Strong link between mask wearing and reduced COVID-19 spread

Faith & Science Conversation
24

Sampling is roughly synonymous with selecting. Po-tay-to, Po-tah-to.

But you seem to agree with me that your method for taking a convenience sample making a haphazard selection of 5 states does not provide a basis for drawing any conclusions, so let us move on.

25

No, Chris.

I pointed to the states in the top left corner of the graph as a example to try to help you visualize my point.

I am sorry you did not understand, but I don’t think you tried. You leapt to a wrong assumption instead.

I wrote: “ Then look on the graph, and you will see the top left has S.D., N.D., Wyoming, Montana, Idaho.”

26

Let’s test the viability of drawing a completely different conclusion from this graph, just for the sake of understanding.

Observations:

  1. There is a correlation between mask wearing and knowing a person with Covid-19 symptoms.
  2. Where about 40% of the people know a person with Covid-19 symptoms, about 70% of people wear masks much of the time
  3. Where only 15% of people know someone with Covid-19 symptoms, about 90% of the people wear masks much of the time.
  4. Knowing people with Covid-19 symptoms decreases the likelihood that people will wear masks.

Conclusions:

  1. People who know others with Covid-19 are less concerned about Covid-19 and therefore are less likely to wear masks because they understand the disease is typically mild from personal experience
  2. People who don’t know others with Covid-19 are more concerned about Covid-19 because their information on the disease’s severity is coming from the news media or other sources that may be exaggerations

This graph does not provide strong evidence for mask wearing. This graph provides evidence that a more personal understanding of the disease decreases the perceived need for wearing masks.

Caveat: the data set was acquired from Facebook posts and surveys and therefore may not be a rigorous foundation.

@Ronald_Myers
Does this post make sense to you?

27

For observation 1, I would have said anti-correlated; r is negative.
One could draw these conclusions if residents of all states know the same proportion of people as any other i.e New Yorkers know and are in communication with several times more people than North Dakotans . This is an implicit assumption that also makes the more masks–>less infection conclusion suspect. A better graph would be hospitals admissions per capita vs mask wearing, assuming that facebook data does not have self selection or non-anonymity biases

1 Like
28

Thanks, @Ronald_Myers

One of the biggest failings of the graph in my opinion is that it tries to present information based on people knowing someone with Covid now, rather than recognizing the different histories of this pandemic in different areas.

Certainly the April/May experience of the Northeast is an unaddressed factor.

And my fourth observation might better be called a conclusion.

29

Thank you, Chris, for this information.

Here’s some more, regarding masks’ inoculum “vaccination” effect and aerosol drift times, 3 - 16 hours, or so.

Masks Do More Than Protect Others During COVID-19: Reducing the Inoculum of SARS-CoV-2 to Protect the Wearer | SpringerLink

Masks Do More Than Protect Others During COVID-19: Reducing the Inoculum of SARS-CoV-2 to Protect the Wearer (JOURNAL OF GENERAL INTERNAL MEDICINE 35, 3063–3066 (Published July 31, 2020).

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7471761

Aerosol transmission of SARS-CoV-2: The unresolved paradox (Travel Med Infect Dis. 2020 September-October; 37: 101869. Published online 2020 Sept 4)

2 Likes
30

Good stuff, thanks. Those tie in well with the discusion, Masking efficacy, and the ZDoggMD interview there (transcript linked further down the page).

31

I went through the CMU Covid Cast data and made a correlation of masks vs 7 day average cases which avoids any assumptions of how many people each individual knows. The correlation is not as good but is above the 0.05 level so one should accept it as valid. There are more outliers indicating that there are other factors.

It should be noted that the mask data is mostly in the 70 to 90% range so most Americans are wearing masks even in the states receiving scorn for not doing so
image

1 Like
32

Thanks, Ronald, that is helpful, and I appreciate the effort.

I suppose we could conclude

  1. there are fewer cases where people wear masks
    or
  2. fewer people wear masks where there are many cases.

With the former, there is an indication masks protect people.

The latter gives an alternative conclusion that personal familiarity with the disease decreases mask use.

There may be some unmasked people at Trump rallies embracing the second option: that President Trump, an overweight man in his 70s got the disease and bounced right back in about a week so the disease is not the scourge that some say it is. That may be a simplistic view, but it may be held by some.

33

…that my conclusion is better:

34

You got that right!

35
36

Thank you, Dale, for your insightful contribution

1 Like
37

As opposed to simple contributions. :grin:

1 Like
38

I will go with conclusion 1 and expect that those places where fewer masks are worn, more will be worn as the 1 in 30 cases death toll rises.

With respect to Trump’s fast recovery: he is overweight and in his 70’s but his campaign schedule, before and after illness, suggests significant vigor and that he is more healthy than most think or wish. Few 70 year olds can manage a 40 hour work week muchless a 60 hour so his experience cannot be considered typical

1 Like
39

His therapies were not typical, either, or at least the speed in which he got them.

3 Likes
40

Ronald, I suspect you are right on both counts.

Nevertheless, I also see conclusion 2 as an alternative reading of the graph.

And I don’t doubt that the President’s fast recovery did embolden some, whether or not that reaction is appropriate in their lives.

1 Like
41

Thanks, Dale :slightly_smiling_face:

1 Like
42

Nice…I hear back and forth on all that…not necessarily from “Freedumb advocates,” as someone termed them…40 years from now people will look back on this and snicker about how ignorant we all were…and they will have to be reminded – by historians – that we in 2020 did not “know” what they discovered about COVID19 Iin 2050, etc…

Great info…thanks

1 Like
43

This topic was automatically closed 6 days after the last reply. New replies are no longer allowed.