the evidence I've presented, would be 'there's no irrefutable evidence that masks will protect you'.
>or a negative one ('wearing a mask does not protect the wearer' or 'a mask probably won't protect you').
No, you need to make a positive, proven statement in the first place (ie, "wear this mask to protect yourself"), otherwise you fall victim to the "Lucky Underpants" effect. I wear my lucky underpants to every sports game, and my team always win. If you tell me "no, they don't, that's ridiculous", then are you saying that you will also need to prove that to me?
>offering significant (although not irreproachable) evidence
None of those studies you linked are significant evidence. They are weak-sauce.
I bring a baseball bat to every baseball game. One time, I didn't bring a baseball bat, and I didn't hit a single run. Do I have to prove it to you that having a baseball bat helps me hit runs?
Again, it's the person who makes the assertion who needs to back it up. I didn't assert that 'a mask probably won't protect you', I responded to it.
>Again, it's the person who makes the assertion who needs to back it up.
It sure is. I'm not going to wear a bit of cloth over my face to filter out viruses until someone convinces me that it does me any good (note, we are talking about masks helping the wearer). Much like I'm not going to wear my lucky underpants to every sports game, unless someone convinces me it is necessary.
You are misrepresenting the course of the discussion. Someone asserted masks probably aren’t helpful. I countered with some studies suggesting that that’s wrong. You’ve attacked (fairly) the studies I’ve presented, but not offered any support for the original assertion.
Anyway, even if I have failed to convince you, would you consider wearing a mask for the benefit of those around you?
Or have you not seen people walking around with cut off shirt sleeves on their face as a "mask"? Or half their face hanging out of it? Or wearing a cotton mask? All effectively useless
I'd accept 'a mask probably won't protect you if you don't wear it properly', or even 'you can still catch COVID even if you wear a mask', because those things are both true.
I object though to the phrasing that a 'mask probably won't protect you'. A mask MAY NOT protect you, but PROBABLY will.