3/n Essentially, the author took: - the avg number of people who have COVID-19 in the US - the risk of passing on the disease on a flight - the impact of masks on this risk And multiplied these numbers togetherpic.twitter.com/5BEt4DkeQq
Epidemiologist. Writer (Guardian, Observer etc). "Well known research trouble-maker". PhDing at @UoW Host of @senscipod Email gidmk.healthnerd@gmail.com he/him
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3/n Essentially, the author took: - the avg number of people who have COVID-19 in the US - the risk of passing on the disease on a flight - the impact of masks on this risk And multiplied these numbers togetherpic.twitter.com/5BEt4DkeQq
4/n Simple, right? The author concludes - after a dozen pages of explanation - that these figures are 1/310, 18%, and 40.2/22.4% respectively Thus, either a 1/4300 risk or 1/7700 risk depending on how you fill your seatspic.twitter.com/lvaESoke0D
5/n The issue is that these eventual numbers - 1/310, 18% etc - are based on an endless litany of assumptions that range from somewhat reasonable to totally unjustified
6/n Some examples: - Masks reduce infection risk in plane scenarios by 82% - People on planes have half the risk of COVID-19 as everyone else - Baseline infection risk is 13% - The June midpoint of Texas and NY states are representative of the US
7/n (cont.) - Seat backs are 3/4 as effective at blocking transmission as a full plexiglass screen - Passengers in front of/behind pose 1/4 of the risk as passengers next to the traveller - Max 1 person infected per flight
8/n (cont.) - The number of infectious people can be obtained by averaging new cases over 1 week for a state - Only 25% of infectious people on planes are infectious while they are travelling - COVID-19 cases are infectious for 7 days
9/n Now, these range from completely absurd to somewhat reasonable. The infectious period of COVID-19, for example, is the source of much debate and 7 days is a not unreasonable estimate to use
10/n The idea that masks reduce transmission by 82% on a flight is, however, totally without evidence. The reference is to a meta-analysis that looked primarily at studies of SARS and MERS and population cohorts over long periods of timepic.twitter.com/HYNkx2KfV6
11/n We have, and I cannot stress this enough, ABSOLUTELY NO IDEA how much masks may reduce transmission on planes. It depends on how well they're used, how often, what masks, etc etc etc etc
@pvdork I don’t think retweeting this guy is helpful. Look at his tweets, all he does is question science and studies,nothing positive. And this idiotic stream on masks on planes should be summed up easily as we don’t know a lot about this virus but masks are sure to help
Small correction - I question *bad* science 
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