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GidMK's profile
Health Nerd
Health Nerd
Health Nerd
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@GidMK

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Health NerdVerified account

@GidMK

Epidemiologist. Writer (Guardian, Observer etc). "Well known research trouble-maker". PhDing at @UoW Host of @senscipod Email gidmk.healthnerd@gmail.com he/him

Sydney, New South Wales
theguardian.com/profile/gideon…
Joined November 2015

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    1. Health Nerd‏Verified account @GidMK 18 Nov 2020

      So, The Big Mask study has been published, and I thought rather than expound on what the results DID show (everyone's doing that), I might point out a few things that they DIDN'T show 1/npic.twitter.com/zG4jtXQVVq

      31 replies 257 retweets 683 likes
      Show this thread
      Health Nerd‏Verified account @GidMK 18 Nov 2020

      2/n Study is here, as ever have a read. A very simple, nicely done RCT comparing the advice to wear masks with no such advice in Denmark:https://www.acpjournals.org/doi/10.7326/M20-6817 …

      1:16 PM - 18 Nov 2020
      • 3 Retweets
      • 66 Likes
      • Moises Resende Kārtik Miśra/कार्तिक मिश्र eec Evelyn fra den øya✴⬡✴🦎 Taylor Nichols, MD RowBird Wheelz Michael Brown Abraham Alahmad, PhD (Blood-Brain Barrier Sci) blah
      2 replies 3 retweets 66 likes
        1. New conversation
        2. Health Nerd‏Verified account @GidMK 18 Nov 2020

          3/n So, first point. This study says NOTHING about whether mask mandates are good public health policy Indeed, the authors themselves point this out in the discussionpic.twitter.com/jSa5O6VZXe

          3 replies 11 retweets 100 likes
          Show this thread
        3. Health Nerd‏Verified account @GidMK 18 Nov 2020

          4/n In fact, we already knew that telling people to wear masks (and providing them with masks) is a relatively ineffective way to stop them from getting a respiratory disease. Universal masking is more complex than that

          1 reply 5 retweets 93 likes
          Show this thread
        4. Health Nerd‏Verified account @GidMK 18 Nov 2020

          5/n The study DOESN'T show that masks are ineffective at preventing infection for the person wearing them I know it sounds weird, but it's true!

          2 replies 10 retweets 117 likes
          Show this thread
        5. Health Nerd‏Verified account @GidMK 18 Nov 2020

          6/n See, the authors powered their study (i.e. recruited participants) assuming that masks decreased your risk of infection by 50%, which is quite a lot!pic.twitter.com/WcBowCIJ7u

          2 replies 4 retweets 94 likes
          Show this thread
        6. Health Nerd‏Verified account @GidMK 18 Nov 2020

          7/n What the study actually shows is that advising someone to wear a mask doesn't reduce their risk of COVID-19 by ~50% or more~, but the results don't exclude smaller benefits

          10 replies 12 retweets 129 likes
          Show this thread
        7. Health Nerd‏Verified account @GidMK 18 Nov 2020

          8/n A reduction in risk of infection of 20% would be a bit meaningless to the individual but HUGE at a population level, so this is not a minor point

          2 replies 14 retweets 205 likes
          Show this thread
        8. Health Nerd‏Verified account @GidMK 18 Nov 2020

          9/n The study also DOESN'T show that WEARING A MASK is ineffective. It showed that PROVIDING MASKS AND TELLING PEOPLE TO WEAR THEM was ineffective ON TOP OF SOCIAL DISTANCING

          4 replies 27 retweets 249 likes
          Show this thread
        9. Health Nerd‏Verified account @GidMK 18 Nov 2020

          10/n As the authors note, compliance was pretty poor. Lots of people were told to wear masks, but didn't Hard to say what this means for an individual wearing a mask 24/7pic.twitter.com/2vnN12EpVI

          4 replies 10 retweets 143 likes
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        10. Health Nerd‏Verified account @GidMK 18 Nov 2020

          11/n Moreover, there was a lot of social distancing already going on in Denmark at the time - this means that we can't really say that MASKS are ineffective but rather than masks didn't reduce infection numbers significantly on top of social distancingpic.twitter.com/ciSXYlyR3n

          5 replies 9 retweets 119 likes
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        11. Health Nerd‏Verified account @GidMK 18 Nov 2020

          12/n Again, this is not a minor point - masks may indeed not reduce infection numbers much during lockdown, but that doesn't say a lot about their effectiveness at other times

          8 replies 7 retweets 110 likes
          Show this thread
        12. Health Nerd‏Verified account @GidMK 18 Nov 2020

          13/n Ok, a technical addition that is nevertheless important. The authors do not report correcting their result for the test sensitivity and specificity of their serology test

          1 reply 2 retweets 66 likes
          Show this thread
        13. Health Nerd‏Verified account @GidMK 18 Nov 2020

          14/n Serology tests are used to find antibodies, and they are (as all tests are) imperfect So, usually we correct for the imperfections to get a better estimate of the true number of people with antibodies

          1 reply 3 retweets 45 likes
          Show this thread
        14. Health Nerd‏Verified account @GidMK 18 Nov 2020

          15/n In this case, the study found that 1.8% of people in the mask group had antibodies, compared to 2.1% of people in the non-mask group But those are just the RAW figurespic.twitter.com/NtiZuV9Uml

          1 reply 3 retweets 51 likes
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        15. Health Nerd‏Verified account @GidMK 18 Nov 2020

          16/n If we use the Rogen-Gladen estimator, which is a pretty standard correction for test characteristics, we see instead that 1.59% and 1.95% of people in masks/no masks were probably infected, respectivelypic.twitter.com/d4rPZ5kJVw

          3 replies 4 retweets 59 likes
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        16. Health Nerd‏Verified account @GidMK 18 Nov 2020

          17/n This sounds like a minor point, but it actually isn't - if only 1.59%/1.95% of people were infected, it means that the study was underpowered for its main analysis, and thus we can't conclude much from the results

          1 reply 4 retweets 95 likes
          Show this thread
        17. Health Nerd‏Verified account @GidMK 18 Nov 2020

          18/n Sorry, small correction - I used the final totals of 1.8% and 2.1% not the actual antibody numbers of 1.6% and 1.7% in that calculation. If you apply the correction properly, you get 1.56% masks and 2.09% non-masks

          2 replies 4 retweets 60 likes
          Show this thread
        18. Health Nerd‏Verified account @GidMK 18 Nov 2020

          19/n For some context, to find a difference this small, the study would've needed to recruit about 24,000 people, or 12,000 in each group, which is about 4x as big

          11 replies 6 retweets 105 likes
          Show this thread
        19. End of conversation

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