To Mask or not to two - Mask Megathread cont.

Brendan Bendar · 22-01-2023 7:27am

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120140631#Comment_120140631

What has the correlation between not wearing masks properly and mandates not working?

22-01-2023 9:01am

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120140766#Comment_120140766

As I said, the studies are a misrepresentation.

Do they factor in people wearing cloth masks? Do they factor in people wearing face visors? Do they factor in wearing the same mask that's stuffed in your pocket for a week?

Do they factor in constantly removing the mask to eat and drink etc?

Odyssey himself admitted they don't. So they're not capturing real life conditions.

xhomelezz · 22-01-2023 10:18am

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120140627#Comment_120140627

You don't seem to understand data and prefer to insult me instead.

That's ok.

I have literally explained to you that there is NOTHING to see in the global data. That is literally the whole point.

You don't seem to understand data and prefer to insult me instead.

You didn't explain one bit. One would expect someone claiming his career is working with data, will do better...

It is up to YOU to prove that masks did something meaningful, because the data doesn't show it.

Why? Am I the one bombing this thread with unsupported claims?

Nope.

If you can't , stop insulting me or at the very least, make some coherent point on this thread.

I gave my view on the masks plenty times here, and I don't feel the need to post it over and over. When it comes to the insults, insulting is posting garbage without any back up and then play a victim here .. IMO

So what is it gonna be? Can you show me how did you come to your conclusions on masks, or you gonna keep flooding this thread with more unsupported nonsense?

22-01-2023 10:27am

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120140907#Comment_120140907

I've literally done that for you.

Why didn't cases/deaths in Ireland change when mandates were implemented or removed?

Let's just focus on that one simple line for a sec.

xhomelezz · 22-01-2023 10:35am

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120140922#Comment_120140922

I've literally done that for you.

Look I'm very sorry for repeating myself, but you haven't..

22-01-2023 10:47am

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120140934#Comment_120140934

Go to a site like worldometer. Click on Ireland. Google the dates mask mandates were implemented/removed.

Zoom in on the data. You're not going to see any drop in cases when masks were mandated and similarly you won't see any increase when they were removed.

You can do the same for other countries as you please.

xhomelezz · 22-01-2023 11:01am

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120140959#Comment_120140959

And you think this is some proof for your claims? It's just as bad as your famous 25k cases post circulating here over and over.

And please don't take this as an insult.

Have a nice Sunday

Brendan Bendar · 22-01-2023 11:20am

Difficult to understand an attitude to the wearing of masks when those medically qualified back up the efficacy of wearing them.

One will always have the conspiracy theorists who just to be awkward and come up with some of the rubbish posted here by a hard core nay sayers who despite contrary evidence being shown to them persist with the attitudes they seem hardwired for.

Unfortunately they crop up everywhere and seem to have nothing else to do but push their tenuous theories ad nauseam to anyone who will listen.

walus · 22-01-2023 11:24am

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120139968#Comment_120139968

all I done is applied your logic and criteria with which you attack and argue with others posters here. Seems like you don’t like the taste of your own medicine, funnily enough.

If you did not noticed yet, believe that a multidisciplinary approach to complex issues, such as this, is a better approach than just focusing on what can be brought to the table only by health and medical ‘experts’. I mean we had those virtually running this country for the last two years and We will have to deal with outcomes of that for decades to come. The more we draw from other sciences and involve the experts from other fields, the better the perspective, research and thus science. I personally make no attempts to discredit the papers and have no issues with the affiliation, background or current roles of authors of those publications mentioned by partjungle.

It is you however who should have raised a red flag if you were in any shape truthful and consistent with your approach to the debate. Clearly, you are not. Period.

Time and time again you attempt to discredit papers, publications and scientists based on some ridiculous reasons that do not stand up to any scrutiny. When challenged, you fail to disclose your credentials. You have no credibility whatsoever when it comes to judging the quality of source, information, data etc.

Just to reiterate, I have no intention to get involved in discussion that is aimed to waste time, deflect from the issue on hand and derail the debate. These are the usual intentional tactics that are to make conversation fruitless.

fun loving criminal · 22-01-2023 11:24am

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120140959#Comment_120140959

Masks weren't required at the beginning of the pandemic even for healthcare workers. When they eventually got around to giving healthcare workers masks, weren't there a drop in cases in healthcare settings? So your claim about not seeing a drop in cases when masks were mandated is pure rubbish.

They drop mask mandates here last year. So you are also saying that there should have been an increase in cases when mandates were dropped.

How did you know there wasn't an increase in cases? They scaled back PCR testing, stopped contact tracing, stopped tracking it. So there's no way of knowing without tracking it and testing for it.

odyssey06 · 22-01-2023 11:52am

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120140637#Comment_120140637

This is what I wrote:

Who said all mask studies are pretty worthless? That's a strawman without foundation. I said you are looking for a standard of study which is not feasible in the real world. A standard of study which is not necessary or required for public health measures.

It is that the mask studies are all limited in some way or another, need to be assessed as a whole in light of lab studies and case studies by the public health authorities whose role it is to assess such evidence.

So your post is an entirely dishonest deliberate misrepresentation of another poster's comments.

Proof positive you are unable to debate your position in good faith when you are have to resort to these con jobs.

odyssey06 · 22-01-2023 11:58am

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120141053#Comment_120141053

You are the one picking and choosing experts, choosing these 2 random 'experts', one of whom is a vetinerian OVER the infectious disease and public health experts at every major health authority in the world such as the CDC who have looked all the available data into masks - lab studies, case studies and real world studies.

What are your credentials to make that choice? None whatsoever.

I don't need to show you my credentials, I refer to you the credentials of the experts at the major health authorities.

You are the one who brought credentials into it. It is the ground you have chosen to debate on and once you did that, it shows your argument hasn't got a leg to stand on.

[Deleted User] · 22-01-2023 12:04pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120140959#Comment_120140959

This is not proof. What did you say your job is? It is actually related to interpreting data? You are looking at a system with thousands of variables and drawing a conclusion about one. Beyond moronic

walus · 22-01-2023 1:08pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120141122#Comment_120141122

We have established now that you have no credentials and therefore right to state that a person who is currently an expert in public health studies and senior writer/researcher in that field is just a veterinarian, simply because they did PhD in veterinary medicine say 30 years ago. Consequently, to conclude what you did, using your own words - is a strawman without foundation.

I gave you an opportunity to prove that you have a background that allows you to endorse your arguments. I take it that you don’t have such background.

It is a fact that you purposely derail conversations to deflect from the core issues on hand. Once the conversation is derailed, it does not matter who wins those arguments, if the arguments are not worth having in the first place.

Feel free to go down yet another rabbit hole. enjoy the journey, I’ll leave you to it at this point.

Brendan Bendar · 22-01-2023 1:09pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120141134#Comment_120141134

The amount of time and ‘effort’ these types invest in harebrained theories always puzzles me.

Maybe it’s because they get their ‘kicks’ from contraryerism and obfuscation and trying too hard to be different.

Very strange individuals I always find.

22-01-2023 1:32pm

We're getting to a stage were we are just going round in circles on a topic that should be long dead, if it wasn't for a tiny minority pushing agenda's to force everyone to mask.

The authorities have stood firm and told them no.

At this point, you can wear a mask if you want to. 95%+ don't want to.

With that in mind, I'll step away from this thread and stop contributing to a debate that should be closed unless something actually newsworthy happens.

If I do see this thread again, it won't be a surprise which side tries to spark the debate again.

fm · 22-01-2023 1:41pm

Re-analysis on the statistical sampling biases of a mask promotion trial in Bangladesh: a statistical replication

https://trialsjournal.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s13063-022-06704-

xhomelezz · 22-01-2023 1:45pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120141347#Comment_120141347

Yeah I'm pretty sure you'll jump back ASAP. And in the meantime you might get ready some numbers to finally make a sense to your claim "masks don't work" etc.

We're getting to a stage were we are just going round in circles on a topic that should be long dead, if it wasn't for a tiny minority pushing agenda's to force everyone to mask.

When seeing this I wouldn't hold my breath, that there is gonna be some meaningful explanation on your stance, ever.

But I like to get surprised, so maybe ..

And enjoy your well deserved break !

fm · 22-01-2023 1:50pm

Conclusion of the re analysis here.

it would not be reasonable to conclude from this trial that there is a direct causal link between mask wearing and the number of residents in villages and households, any causal claims based on effects of similar size in this trial should be considered with caution. In particular, both COVID symptoms and COVID symptomatic seroprevalence exhibited similar magnitudes (and much weaker significance) than population differences which arose from bias and chance alone.

It is tempting to argue that the recruited and unrecruited individuals would have to be substantially different in how they report symptoms or test positive on serology in order for the recruitment bias to entirely account for the reported effect on endpoints. While a large difference between these populations may be unlikely, the bias evident in the trial outcomes demands caution regardless of assumptions one might be willing to make about unobserved individuals in the control arm.

In particular, it is critical to consider that all of the outcomes in the study are based on self-reporting of symptoms. Even for the serology endpoint, which may appear unbiased at first glance, subjects were only eligible for a blood draw if they had reported symptoms. Thus, all endpoints are subject to behavioral biases. Our analysis of the population size shows that behavioral biases can produce a highly significant 9% difference between the control and intervention arm in the absence of any causal link with the intervention. It is thus also premature to conclude a similarly sized causal effect on any other variable that is subject to behavior bias, including the trial endpoints.

The purpose of randomized control trials is to establish a causal link between interventions and outcomes. However, causal implications are diminished in the presence of unblinding, ascertainment bias, and bias-susceptible endpoints. Unfortunately, in the Bangladesh mask trial we evidence of all of the above.

The study in question raises intriguing questions about the role of public health interventions in changing behavioral patterns to decrease COVID case rates in low- and middle-income countries. The mask intervention was highly effective at modifying behaviors (distancing, mask-wearing, symptom reporting). Nonetheless, the data is consistent with mask wearing having modest or no direct effect on COVID-related outcomes in this experimental setting.

Brendan Bendar · 22-01-2023 2:09pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120141347#Comment_120141347

Where is the evidence that “95%+ “ don’t want to wear masks?

What survey brought up those figures?

fun loving criminal · 22-01-2023 2:45pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120141347#Comment_120141347

So you don't have an answer to why cases dropped in healthcare settings when workers were given masks?

And an answer to when mask mandates ended and how do you not know there wasn't an increase in cases when they scaled back testing and contact tracing?

walus · 22-01-2023 3:19pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120141414#Comment_120141414

Now wait for the ‘strawman without foundation’ and ‘but, but she is just a molecular biology professor’, or ‘look what she tweeted the other day’, ‘she clearly is an anti-vaxxer’. Lol.

I have had issues with this study from day one as I did not agree to the way it was constructed. I can completely understand the need to drive home the need for mask, social distancing and the need for the researchers to be on the ground to ensure the proper conditions. What they missed is the phase two, in which they would remove the masks but still maintain and drive the need for social distancing for the same period of time. This way controlled conditions would have been maintained throughout the process and same for both cases - masks ON, and masks OFF. The difference is the efficacy of the masks.

The study as is is clearly tinted.

This study has been used to promote masks and masks mandates by many news outlets. Great pity that it was not as thorough as people were led to believe.

Goldengirl · 22-01-2023 4:41pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120141347#Comment_120141347

I think that is a good decision and I refer to your statement that it won't be a surprise which side..keeps it going around and around and around ... which 'side ' would that be ?

I note you were posting away on the thread last night when everyone else was long gone ...you must be wrecked .

Take care .

walus · 22-01-2023 5:43pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120141583#Comment_120141583

At the time the masks were introduced in healthcare setting, were there any other measles or changes of behaviour of staff implemented as well? For example frequent disinfections of common areas, frequent hand washing, distancing, insistence that staff stay at home at the slightest suspicion of feeling unwell etc?

fun loving criminal · 22-01-2023 5:59pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120142344#Comment_120142344

I'm sure you remember well how at the beginning it was all about contact and touching surfaces, so they went went cleaning surfaces, hand washing and hand sanitizing as protection measures.

People were terrified going around wearing their gloves while shopping if you don't remember.

None of that helped in healthcare settings though and cases started to drop in healthcare settings when they allowed healthcare workers to wear masks.

walus · 22-01-2023 8:47pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120142459#Comment_120142459

To establish a causal relationship between reduction in transmission and application of masks in healthcare setting you need a lot more that what you or me, or anybody for that matter remembers from that period.