*The excellent Jeremy Hammond has put out a corrective to a report by (the* *excellent) Ben Swann, on the CDC study re: mask-wearing among COVID* *"cases." Since I shared a version of that story, I offer this as a corrective to* *my post, and an invitation to weigh in (as several NFU subscribers did).*
*(This piece of Hammond's was just posted on Facebook by Colleen Rowley;* *I tried to find the original on Hammond's website but could not. So this is all* *I have.)* *The takeaway here is that what the study really proves, or reconfirms, is* *that mask-wearing makes no difference, as people who'd worn masks and* *those who hadn't worn them "caught COVID-19" (i.e., tested positive) in the * *same numbers. **It does not prove, Hammond argues, that those who wore * *them were likelier to **"catch it." * *So let's discuss it further, if you are so inclined.* *MCM* *I admire journalist Ben Swann and appreciate what he’s doing to combat mainstream * *propaganda narratives and censorship, but a recent report of his unfortunately * *legitimized **certain criticisms of his reporting on masks.* *On October 13, he published a video titled "New CDC Study 70% Always 3% Never * *Wore **Face Masks Contracted Covid". I’ve seen it being spread around on social media * *so feel **compelled to alert my own readers that this video misreports the study findings * *and therefore, **regrettably, doesn’t help our cause.* *Swann says that the CDC study shows that masks not only do not help prevent SARS-* *CoV-2 **transmission but may increase the risk. He says the study shows "that’s exactly * *what happened". **He describes it as finding that those who rarely or never wore a mask * *had a much lower percentage **of infection from COVID-19 than those who often or always * *wore a mask.* *He shows this table from the study: (see below)* *He interprets this as meaning that only 3.9% and 3.1% of case and control patients who * *never wore a mask, respectively, contracted COVID-19. Based on that interpretation, he * *suggests the numbers mean that those who never wore a mask were very unlikely to get * *COVID-19. **He says that of the 312 participants in the study, 70% who always wore a face * *mask wound up with COVID-19 within 14 days after exposure, whereas those who never * *wore a mask accounted for less than 4% of the COVID-19 cases.* *He concludes that the smaller numbers of people with COVID-19 who rarely or never * *wore masks indicates that wearing a mask can increase the risk of infection.* *I was disappointed to see this report of Swann’s because it is completely wrong.* *The 3.1% does not represent the proportion of people in the control cohort who contracted * *COVID-19. Nobody in the control cohort got COVID-19. The control group consisted of * *outpatients who tested negative for COVID-19. **That was the whole purpose of the study: to * *compare factors associated with different testing outcomes among patients coming to the * *hospital with symptoms. The case cohort consisted of those who tested positive.* *The numbers do not mean that people who never wore masks were highly unlikely to get * *COVID-19. The differences in mask use between those who did and did not test positive * *was not statistically significant.* *So, what the numbers really mean is simply that there was no increased risk for COVID-19 * *associated with never wearing a mask. It is not the case that 70% of participants who always * *wore a face mask got COVID-19 within 14 days after exposure.* *Rather, 70.6% of those who tested positive for COVID-19 and 74.2% of those who tested * *negative always wore a face mask when going out in the 14 days prior to symptom onset.* *That is, mask wearers and non-mask-wearers had an approximately equal chance of testing * *positive for COVID-19.* *Swann also focuses on the use of masks as personal protective equipment (PPE), but the * *findings of the study were also relevant for the use of masks as "source control", meaning * *to protect other people from the wearer.* *[This too is interesting:]* *Another table that Swann doesn’t talk about showed that there was a statistically significant * *difference between test-positive and test-negative cohorts when it came to whether others * *around them were wearing masks at the time of exposure.* *Those who tested negative for COVID-19 and visited a bar or restaurant in the 14 days before * *symptom onset were significantly more likely to have reported that the people around them * *at those establishments were wearing masks.* *In other words, the use of masks by others at restaurants and bars was associated with a * *decreased chance of testing positive for COVID-19. **It is possible -- if not probable -- that * *restaurants and bars full of mask wearers had characteristics that distinguished them * *from places where people weren’t wearing masks. People may have tended to wear masks * *more in the restaurants visited by later COVID-19 cases precisely because they were busier * *and more crowded places.* *That is, this study does not show that a lack of mask use in restaurants and bars was * *causally associated with an increased risk of testing positive for COVID-19.* *The findings are therefore compatible with a hypothesis that masks do nothing at all to * *reduce transmission of SARS-CoV-2.* *Also, regardless of mask use, activities for which there was no increased risk included * *shopping, going to a salon, going to a gym, using public transportation, going to a bar * *or coffee shop, or going to church or other religious gathering.* *So, that’s what you need to know about this study.* --- Support News from Underground: http://bit.ly/NFUSupport Visit News from Underground: https://markcrispinmiller.com You received this email because you are subscribed to News from Underground. 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