In response to one of yesterday's posts, commenter Fido offered up, in apparent rebuttal, the abstract of an Oz/Kiwi study on PubMed, comparing effectiveness of cloth versus medical masks for personal protection. We held off posting it only until we had a chance to devote the requisite time to giving it a once-over. The results did not turn out the way we suspect Fido had hoped.
Natzsofast, Guido.
Ground rules:
1) This no personal slam on Fido. I don't know him, but I'm spotting him that he was offering what he thought was "Scientific Proof!" as a legitimate debate data point, in good faith.
2) The slam here is on the total jackasses and frauds deliberately foisting such ass-generated codswallop on the public, for any purpose other than pure comedy relief.
3) That point established, pray, go and read our reply in detail.
4) First and foremost, and apart from what we wrote, both cloth and medical-grade masks are NOT (and never were) intended to provide any protection to the person wearing the gorram things, they're worn to prevent the wearer's slobber droplets from infecting other people, since Joseph Lister was a practicing surgeon in Victorian England 150 years ago (which you'd think even the stupid bastards in Oz and Kiwistan would have been taught at some point in their obviously wasted years of formal education). So anyone studying which masks provide better protection, when comparing masks never intended to provide any wearers ANY protection whatsoever is simply a world-class fucktarded moron, with delusions of functional intelligence. This is like testing t-shirts and cotton underpants to see how much protection they provide in a motorcycle crash: so far beyond pointlessly stupid one cannot be seen from the other even from space. (If this is news to you, apply a tourniquet to your wedding tackle at once.)
5) "Studies" of this caliber of babbling baboonery is exactly why bloggers like Silicon Graybeard remind us nearly annually that anything between 70% and 95% of all studies published are total non-reproduceable bullshit (he'll have the exact number handier than I do, I'm sure), and why that's so to an even higher percentage where Covidiots and their Covidiocy are concerned.
6) If you didn't read a given study, and/or cannot grasp in a couple of minutes where it probably veered off into lunch for Biff Tannen, you probably shouldn't be jumping up and down and pointing to one, linking to any, or blogging any collection of them as "meta-studies".
7) As we noted in comments previous to our reply to Fido, "meta-studies" are like polling the fans at a basketball game - and the guys selling beer outside, and the parking lot attendants not even following the game, and random hockey fans in some other county or state or province - on who's winning the game; as opposed to actually, y'know, looking at the scoreboard for the correct answer. It's what you do when you have grant money, but have blown it on pizza and beer, and are too lazy or stupid to do actual frontiers-of-science original research, because that's too hard, and they got their MD, MPH, or Ph.D. credentials online, from Jamaica or Zambia. Egon Spengler, Ray Stantz, and Peter Venkman in Ghostbusters weren't entirely fictional characters.
I've been telling people this from Day ! - they all thought I was a crank .
ReplyDeleteI'm not expecting any of them to admit that they were wrong, though .
Masks don't work. That is they will not prevent you from getting a virus borne illness. Any and all talk about their possible effectiveness merely encourages the politicians to mandate them. Then the police are summoned to beat you until you put one on and in some tyrannical countries they even lock up your bank account. All because you believe that a 5% effectiveness equals masks work.
ReplyDeleteTo your 4th point, the fact is the public at least thought that was the case. Admittedly anecdotal, of the THOUSANDS of case investigations I conducted for the local health department full time for over 2 years, whenever I got to the contact tracing part during their likely exposure period, they mostly got defensive and in damned near every case would blurt out, “but I always wore my mask.” “But I always wore my mask” was the center square on my COVID BINGO card right next to “I’m so glad I had the vax cuz it would’ve been worse!” I literally heard them both multiple times. Every. Single. Day.
ReplyDeleteAs for “masks don’t work,” I’m no scientist. I have however substituted as a teacher in the local elementary, middle, and high schools in pretty much every capacity. Anyone who thinks it’s a good idea to require 5, 11, - hell 17 yr olds to wear masks during the school day to any positive affect would be worthy of some of your most scathing insults of intelligence. They’re constantly touching them, taking them on and off, putting them down on the lunch table or the gym bench, swirling them around on the end of their finger or a pencil, - you don’t even wanna know what some of the more special kids do with them. This all makes the ‘teachers’ feel ‘safe,’ I guess. What I can assure you it doesn’t do is “work.” Now they’re blowing all over the parking lot and everywhere else and honestly, who wants to pick THEM up? How is this helping anything?
What was wrong with ‘if you’re sneezing, coughing, or snotting, stay home from work or school’ and just enforcing that a little harder?
The fact that they made a sequel to Ghostbusters that bombed should be a lifestyle bookmark to always stick with the real deal. Federal grant money should be terminated.
ReplyDeleteHats off to you Brother for your continued efforts to educate the paste-eaters. I don't have a fraction of the patience you demonstrate.
ReplyDeleteFor a time, I'd thank the mask wearers for protecting me, but they just didn't get it. I'm still confounded by the nitwits wearing masks outside in God's good air.
Boat Guy
@Anon 7:57A,
ReplyDeleteThat stinging in your crotch is your own cleats. Jump harder? Point #4 obviously was too hard for you. Find someone smart to read it to you, and then explain it. And sincere thanks for illustrating my point better than ten more posts on the topic could.
@Boat Guy,
ReplyDeleteI never want to hear someone whine "But nobody told us!"
And as my drill instructor taught me:
"There are no stupid questions, only stupid people."
@Nautigal,
ReplyDeleteWith a nation of Special Snowflakes?
Have we all forgotten the sterling example of Nurse Mimi Crybabypants getting exposed to Ebola, and then fighting tooth and nail not to be quarantined, because it was a violation of her civil rights to not let her try to spread a potential 90%-death-rate incurable plague all over New England, hither and yon, on a whim?
How about the several other dozen entitled @$$holes who did the same thing, including several MDs?
Next time, masking won't be offered as an option.
Lockdowns at bayonet-point will.
Kakistocracy: If you like your pandemics, you can keep your pandemics.
As the king said to Buttercup in The Princess Bride: "Won't that be nice!"
does anyone else remember fauchi pushing goggles? "you can like, decorate them.they're cool.."
ReplyDeletethat lasted like 3 days before it was gone down the memory hole. even the most devoted of the church of covid wouldn't buy it.