All the Science the CDC Director Does Not Understand

[Mickey_Rat15]

"Are face masks more effective than vaccination at preventing COVID-19 infection? That is the implication of a new public service announcement from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) featuring Rochelle Walensky, the agency's director.

"The evidence is clear," Walensky says in the 37-second video, which she posted on Twitter last Friday. "Masks can help prevent the spread of COVID-19 by reducing your chance of infection by more than 80 percent, whether it's an infection from the flu, from the coronavirus, or even just the common cold. In combination with other steps like getting your vaccination, hand washing, and keeping physical distance, wearing your mask is an important step you can take to keep us all healthy."...

If wearing a mask reduced your risk of infection by "more than 80 percent," as Walensky seems to be saying, that safeguard would be amazingly effective. Such a risk reduction would be higher than the effectiveness rates found in several real-world studies of mRNA vaccines.

Worse, Walensky's ambiguous statement could be interpreted to mean that people who wear masks thereby reduce their own risk of catching COVID-19 by "more than 80 percent." Walensky reinforces that impression in her tweet, where she says "wearing a mask" will help you "stay healthy." The study, which looked at droplets emitted by mask wearers, provides no basis for such a claim."
- https://reason.com/2021/11/09/the-cdcs- ... infection/

[hammerofglass]

You seem to have lost the last paragraph in your copy. Let me fix that:

"Given the gap between the study and Walensky's interpretation of it, she should have avoided the false precision of that "more than 80%" number altogether. You might think a public health official who has repeatedly caught flak for distorting COVID-19 research would have learned to be more careful when presenting scientific findings to the public. Walensky's mask hyperbole not only further undermines her credibility; it implicitly makes masking look superior to vaccination as a tool for avoiding COVID-19 and preventing its spread, which is hardly a message conducive to public health."

I don't often say this about stuff from Reason Mag, but I fully agree with their conclusion.

[Mickey_Rat15]

I did not "lose" the paragraph. I just thought it was more important to the point that the mask study was measuring something quite different than what Walensky in the CDC suggested it was.

[hammerofglass]

I did not "lose" the paragraph. I just thought it was more important to the point that the mask study was measuring something quite different than what Walensky in the CDC suggested it was.

I mean I was giving you the benefit of the doubt, but if you want to just openly admit to dishonestly cherry picking go wild.

[Mickey_Rat15]

I did not "lose" the paragraph. I just thought it was more important to the point that the mask study was measuring something quite different than what Walensky in the CDC suggested it was.

I mean I was giving you the benefit of the doubt, but if you want to just openly admit to dishonestly cherry picking go wild.

I linked the entire article. I am not sure how not directly quoting the paragraph you liked in particular was dishonest. My intent was to be brief and not to put a wall of text up in the original post.

[BridgeConsoleMasher]

So what's wrong again with saying that masks are 80% effective?

[hammerofglass]

So what's wrong again with saying that masks are 80% effective?

Honestly just read the article, it's quite straightforward when nobody is editing big chunks of paragraphs out in ways that completely change their meaning. Also the sources check out as far as I can tell.

[Mickey_Rat15]

So what's wrong again with saying that masks are 80% effective?

Please read the article, but, in short, there is no support for saying that masks reduce infection rates by 80%. The study where the 80% number seems to come from was measuring the effectiveness masks in reducing aerosol droplets, and that is with the most effective masks, properly worn under ideal conditions.

Walensky and the people who made the CDC video either did not understand what the study was measuring or did not care and just wanted the talking point.

[BridgeConsoleMasher]

So what's wrong again with saying that masks are 80% effective?

Please read the article, but, in shorti, there is no support for saying that masks reduce infection rates by 80%. The study where the 80% number seems to come from was measuring the effectiveness masks in reducing aerosol droplets, and that is with the most effective masks, properly worn under ideal conditions.

Walensky and the people who made the CDC video either did not understand what the study was measuring or did not care and just wanted the talking point.

The director isn’t always the most accurately representative person on detailed study results. It’s not a formal report or a detailed analytical report, it’s a standard address.

[BridgeConsoleMasher]

I'm really at a loss here. The efficacy of masks is generally well known by means of common knowledge. They're really quite inconvenient though for daily affairs. Vaccines on the other hand are really rather effective to the tune of 90's %'ile. Contracting the virus might be something closer to 80-, but hospitalization is drastically reduced as well for that matter.

So they are matters of complementary provision. It's not really an exam performance for competitive standards on what to choose. Measuring the difference between mask and vaccine efficacy is pointless as far as I can tell.