William Briggs – The Danish Mask Study Shows Masks Aren’t Worth It

William Briggs – The Danish Mask Study Shows Masks Aren’t Worth It

The blustery squid-stained panicked hersteric Nassim Nicholas Taleb—the man who called those who dared not run around screeching like teenage girls as he did at the start of the coronadoom panic “psychopaths“—a man who is a supreme 妈宝, a fact I include because Taleb likes language references—has claimed the Danish mask study which shows masks don’t work ackshually shows masks do work, because math.

He’s wrong.

Here is that study. They looked at two groups who stayed at least three hours outside their homes, with and without mask recommendations. The masked were supplied with “50 surgical masks and instructions for proper use.” Which makes that group more rigorous than masks in the common public.

Goal: “The primary outcome was SARS-CoV-2 infection in the mask wearer at 1 month by antibody testing, polymerase chain reaction (PCR), or hospital diagnosis.”

Outcome: “A total of 3030 participants were randomly assigned to the recommendation to wear masks, and 2994 were assigned to control; 4862 completed the study. Infection with SARS-CoV-2 occurred in 42 participants recommended masks (1.8%) and 53 control participants (2.1%).”

The completed numbers were 42/2392 mask infections vs. 53/2470 non-mask infections, where “infection” was defined generously, as you see.

Their conclusion: “The recommendation to wear surgical masks to supplement other public health measures did not reduce the SARS-CoV-2 infection rate among wearers by more than 50% in a community with modest infection rates, some degree of social distancing, and uncommon general mask use. The data were compatible with lesser degrees of self-protection.”

I conclude, given the study’s dictated rigorousness of mask usage (“good” ones supplied with proper instructions for use), and the generosity of noting an infection, and with all the other massive evidence we have about masks, that masks in the general public don’t provide any significant benefit, or even no benefit, and can even cause harm.

Therefore making masklessness a crime, as many localities do, is asinine, anti-evidence, unethical, and immoral.

Read the rest at his website, found here