Dr. Scott Atlas, Other Bangladesh Mask Studies on Accelerator: “Extremely Weak Tea”

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Dr. Scott Atlas, former head of neuroradiology at Stanford University Medical Center and a senior member of Stanford’s Hoover Institution, called for a recent study that sought to measure the effect of masking to slow the spread of Covid- 19 in the villages of Bangladesh “extremely weak tea” during a Fox News appearance earlier this month.

The randomized trial, the results of which were published on September 1 by the non-profit organization Innovations for Poverty Action and is currently being reviewed in pairs, measuring more than 340,000 people in 600 villages. He claims to show that an increase in the use of surgical masks can lead to a reduction in the spread of the virus in certain age groups (via NBC News).

For five months from last November, [study co-author Mushfiq] Mobarak and colleagues tracked 342,126 Bangladeshi adults and randomly selected people to deploy programs to promote their use, which included distributing free masks to homes, providing information about their importance, and strengthening them. community use.

Among the approximately 178,000 individuals who were encouraged to wear them, the scientists found that the wearing of masks increased by almost 30% and that the change in behavior persisted for ten weeks or more. After instituting the program, the researchers reported a 11.9% decrease in Covid’s symptomatic symptoms and a 9.3% reduction in symptomatic seroprevalence, indicating that the virus was detect in blood tests.

While the effect may seem small, the results offer an insight into how much masks matter, Mobarak said.

“A 30% increase in mask wear resulted in a 10% reduction in Covid, so imagine if there was a 100% increase, if everyone wore a mask and we saw a 100% change.” , he said.

The scientists said the masks significantly reduced symptomatic infections among older adults and found that surgical masks were more effective than fabric versions.

Appearing earlier this month in Fox News’ “The Ingraham Angle,” Atlas called it “important” that the study be randomized before citing a randomized Danish study last year that showed that “the people wearing masks have a lower risk of infection testing for viruses than people wearing masks. “

“This is a different kind of study,” said Atlas, a frequent and early critic of blockade who briefly served as a member of former President Donald Trump’s coronavirus working group last year. “This tests to see if the people of one village have a symptomatic Covid if the villagers wear masks as opposed to other villages that do not wear as many masks.”

The Hoover Institution Fellow went on to describe two results of the study before explaining why he believes these are not the definitive evidence masks have been looking for over the past 18 months.

One, in people who define Covid as more antibody symptoms, there is no evidence that cloth masks have any impact, nor any significant impact with cloth masks for people who have Covid according to the definition of Covid symptoms with antibody documentation. So fabric masks are worth nothing according to this study.

The second part is the study of the surgical mask. And the study of the surgical mask shows that, according to my reading here, there is an 11% decrease in people who have symptomatic covid with antibodies. 11%. And basically just the elderly. So what this shows you after saying it and confirming it is that it confirms that fabric masks are worthless. It shows – if the data are taken at face value – a very minimal impact, 11%, decrease in symptomatic cases in the use of masks by the people.

And so, you know, of all that is required to desperately ask for masks to work, that’s what I would say extremely weak tea. In fact, it confirms the reason why we have seen around the world and in the United States that the use of masks by the population does not significantly stop the spread of the virus.

It is being sold in excess, but people are desperate to find some pebble somewhere that shows masks.

Atlas, by far, was not the only critic. Professor Francois Balloux, director of the UCL Institute of Genetics and professor of computational biology at University College London, has tweeted that it is “not obvious” from the study that masks “are statistically significantly associated with a reduced transmission at the population level “.

Nick Hudson, president of Pandata.org (PANDA), tweeted a post on the blog of writer Substack the Bad Cat, titled “Bangladesh Mask Study: Don’t Believe the Hype,” calling it a “solid comment.” .

From the analysis of the bad cat:

To state that the masks caused a variation in the result, you must isolate the masks as a variable. They didn’t. It was a whole panoply of interventions, signaling, hectoring, impulses, payments, and psychological games. It had hundreds of known effects and who knows how many of them are unknown.

We have no idea what is being measured and even some of these variables that were measured showed a high correlation and therefore present confusions. when you are turning the life of the people upside down, asserting one aspect makes the difference statistically impossible. the system becomes hopelessly multivariate and confusing.

The authors admit it themselves (and curiously do not seem to understand that this invalidates their own mask claims)

Gato’s post has drawn a lot of attention on Twitter for its thoroughness.

Harvard professor Dr. Martin Kulldorff called it “strange” that “mask advocates are excited about this study.”

David Chavous, a doctoral lawyer in molecular biology, described the fact that the results were only seen for those over 50 as a “huge red warning sign.”

Others drew attention to the insignificant effects of using fabric masks in the studio, the type of mask most people use.

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