Having apparently run out of random PubMed bullshit studies with no applicability to anything to point to, Nurse Claire's List Of Total Horseshit now delves into Sumdood's opinions for authoritative scientific and medical information.
33) Does Universal Mask Wearing Decrease or Increase the Spread of COVID-19?
Our first contestant in the Shit Some Bloggers Spew sweepstakes is apparently Leo Goldstein. The title itself is a trick question: mask wearing has never been universal, for any value of that word, which truth even Leo stumbles over:
"Some people position their mask to cover only their mouth but not their nostrils, though nostrils have higher viral concentration, see Leung et al. below. Some people frequently remove and replace their masks. When removing their masks, some people fold or roll masks so that the interior and exterior sides come into contact. Some people drop their masks into a purse, pocket, or glove box only to use them again at their next stop. After a few cycles, the masks’ interior and exterior become interchangeable."
So, having shot his own thesis, and himself, right in the ass by the middle of what would be the second page, Goldstein wanders all over the map, pulling together random papers (most of them already discounted specifically or in general in our earlier notes) without explaining or examining them ("I'm a blogger; Trust me!") to make whatever point at which he's whacking away, at any given moment in his Splatter-gories train of thought.
It's kind of like kitten on the keys, but with science pronouncement macros.
He does a whole lot of leaping to conclusions and circular reasoning, cherry-picks sentences to support his point, and skips a lot of things like actual links to the relevant referred-to articles. At the end, he lists 26 selected references, including that bastion of scientific accuracy, the LATimes, and even references his own butthurt refused comment rejected by JAMA. Fisking his pile of codswallop would be another two weeks day and night, and I respectfully decline undertaking another such romp in the swamp, unless someone want to pay me for the effort.
34) Masking: A Careful Review Of The Evidence
This one, at least, from someone with some bona fides in medical research, albeit appearing in everyone's first choice for medical news, the website of the American Institute For Economic Research, a right-of-center economic thinktank/lobbying shop, in the heart of America's bastion of free enterprise and liberty, Massachusetts. {/sarc}
In order, they
1) quote themselves as an authority
2) Note that face masks don't protect the wearer (!)
4) Try to spin the idea that COVID is primarily oro-fecal transmission (we can point to the shit in that idea, but it's not coming from the COVID-infected)
5) Quote Ioanniddis (which is like calling Karl Marx for an impartial view of economics) and cite his wildly inaccurate guesstimates from the early stages of the pandemic as though they were authoritative, then, now, or ever
6) Understate the actual IFR of COVID-19 by 100%-600% (even spotting them that this was a year into the pandemic)
7) try to spin this as "just the flu", when it was no such thing then, and is only so now, two years and any 5, 10, or 20 mutations later, since that point
And that's just them "carefully reviewing" virtually no actual scientific evidence.
They then go into a lengthy diatribe against lockdowns and school closures, as that end of public policy is more their bread-and-butter concern. Nonetheless, it's done with cherry-picking and a lot of hand-waving and somersaulting. Science is not a gymnastic exhibition, so when laser light shows and pyrotechnics make an appearance, you're watching a magic show, not listening to a medical lecture.
That's all well and good, and we probably even agree with some of their points, but they leapt over any cursory look at scientific evidence to get there. Knee-jerk freedom is certainly better than knee-jerk socialism, but only just barely if you're going to claim scientific and medical basis for you claims. Either do science, or don't, but don't anally rape the concept and then claim it was a dinner date.
If we're going to make this a philosophical discussion, we'd rather hear from the likes of Kurt Schlicter, Victor Davis Hanson, Thomas Sowell, Bill Whittle, or Jordan Peterson, rather than someone whose expertise is in medical research, but aspires to be Aristotle rather than Hippocrates. Stay in your lane.
They then wander around masking, yet again focusing on the fact that neither simple face masks nor surgical masks protect the wearer (exactly as they've never been intended to do nor claimed to do, for 120 years).
In short, this is simply the work of earnest morons in service of an agenda, trying to serve up some red meat to knee-jerk idiots to justify their own prejudices. As if there's a shortage of that in the world, let alone on the internet.
The entire piece, like the preceding blog burp-out, would require multiple days to fisk in detail, as they spew bullshit at the speed of light, paragraph by paragraph. We decline the opportunity, as most of their bullshit has been overtaken by events, but their prejudice is all they bring to the table, and they shed no light on the matter, or the evidence, evidently preferring to simply crap on it, and then walk away contented.
35) Unpublished bullshit on COVID by two UK Quacks...
"Our findings on facemasks or coverings are perhaps counterintuitive especially given the strong debate on their use. In a recent systematic review we concluded that the evidence in favour of face mask use outside the hospital was weak."
The citation links not to any such review (yet another survey of other people's work, applicable or not) but to a Reuters newswire article. They have just cited their own quote in the newspaper to prove their point! Mirabile dictu! Who needs evidence? Just get a newspaper to print your bullshit, and quote yourself. Pure genius!
"On the other hand, a recent modelling study concluded that community face mask use could reduce the spread of COVID-19."
IOW, "Hold the phone, but according to actual scientists, we may be full of shit."
"Our results on face coverings should be considered preliminary because the use of coverings was recommended or required only relatively late in the epidemics in each European country."
"All you dead people in Europe...sorry about that."
"The results for face covering are too preliminary to inform public policy but indicates face covering as public policy merits close monitoring."
IOW, "We appear to have been totally full of shit on masking. Please ignore everything we said earlier. And now, having taken both sides on this policy, no matter which way the consensus breaks, we can tell you we told you so."
I cannot imagine how such mealy-mouthed double-talking mendacious bullshit failed to obtain peer review, and get published in the UK's medical journals, instead of winding up in their medical urinals.
Well-played! Pad the stack with irrelevant bullshit. Nothing says "Serious science" like finding 99 crisp slips of blank paper banded under every real $100 bill in the briefcase.
37) 70-page booklet by WHO from 2019 on decreasing influenza transmission
Applicability:
"...the pooled analysis suggested a relative risk reduction of 22% in the face mask group..."
"There are no major adverse effects of face mask use."
"RECOMMENDATION: Face masks worn by asymptomatic people are conditionally recommended in severe epidemics or pandemics, to reduce transmission in the community. Disposable, surgical masks are recommended to be worn at all times by symptomatic individuals when in contact with other individuals."
"Knowledge gaps: There are important gaps in our knowledge of the mechanisms of person-to-person transmission of influenza, including the importance of transmission through droplets of different sizes including small particle aerosols, and the potential for droplet and aerosol transmission to occur in different locations and with different environmental conditions. Additional high-quality RCTs of the efficacy of face masks against laboratory-confirmed influenza would be valuable."
"Acceptability: Likely to be acceptable, but not appropriate in some circumstances and the adherence and compliance is low."
Aesop summary: the studies are shit; wear masks; most people are idiots.
Need we remind you that this, yet again, proves that "Nurse Claire" never read a word of any of the sources she shat out from a cursory Google search?
38) Another AEIR stink-tank piece, this time by a DC lawyer
Because whenever I want internet information on a scientific or medical question, my first stop is a D.C. lawyer with no medical or scientific training or background whatsoever.
The author correctly states the politicization of the issue, and the suspect nature of any conclusions promulgated after that point.
Unfortunately, other than guilt-by-association, she provides no scientific evidence in either direction. As bare-knuckles rhetoric, this is great stuff, especially if disseminated to amateurs ("boob bait for the bubbas", in Daniel Patrick Moynihan's elegant turn of phrase). As medical information, it's snake oil masquerading as curative.
Money quote:
"Ultimately, I do not have the credentials to determine whether or not –or to what extent — masks work."
But the article is here nonetheless, because the author apparently once stayed at a Holiday Inn Express.
Grunting and squeezing over the porcelain thinking chair will produce equally scientific information, which evidently is how low the bar for such at AEIR.
39) Another rehash of another old meta-NON-study, non-peer-reviewed, with an update
Money quote:
"CONCLUSIONS Most included trials had poor design, reporting and sparse events. There was insufficient evidence to provide a recommendation on the use of facial barriers without other measures. We found insufficient evidence for a difference between surgical masks and N95 respirators and limited evidence to support effectiveness of quarantine. Based on observational evidence from the previous SARS epidemic included in the previous version of our Cochrane review we recommend the use of masks combined with other measures."
Aesop summary: "The surveys are shit; wear a mask." We couldn't have said that better ourself.
Praise to a merciful heaven there are only 12 more of these atrocious, mendacious, and profoundly retarded items to peruse. If we stick to covering five apiece, only three more posts, all proving that thisa was exactly the nothingburger of shite we alleged from the outset.
Team Claire: 0 for 39. Maximum possible score now: 24%. F-.
On the Rotten Tomatoes Certified Fresh scale, this is "Double-rotten total shit; you should stay home".
For reference, the old SATs spotted you a score of 25%, if you just wrote your name on the test, turned it in, and walked out without filling in a single answer bubble. No, really.
Team Claire has dropped below even that benchmark. Just...wow.
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