The paragraph in the article immediately after the one you quote says:
"However, according to medical historians, the decline in deaths from influenza in San Francisco can be partly attributed to the mandatory mask-wearing policies."
> "However, according to medical historians, the decline in deaths from influenza in San Francisco can be partly attributed to the mandatory mask-wearing policies."
The full quote is "Yet in cities like San Francisco, the decline in deaths from influenza was partly attributed to the mandatory mask-wearing policies." It contains no further attribution or references.
> "A study then in 1919 concluded that mandatory mask mandates did not make any difference on epidemic, while observing that a likely reason for their ineffectiveness was that masks were worn outdoors and not inside in gatherings when conditions for transmission would be greatest. It also noted that most masks were improperly constructed of inadequate materials."
One is a recent quote from the Lancet, a respected medical journal. The other is from 1919, before the discovery of viruses. But I am not going to argue which holds the most credence. What is concerning though is that the original comment selectly quoted the paragraph that supported their no doubt political opinion while ignoring the other.
How is it a crap study? They had a bunch of people wear masks, which they did with varying levels of compliance ("46% of participants wore the mask as recommended, 47% predominantly as recommended, and 7% not as recommended"), and found no statistically significant reduction in infection rates.
To me that seems like a pretty convincing reason to believe that wearing a mask is not going to decrease my chances of getting COVID.
Do you have a compelling reason to believe otherwise?
- if you run a study about the effectiveness of mitigation methods when there's a low incidence rate during your study duration, don't be surprised when you're sampling noise and get inconclusive answers.
- a sub-50% self reporting compliance rate is pretty shit.
- that masks are better at keeping your gross breath in than it is in keeping everyone else's out is not a very contentious claim, and it's upheld here. Asymptomatic transmission being what it is (ie, real), you would expect to see high compliance with masks and social distancing correlate well with reduction in overall caseload. That hypothesis was not investigated here, so this study contributes no information to it.
- the authors of the paper themselves conclude “We think you should wear a face mask at least to protect yourself, but you should also use it to protect others ... We consider that the conclusion is we should wear face masks.”
The study claims its sample sizes were large enough to see an effect if there were one; I'm not expert enough to evaluate the math, but I assume they are telling the truth.
None of your other points give me any reason to believe masks provide protection to the wearer. I agree the study does not speak to whether wearing masks provides protection to others. (And I have so far not seen analysis that convinces me one way or the other on that point.)
The paragraph in the article immediately after the one you quote says:
"However, according to medical historians, the decline in deaths from influenza in San Francisco can be partly attributed to the mandatory mask-wearing policies."