It looks like this is the equivalent of a preprint. So, while an interesting finding, a general reminder to take it with a grain of salt and recognize that there might be issues in the statistics (maybe confounding variables that weren't controlled for) that would lead to revised results if fixed, and we've also seen peer reviewed publications like the Lancet paper that were also hit with data integrity issues. It's a good data point to keep in mind, and you should probably be wearing a mask, but we'll need a meta-analysis of a lot of these studies over the next year or so to know to any level of certainty how much they actually helped. That's not useful for our behavior right now of course, but in terms of drawing conclusions, always keep in mind that initial analyses lime this are just that, initial. From the paper:
"IZA Discussion Papers often represent preliminary work and are circulated to encourage discussion. Citation of such a paper
should account for its provisional character. A revised version may be available directly from the author."
I am of the opinion that preprints should basically not be posted on HN at all. Most of the general populace of HN does not have the expertise to understand the limitations of such work (perhaps outside of CS and Math). Even physics (my area) pre-prints posts are usually filled with speculative (read wrong) theories, and misinterpretations of textbook physics.
Preprints that deal with the human world, or analyze human data are dangerously outside the expertise scope of the typical HN reader. Dangerous, because people walk away with wrong conclusion, rather than a "failure to parse" error.
Nobody thinks the finding itself is interesting. The main point of the paper is the confirmation that simple face masks work in 3% - 10% of the cases, arguably no protection.
The new typical approach of this paper is the political angle with statistical tricks to make an insignificant number significant for the main press, by coming up with exponential growth models leading up to the cited 40% number. Which is politics, not science. But even Nature ventures into politics these days, deviating from science, with wrong growth models.
The German translation would be: "Auch Kleinvieh macht Mist"
Even the smallest measures are exaggerated in desperate times. Political desperation, not scientific.
This is a completely vapid and entirely generic attack that could be posted, verbatim, in any discussion of any research paper.
I'm barely exaggerating with "verbatim": remove the parenthetical ", and you should probably be wearing a mask" as well as the quote at the end, and read it again. It could be concern-trolling any statistics paper, ever!
And what's the point, exactly? Sometimes, results from research later turn out to be wrong, and therefore it is best to completely ignore them? At some point you'll deign enough time to have passed to allow some research to be useful. But until then, you also recommend masks, because..? How is your hunch a better barometer of truth than actual research using real-world data?
And it should be posted in the discussion of any research paper. Especially every preprint. Especially ones of significant public interest. Preprint sites and preprint contain the disclaimer for a reason, and everyone sharing or reporting on them should feel obligated to include a disclaimer like that because people often think science paper = fact proven when that couldn't be further from the truth. Because it's not just that things are "sometimes " proven wrong, but that you have entire fields suffering from reproducibility crises. Including "hard" science fields like oncology.
It’s basically a pull request. There are going to be mistakes and changes. You can pull it and run it yourself if you’d like, but don’t say it’s shipped until it lands on master.
Indeed. The first response to anything challenging someone's (imprinted?) worldview is to nit pick on some detail, in order to invalidate the uncomfortable thesis with which they are presented.
This paper isn't challenging my worldview. It's supporting it. I posted the disclaimer because the paper is a preprint and it's easy to not get that fact when you just look at the title of this post and scroll through the comments.
I can only speak to Frankfurt (am Main) and Munich, but particularly in the last week as weather has improved the general public’s concern towards the virus seems to be very low. Shopping areas are swamped with people, walking around in groups, queueing outside stores with very little regard for keeping even a polite distance from other people (even without a pandemic). Anecdotally, in a train Station on Friday I was waiting outside a bubble tea shop for around 10 minutes, and perhaps 5-10% of people were wearing masks properly (if at all) and even attempting to keep more than a metre distance from other people.
Bars and clubs have for some reason re-opened contrary to rules set by the local governments, I have seen 0 proactive or reactive enforcement of any rules by police or other authorities.
Some places are enforcing mask use, in supermarkets for example every customer is required to wear a mask and take a trolley to try and keep distance between customers, but the number of people wearing masks only over their mouths and leaving their noses exposed, or simply abandoning their trolley once inside and moving very close to other people is very high.
Indeed, the confused and fragmented situation caused by each county inside Germany having its own super-detailed and ridiculous rules is making compliance plummet.
The 1.5-2m idea is anyway a failure:
* first of all, it only allows one to dodge larger droplets.
* second of all, it's humanly impossible to respect this rule. When meeting acquaintances or friends there's a constant unconscious pull to get closer - in practice the distance is 70cm and often less.
Crowded areas and narrow corridors or pathways make a mockery of it likewise.
The obsessive focus on hard to implement personal distancing and aversion to masks is embarrassing.
It is indeed very surprising to see the sharp drop in Covid-19 cases in Germany.
If I understand correctly, this is also not a randomized trial. I am not sure how they constructed the "control" group here to which they are comparing. It is a synthetic group where they extrapolate cases from n-7 days where n is the day of introduction of mandatory use of masks?
It is hard to not be tempted to think about several confounding variables that could have played a role in the drop that is seen, like people being more vigilant, following distance guidelines, working from home more often, the list goes on. Nevertheless, it was an interesting read.
> like people being more vigilant, following distance guidelines, working from home more often
Germany was in “lockdown” mode (in quotes because their lockdown never actually needed to be that strict due to proactive reaction) way before requiring masks, that’s why they’re such a good case study
All the things you’ve listed as potential confounding variables are much more likely to have gone in the opposite direction due to lockdown fatigue. It’s extremely unlikely that everyone suddenly got much more vigilant two months into the pandemic
The opposite of "lockdown fatigue" could also happen where people get used to and better at carrying out the necessary restrictions and precautionary measures in their day to day life. There's just not enough hard evidence to be sure what factors would cause what effect in any un-controlled experimental setting.
Nevertheless, masks don't hurt so one should go with the Pascal's wager argument.
No, we got massive lockdown fatigue after awhile. Cops were paroling the parks and checking id to make sure people who were together were from the same household. Everyone was grumbling and protests were becoming a thing. And then, the moment things started opening up again, half the people went all the way, also ignoring distancing and mask rules (except for in trams and stores).
No, people just don't care any more, at least in my area. I think masks are only worn now in in supermarkets and doctor's practices because it's mandatory and people are not keeping distance any more, meeting friends, going out in groups, etc.
If one didn't know better, it all looks like business as usual.
It’s probably both. Half of my close family is vulnerable and so we are still taking it very seriously. Some of my neighbours have been casual about it all the way through.
You didn't read the paper then. Their convincing anecdote is Jena, which ordered mandatory face masks two weeks before every one else, with dramatically good results, no new cases. The rest are the typical statistical tricks to come up with that 40% number, form the initial 3-10% effectiveness.
So you need two things: A good anecdote, remember killing babies in Saudi Arabia, or military vans at night in Bergamo. And second: statistical tricks to come up with a convincing story.
I's be surprised if Europe doesn't get hammered by a second wave. The only hope is that the small outbreaks extinguish themselves or can be tracked and isolated, because people don't give a F any more.
There are clearly potential upsides (in terms of saving lives) of mandatory public mask wearing. What are the potential downsides (in those same terms)?
Masks _might_ cause some people to reduce distancing, and they might cause some people with symptoms to stop isolating and leave home. We don't know if they do.
We have good evidence that distance is important. We have poor evidence that masks work. We think masks work. They have a plausible mechanism of action, but we struggle to find benefit from the RCTs that have been done, and we have to use other statistical methods on existing data to find a benefit. We need better data for masks. https://www.thelancet.com/action/showPdf?pii=S0140-6736(20)3...
Not sure what terms you're talking about but in terms of a health risk of mandatory public mask wearing - the backlash from crazy people protesting with guns is a safety thread and a public health threat as those motivated to stroll up to Capitol buildings with guns by mandatory mask laws could spread the disease.
More generally, anything mandatory is going to generate some personal freedom backlash. It's a big political risk.
I have read arguments that unsanitary masks, for example, resuing masks without cleaning them properly (which I have been told is at +90 degees Celsius) is not a healthy practice. But to make a policy, one has to measure the risks from not wearing masks (eventual Covid infection) vs risks of wearing masks (bacterial infection). At the time of peak infection rates, it was sensible that the former risk was higher hence the policy for mandatory masks was necessary. But during current low infection rate period, policy might need to be reformed after calculating the two risks again. Hence the dissatisfactory mood of the public "For how long will this go on?"
Of course then there are non-physical risks like social perception, social relationships, discomfort and so on and so forth which are more difficult to quantify.
That's your opinion. I haven't seen anything proven yet.
And "saving lives" has become the new "think of the children" excuse for irrational public policy and laws. All public policy requires a cost-benefit analysis.
For example, banning cars would reduce automobile fatalities by 30,000/year in the US. But we aren't banning cars.
We aren't banning cars because we understand the cause of automobile fatalities. There are well defined laws and regulations implemented to curtail those fatalities. But people still choose to drive irrationally, they choose to disobey those regulations, violate the speed limits, so on and so forth putting their and other's lives in danger.
Going by this analogy, implementing mandatory masks is one such regulation to prevent covid infections and deaths as is implementing traffic rules to prevent automobile fatalities.
Since we have not had enough time to deeply understand the spread of this virus and its affect on all of us (unlike automobile fatalities), the state has no choice but to follow the safest policy that seems to work. But, of course, you are right to question whether this policy is the best we can do or not which remains to be seen as we witness the coming months.
The fact that you haven't seen anything proven is not a meaningful statement. The data's there of you look.
The most successful countries at fighting the pandemic are also champions at wearing masks.
There's plenty of studies from the flu and SARS times showing that certain masks reduce the risk of an individual infection and any mask worn by an infected individual will reduce risk of transmission.
What we don't have is a peer reviewed study that masks stop a pandemic, because such a study is incredibly hard to set up and we didn't have enough pandemics yet.
No. Masks don't explain the dramatic differences in the IFR. That's the Infection Fatality Rate. Masks only explain the R differences.
Most countries are around 0.2% IFR, which you call successful, some are at around 1%. Masks just prevent infections (by about 5%), but does not influence the percentage to die when you got infected. The biggest factors (called comorbidities) for the differences are the age curve (significant drop at around >75), pre-existing conditions like diabetes, obesity, ... the effectiveness of the healthcare system, air pollution, but it could also be just two different kinds of strains. The 0.2% strain, and the 1% strain, because there's a clear geographical line between the two.
At the beginning it was the 45° parallel north latitude, at the end it was the Germany/France border, 10° east longitude.
The R differences on the other hand are clearly influenced by the measures: social distancing, travel restrictions, hygiene, lockdown, masks,...
No... what? Because you seem to be agreeing with me that masks prevent infections. No infections, no pandemic.
But I wonder where you got the 5% from, because Hong Kong, South Korea and others are doing spectacular at preventing infections compared to e.g. the US or Europe, much better than 5%.
"IZA Discussion Papers often represent preliminary work and are circulated to encourage discussion. Citation of such a paper should account for its provisional character. A revised version may be available directly from the author."