There is no possible justification for anyone to refer to this "review" with derision, except that one of the world's most prominent "experts" has already distributed it to his massive following. It's a masterpiece of bad "science," poor methodology, and purposeful misdirection.
The Abstract
- This systematic review sought to analyze the efficacy of facemasks, regardless of type, on the prevention of SARS-CoV-2 transmission in both healthcare and community settings
- The initial review yielded 1,732 studies, which were reviewed by three study team members.
- In all, 243 subjects were infected with Covid-19, of whom 97 had been wearing masks and 146 had not. The probability of getting COVID-19 for mask-wearers was 7% (97/1,463, p=0.002), and for non-mask-wearing, probability was 52%
- Based on these results, we determined that across healthcare settings, those who wore masks were less likely to contact COVID.
The "Evidence"
- The studies they collected to include in their "evidence" review were a combination of embarrassingly bad to unbelievably useless
- Sixty-one full text studies were found to meet the criteria, and 13 studies were used in the final analysis
- Frequencies, relative risk, confidence intervals, and t-tests were calculated where appropriate, to measure differences between groups who reported wearing masks vs. not wearing masks for the overall study group, as well as health care, and community settings
The Reaction
- The "study" was shared by the German Federal Minister of Health as if it contained some dramatic new revelations about the effectiveness of masks.
- This speaks to the remarkable ability of committed ideologues to ignore reality, "facts" and "truth" by sharing misinformation which conforms to their preconceived notions
- Meanwhile, well-conducted studies that show no benefit to masking are ignored
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