I have a new article in the New York Times discussing lack of randomized trials for masks for source-control for COVID. In my newsletter, I discuss what this debate/debacle reveals, not just about COVID denialism, but also about our public health response.https://zeynep.substack.com/p/on-randomized-trials-and-medicine …
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Here's the NYT article. There are many thorny issues here: and it goes beyond this administrations many obvious failures, and as we move forward, it's absolutely imperative that we do not fall into easy answers on what happened, and what needs to happen.https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/06/opinion/sunday/coronavirus-masks.html …
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zeynep tufekci Retweeted Noah Haber
Ah, the Danish mask study is out. Lots of people who don't want to read it will try to make a mountain out of it but, as I wrote, it doesn't and cannot test source control—the reason for masks—and it had problems with both statistical power and compliance.https://twitter.com/NoahHaber/status/1329079700988129282 …
zeynep tufekci added,
Noah Haber @NoahHaberThe DANMASK-19 trial is now published in Annals of Internal Medicine, alongside two editorials which discuss its limitations. DANMASK-19 trial https://www.acpjournals.org/doi/10.7326/M20-6817 … Frieden editorial: https://www.acpjournals.org/doi/10.7326/M20-7499 … Laine editorial: https://www.acpjournals.org/doi/10.7326/M20-7448 … pic.twitter.com/q6zwbrNhfiShow this thread7 replies 43 retweets 101 likesShow this thread -
Replying to @zeynep
It’s maddening that people are totally ignoring the role of compliance when it’s crucial, and an RCT focused on source protection rather than source control is... not worthless but certainly not worth much.
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Yeah. It’s underpowered, beset by weak data/compliance/false positive issues & not studying source-control. But fine, it’s all in the article. There is no brouhaha. It would have been good to have a solid RCT for wearer protection in the community, especially from Denmark. Alas.
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Replying to @zeynep
Agree. What’s more frustrating is why it’s getting all the attention (that it doesn’t deserve).
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