Masks had no impact, full lockdown had no impact - Study of 30 countries finds

[Logosone]

10 minutes ago, DrTuner said:

It's actually very hard to determine what exactly worked and what not when everybody threw the entire kitchen sink on it. Commies could experiment by sending a portion of population one by one to do comparison trials, but in the west it's seen as a bit unethical.

That's exactly what I thought, especially after reading that Chinese study which said they could not make a finding in that regard and needed more evidence. I actually feared we would never find out the truth.

 

However, the academics in the UK here have found the solution to that problem. They have understood that countries have put in place various measures at different times and yet they all recorded deaths. So they made a comparative analysis and in that way were able to circumvent that issue.

 

"A quasi-experimental study design is an intervention study where the allocation to receive the intervention (or not) is not randomly made. At present, most European states have introduced a similar suite of interventions aimed at reducing contact between individuals to reduce transmission. However, the different types of intervention used and their timing vary from one country to another. No measure was imposed by all European countries and where measured were imposed, they were often imposed at different points in the development of the epidemics. This situation offers a unique opportunity to investigate the putative impacts of the various types of intervention, as each individual-country epidemic forms what is effectively a chronosequence of disease spread. The intervention strategies can then be compared as interrupted time series."

 

https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.05.01.20088260v1.full.pdf

 

So now we know, stay-at-home lockdown, closing non-essential businesses and wearing masks had no effect.

Edited May 8, 2020 by Logosone

[CharlieH]

Debate/discuss the topic but please do not make personal remarks,.

 

Keep it civil please.

7) You will respect fellow members and post in a civil manner. No personal attacks, hateful or insulting towards other members, (flaming) Stalking of members on either the forum or via PM will not be allowed.

[TallGuyJohninBKK]

Quote

 

Collinearity makes it hard to separate out individual intervention effects. Moreover, many interventions were implemented in different ways and at different points in the local epidemic....

 

Face covering interventions varied hugely between countries: most made face covering voluntary and some only suggested it in specific settings....

 

All models are simplifications of the complex nature of reality; our modelling was unable capture many subtle variations in how control measures were implemented. We acknowledge that lack of direct observation of these variations may have biased our results.

 

 

Quoted from the study discussed in this thread.

Edited May 8, 2020 by TallGuyJohninBKK

[JackThompson]

My take on this - the masks would have helped if that were the Only restriction - but this was combined with "lockdowns" of folks in confined indoor-spaces - where viruses spread most effectively - with a "go get food" person going out to a community-virus-transfer point (aka "grocery-store") - who then brought the virus back with them into the confined indoor space.

 

The best solution, once it was clear exactly what cross-section of the population was vulnerable, would have been to isolate the vulnerable from everyone else - while letting the rest quickly develop herd-immunity.

[Phulublub]

12 minutes ago, Logosone said:

So now we know, stay-at-home lockdown, closing non-essential businesses and wearing masks had no effect.

You know.  Most of the rest of us are quite so sure.

 

PH

[DrTuner]

17 minutes ago, Logosone said:

"A quasi-experimental study design is an intervention study where the allocation to receive the intervention (or not) is not randomly made. At present, most European states have introduced a similar suite of interventions aimed at reducing contact between individuals to reduce transmission. However, the different types of intervention used and their timing vary from one country to another. No measure was imposed by all European countries and where measured were imposed, they were often imposed at different points in the development of the epidemics. This situation offers a unique opportunity to investigate the putative impacts of the various types of intervention, as each individual-country epidemic forms what is effectively a chronosequence of disease spread. The intervention strategies can then be compared as interrupted time series."

 

https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.05.01.20088260v1.full.pdf

That has another problem, differing climates, populations and other social factors. There's so many variables I doubt even applying machine learning and trying to find the clusters ( https://towardsdatascience.com/the-5-clustering-algorithms-data-scientists-need-to-know-a36d136ef68 )  could find something statistically important. If it was a smaller and more homogenous set of people, with varying measures applied, should yield more conclusive results.

 

It's good that they are trying, though. medRxiv is a good stepping stone towards peer review, which is what this article needs, especially from the data scientist community.

Edited May 8, 2020 by DrTuner

[Logosone]

5 minutes ago, TallGuyJohninBKK said:

 

Quoted from the study discussed in this thread.

Again you simply mistake pro-forma qualifications as the substance of the study. Just like every study ends with saying "we need more data", this is not the substance of the research.

 

The substance of the research is this:

 

"These results would suggest that the widespread use of face masks or coverings in the community do not provide any benefit. Indeed, there is even a suggestion that they may actually increase risk"

 

https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.05.01.20088260v1.full.pdf

 

If you read on the report further makes clear:

 

 ".... but what results are available do not support their widespread use in the community."

 

"We found that closure of education facilities, prohibiting mass gatherings and closure of some nonessential businesses were associated with reduced incidence whereas stay at home orders, closure of all non-businesses and requiring the wearing of facemasks or coverings in public was not associated with any independent additional impact"

 

https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.05.01.20088260v1.full.pdf

 

[Yinn]

29 minutes ago, Logosone said:

This is not actually advice from Public Health England, Yinn, they merely paid for the research.

 

Indeed Public Health England itself made many mistakes, however, this study is clear evidence that masks have no effect, and that stay-at-home lockdown and closing non-essential business had no effect either.

 

Maybe you can send it to the Thai Covid19 centre?

 

 

 

 

[Logosone]

4 minutes ago, Phulublub said:

You know.  Most of the rest of us are quite so sure.

 

PH

You know, they know, I know. We all know it now. Of course there is a small contingent of hardcore lockdown and mask fetishists, who simply do not want to accept that they were wrong all along, but the data is clear.

 

It points in one direction only, wearing masks had no effect.

 

Of course the usual waffle about more data, preliminary, etc, but the substance of the data is clear.

 

The masks have no effect.

[Skallywag]

https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/05/07/sorry-americans-you-havent-even-had-real-lockdown-yet-coronavirus-spain/

 

Masks are to protect others when you cough or spit out words into a cell phone.  2/3 of the asymptomatic may still be out there.  Grim reapers unknowingly causing the elderly and at-risk humans demise.   

 

  

Edited May 8, 2020 by Skallywag

[TallGuyJohninBKK]

Quote

Our results on face coverings should be considered to be preliminary because the use of coverings was recommended or required only relatively late in the epidemics in each European country. The results for face covering are too preliminary to inform policy but indicates that face covering as an intervention merits close monitoring.

 

Quote

There was substantial heterogeneity in how the wearing of face coverings in the community was encouraged or mandated and in what contexts, such as always outside the home or just in shops or on public transport. This heterogeneity combined with their relative recent introduction means that we do not yet endorse using the results about face covering use (in our main model) being used to inform public policy.

 

[vermin on arrival]

10 hours ago, thaibeachlovers said:

Yes we do. I've stated that in my area few wear them, so compare to a country that does have a high % of mask wearing.

I'm not allowed to travel in NZ, so that justs for my area, but I expect it will be similar elsewhere.

Taiwan South Korea, and Hong Kong. No lockdown and extremely high mask usage. No school closures. Pandemic also defeated. Of course other things done as well.

Edited May 8, 2020 by vermin on arrival

[Skallywag]

7 minutes ago, Logosone said:

mask fetishists..... wearing masks had no effect.

excerpts taken out of context show contradictions.

 

Truthfully, the surging mask business is a good way to contribute to the sole proprietors that have started up table top mask sales throughout the land.    

Take your past, present, future loved one out for a night of mask procurements and have fun with them back home. ???? 

[Logosone]

13 minutes ago, TallGuyJohninBKK said:

 

 

Yet again you omit to state that after the "preliminary" reference the authors clearly state:

 

 ".... but what results are available do not support their widespread use in the community."

 

"We found that closure of education facilities, prohibiting mass gatherings and closure of some nonessential businesses were associated with reduced incidence whereas stay at home orders, closure of all non-businesses and requiring the wearing of facemasks or coverings in public was not associated with any independent additional impact"

 

https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.05.01.20088260v1.full.pdf

 

If you quote then quote the actual substance of the study, not just the qualifications.

Edited 39 minutes ago by Logosone

[rvaviator]

One this is for sure ... 'Masks' does get a lot of 'clicks' ...  23 pages and counting ...

[Logosone]

2 minutes ago, vermin on arrival said:

Taiwan and Hong Kong. No lockdown and extremely high mask usage. No school closures. Pandemic also defeated. Of course other things done as well.

And lets not forget what the Central Epidemic Prevention Center in Taiwan advised:

 

"In early February 2020 the Executive Yuan adopted the recommendations of professors Huang Li-min (黃立民) and Chang Shang-chwen of the National Taiwan University Medical School, advocating that healthy people do not need to wear masks in open spaces. On 8 February, Chen Shih-chung, commander of the Central Epidemic Prevention Center, further stated that there was no need to wear a mask on public transportation."

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COVID-19_pandemic_in_Taiwan

[TallGuyJohninBKK]

2 minutes ago, rvaviator said:

One this is for sure ... 'Masks' does get a lot of 'clicks' ...  23 pages and counting ...

 

This thread should have been closed as irrelevant and misleading long ago.

 

Were it only true.

 

[Skallywag]

28 minutes ago, JackThompson said:

The best solution, once it was clear exactly what cross-section of the population was vulnerable, would have been to isolate the vulnerable from everyone else - while letting the rest quickly develop herd-immunity.

Jack Thompson, this has been my hypothesis for the logical/scientific/economic way forward all along. 

You stated it concisely 

[vermin on arrival]

5 minutes ago, Logosone said:

And lets not forget what the Central Epidemic Prevention Center in Taiwan advised:

 

"In early February 2020 the Executive Yuan adopted the recommendations of professors Huang Li-min (黃立民) and Chang Shang-chwen of the National Taiwan University Medical School, advocating that healthy people do not need to wear masks in open spaces. On 8 February, Chen Shih-chung, commander of the Central Epidemic Prevention Center, further stated that there was no need to wear a mask on public transportation."

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COVID-19_pandemic_in_Taiwan

Actually Heath Ministry said otherwise https://www.taiwannews.com.tw/en/news/3927810

 

During the CECC's daily afternoon press conference on Saturday (May 2), Chang said that he received many questions from the public about why Taiwan was so successful in limiting the spread of coronavirus, including in hospitals. Chang said that it all boils down to the wearing of masks by both persons infected with the disease and healthy individuals.

Chang said if people infected with coronavirus wear a face mask, the number of droplets released through sneezing, coughing, exhaling, speaking, etc... is reduced by 70 to 80 percent. Likewise, if a healthy person wears a face mask, the amount of such droplets inhaled from carriers will also be reduced by 70 to 80 percent.

He then estimated that when both parties are wearing a mask, the chance of transmission drops down to just one or two percent. However, he conceded that there is not yet any scientific data to support his theory.

Edited May 8, 2020 by vermin on arrival

[Kinnock]

11 hours ago, Lacessit said:

Full lockdown in Australia and New Zealand. 14 days quarantine for returning Australians. Social distancing, hefty fines for breaches. Result: 118 deaths total, both countries. Death rate 4 per million population. Recovery rate 85%.

USA: Nearly 77,000 deaths, death rate 232 per million population. Recovery rate 15%.

I guess Australia and New Zealand were left out of the survey, Sir Humphrey.

 

Australia did not do a full lockdown.  Restaurants and shops open, people able to travel, but social distancing was enforced (over zealously by the police according to some people). 

 

New Zealand went for full lockdown, now they don't know how to lift it, and they will be paying the price for years.  Also, when they do lift it, and allow flights, their epidemic will start, as their population has no immunity.  

 

Quarantine for healthy people never made sense, it was a blatant violation of civil rights and an economic disaster.

[Skallywag]

5 minutes ago, rvaviator said:

One this is for sure ... 'Masks' does get a lot of 'clicks' ...  23 pages and counting ...

11 hours of opinions, rants, truthiness of which I only read the last several minutes ???? 

[vermin on arrival]

6 minutes ago, Logosone said:

And lets not forget what the Central Epidemic Prevention Center in Taiwan advised:

 

"In early February 2020 the Executive Yuan adopted the recommendations of professors Huang Li-min (黃立民) and Chang Shang-chwen of the National Taiwan University Medical School, advocating that healthy people do not need to wear masks in open spaces. On 8 February, Chen Shih-chung, commander of the Central Epidemic Prevention Center, further stated that there was no need to wear a mask on public transportation."

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COVID-19_pandemic_in_Taiwan

The article I sourced was their current thinking May4.

[Pharoticus]

11 hours ago, BritManToo said:

IMHO .........

The totalitarian actions of the governments was never about COVID.

It's all about something else, but we don't know what quite yet.

Excellent post. 

 

+1.

[vermin on arrival]

13 minutes ago, Logosone said:

And lets not forget what the Central Epidemic Prevention Center in Taiwan advised:

 

"In early February 2020 the Executive Yuan adopted the recommendations of professors Huang Li-min (黃立民) and Chang Shang-chwen of the National Taiwan University Medical School, advocating that healthy people do not need to wear masks in open spaces. On 8 February, Chen Shih-chung, commander of the Central Epidemic Prevention Center, further stated that there was no need to wear a mask on public transportation."

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COVID-19_pandemic_in_Taiwan

Realize that the person you quote here in Feb, was the same one who said the opposite on May 2nd.

[Peabody]

I read the study and could not find the control group against which their data was compared. Can anyone else who read it show me the page with that data?

Also:
Limitations Although our study suggests that closures of educational interventions and banning mass gatherings are the most important measures, this is caveated with several observations. Collinearity makes it hard to separate out individual intervention effects. Moreover, many interventions were implemented in different ways and at different points in the local epidemic. For example, in accordance with the IHME assignment, we treated Sweden as a country without school closures because schools for persons under 16 stayed open, although upper secondary and tertiary education facilities were actually shut in Sweden from late March 2020 26. Similarly, the exact timing of restrictions being introduced varied over time in Italy, Spain and between individual federal states in Germany 27. Which types of work places could stay open varied; while the acceptable reasons for being outdoors also varied between countries. Stay at home orders in some countries may be an advisory that is not enforced whilst in others it is enforced by police with penalties. In some countries, children may go outside and outdoor exercise is permitted whilst in others either may be banned. In some countries, severe travel restrictions may be a separate intervention whilst in others it may be a consequence of a stay at home order and not be identified separately. Face covering interventions varied hugely between countries: most made face covering voluntary and some only suggested it in specific settings. Because of this variety in how interventions are implemented and described, the results for the potential of stay at home advisories especially may be underestimated. All models are simplifications of the complex nature of reality; our modelling was unable capture many subtle variations in how control measures were implemented. We acknowledge that lack of direct observation of these variations may have biased our results.

[Phulublub]

36 minutes ago, Logosone said:

Again you simply mistake pro-forma qualifications as the substance of the study. Just like every study ends with saying "we need more data", this is not the substance of the research.

 

The substance of the research is this:

 

"These results would suggest that the widespread use of face masks or coverings in the community do not provide any benefit. Indeed, there is even a suggestion that they may actually increase risk"

 

https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.05.01.20088260v1.full.pdf

 

If you read on the report further makes clear:

 

 ".... but what results are available do not support their widespread use in the community."

 

"We found that closure of education facilities, prohibiting mass gatherings and closure of some nonessential businesses were associated with reduced incidence whereas stay at home orders, closure of all non-businesses and requiring the wearing of facemasks or coverings in public was not associated with any independent additional impact"

 

https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.05.01.20088260v1.full.pdf

 

Again we agree.  The most important bit, quoting you is:

 

"These results would suggest..."

[lkv]

6 minutes ago, Skallywag said:

11 hours of opinions, rants, truthiness of which I only read the last several minutes ???? 

Jesus f#cking Christ.

 

So i virtually bumped into this thread 15 minutes ago.

 

It was painful.

 

PAINFUL.

 

@Logosone out of 354 posts, probably 100 of them, you just copy pasted.

 

You are trolling.

 

We get it, you don't fancy face masks OK?

 

The study, like many others, is not peer reviewed.

 

You started to create science out of "expert" non peer reviewed studies.

 

Can you please stop repeating yourself like a broken record, I get it already.

 

Thank you.

 

 

[Logosone]

11 minutes ago, vermin on arrival said:

Chang said that it all boils down to the wearing of masks by both persons infected with the disease and healthy individuals.

Chang said if people infected with coronavirus wear a face mask, the number of droplets released through sneezing, coughing, exhaling, speaking, etc... is reduced by 70 to 80 percent. Likewise, if a healthy person wears a face mask, the amount of such droplets inhaled from carriers will also be reduced by 70 to 80 percent.

He then estimated that when both parties are wearing a mask, the chance of transmission drops down to just one or two percent. However, he conceded that there is not yet any scientific data to support his theory.

"However, he conceded that there is not yet any scientific data to support his theory."

 

Fortunately we now have scientific data that shows conclusively that Mr Chang's theory is absolutely wrong.

 

Masks have no effect. Deaths actually went up when people started wearing masks.

 

If masks had a beneficial effect deaths would have gone down. They didn't.

[TallGuyJohninBKK]

A fair reading of the study's main finding regarding face mask wear is the following quoted excerpt:

 

Quote

These results would suggest that the widespread use of face masks or coverings in the community do not provide any benefit. Indeed, there is even a suggestion that they may actually increase risk, but as stated previously, we feel that the data on face coverings are too preliminary to inform public policy.

 

Why we have 24 pages of arguing over the study's above-quoted main conclusion re face mask wear is beyond me...

 

If the OP has only acknowledged and posted as much at the beginning of this thread, ThaiVisa would have saved 24 pages of dreck.

 

Edited May 8, 2020 by TallGuyJohninBKK

[vermin on arrival]

2 minutes ago, TallGuyJohninBKK said:

A fair reading of the study's main finding regarding face mask wear is the following quoted excerpt:

 

 

Why we have 24 pages of arguing over the study's above-quoted main conclusion re face mask wear is beyond me...

I don't know the final conclusion on masks is very inconclusive

UNDECIDED 

Facemasks

Wearing facemasks in public was not associated with any independent additional impact. But the researchers say these results are too preliminary to reliably inform policy.

Dr Brainard said: 'The use of face coverings initially seems to have had a protective effect. However, after day 15 of the face covering advisories or requirements, we saw that the number of cases started to rise – with a similar pattern for the number of deaths.

'Face coverings may even be associated with increased risk, but the data quality for this is very uncertain.

'The results on face coverings are too preliminary to reliably inform policy, but what results are available do not support their widespread use in the community.

'Wearing face covering as an intervention certainly merits close monitoring,' she added.