3/n What did the authors do? Well, it was a really very simple paper (published as a research letter, so <1,000 words!) They looked at how many workers tested positive for COVID-19 in hospitals before and after mask wearing became mandatory
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13/n What if people were wearing masks before the study started? What if the population of HCWs changed during the pandemic? What if reporting of tests changed? What if they simply DID MORE TESTS? So many problems, no answers at all
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14/n To some extent, it's hard to blame the authors for these issues, but it shows why you probably shouldn't report on research letters - they just don't have enough information to make a balanced judgement
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15/n At the absolute minimum for this study, you need an adequate control group to even begin to understand what these results might mean Without that, about all we can say is that they made a pretty graph with lines on it
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Note: all of this is independent of whether you like masks! I'm not saying masks don't work, just that this study says nothing about the question
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