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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]A large-scale “gold standard” controlled, randomized international study on face masks shows surgical masks *are* effective against COVID.  Stop saying masks don’t work, they do.

https://med.stanford.edu/news/all-news/2021/09/surgical-masks-covid-19.html

https://egc.yale.edu/largest-study-masks-and-covid-19-demonstrates-their-effectiveness-real-world

And here’s yet another scientific study that was published last month.

https://www.ucf.edu/news/face-masks-cut-distance-airborne-pathogens-could-travel-in-half-new-study-finds/?amp
[/quote]

I am so sick of seeing this stupid RCT study. It is irrelevant to the school masking debate.

-The study found no effects for surgical masking below the age of 50
-The effects it did find, while large in some cases, like over 65, were in other cases so small the authors had to fudge the threshold of statistical significance (p=.05) in order to include them. 
-The study found no reduction in infection risk with cloth masks. So unless your position is that schools need to mandate high-quality masks for everyone (good luck with that, btw), you actually do agree with the PP saying cloth masks don't work. 
-The study looked at poor, rural villages on the Asian subcontinent, about as far removed from the behavioral and environmental milieu of a US classroom I can imagine. 
[b]-The study was pre-delta variant. Delta was 50-200% more transmissible than Alpha. Omicron was 400% more transmissible, possibly more, and the BA2 sub-lineage is 50% more transmissible than that. Each increase in transmissibility reduces the minimum viral exposure necessary to trigger an infection, which increases the level of mask discipline and consistency of the airtight seal necessary for a mask to have a meaningful effect. If you think that threshold can be maintained in a school environment indefinitely, you're crazy. [/b]

The difference in transmissibility can't be understated. People citing the RCT are basically saying "I conducted a study in England which shows umbrellas to be effective in keeping people from getting wet in the rain," and then going around Southeast Asia during monsoon season handing out those collapsible umbrellas you can fit in a purse. Of course it won't work. And the person saying in that situation "umbrellas don't work" isn't anti-science.

Lucky for us, "getting wet" in this scenario is a manageable outcome for the vast, vast majority of people, and the sort of thing that, with or without umbrellas, our society can and will have to live with well into the long-term. 
[/quote]

Even studies designed to show that masks work using mannequins and ideal conditions tended to show that masks don't work under circumstances like the bolded.[/quote]

With regard to the bold text, you’re advocating for less masking the more transmissible a variant is?  Wouldn’t you encourage better and more prevalent masking if the strain is more transmissible?  Make it make sense.

Next you all are going to be suggesting doctors, nurses and patients remove their masks.[/quote]

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