My yard is calling....must stop now....

Dan,

My point is that Democrats and their allies were responsible for much of the "panic and hysteria" surrounding COVID, yet some people are now trying to put it all on Trump.

Dan,

Yes, that works out to a 10.5% reduction.

But in actual numbers, the rate fell by only 0.08 percent from 0.76% to 0.68% or roughly eight fewer confirmed cases per 10,000 people.

You can argue that eight fewer cases per 10,000 was important during a pandemic. That is a legitimate argument.

But it remains a modest benefit, and this study certainly does not justify the massive fear and hysteria that were promoted or the claim that mask mandates had been conclusively proven to provide substantial protection.

Morris,

Understand there is a difference between "ineffective" and "minimal benefit".

I see people want to build up strawmen, respond to it and then believe the Cochrane review was BS.

Corky,

Regarding your #189 link.

I looked at the study.

It was a legitimate, large randomized trial in Bangladesh, but its findings were far more modest than Yale's promotional headline suggests.

The mask promotion program nearly tripled proper mask usage from about 13% to 42%, yet symptomatic, antibody-confirmed infection declined from 0.76% to 0.68%.

That is an absolute difference of only 0.08 percent or roughly eight fewer cases per 10,000 people.

Most importantly, the Cochrane review included this Bangladesh trial and still concluded that the overall randomized evidence showed little or no clearly detectable community benefit.

So yes, the Yale study is evidence of a modest possible benefit.

It is not the sweeping scientific proof of mask mandates that you are presenting it as, and it does not contradict my use of the word "minimal."

Corky,

I have yard work to do.

Procrastinating isn't going to get it done.

That's my time. I hope you enjoyed the show.

See you later.

Referring back to my earlier post and point,

Fauci was responsible for disseminating a great deal of misinformation.

And it was Democrats and their allies who amplified it, defended it and helped enforce the policies built around it.

They were responsible for much of the "panic and hysteria" that followed.

Dan,

I said "minimal," not "no benefit."

The bottom line is that the widespread panic and hysteria were not justified. The public was repeatedly told that masks had been scientifically proven to substantially reduce a person's chances of becoming infected.

The Cochrane review showed that the randomized evidence was nowhere near that conclusive. The measured benefit was minimal and statistically uncertain.

That does not prove masks could never provide any benefit.

It does show that the certainty with which the claim was presented to the public was not supported by the evidence.

That became misinformation and ultimately turned masks into a political wedge.

Regarding the shutdowns:

Trump initially supported the "15 Days to Slow the Spread" guidelines. Before those 15 days had ended, he was already warning about the economic damage and saying he hoped businesses could begin reopening by Easter.

He later abandoned the Easter target and extended the federal distancing guidelines through April 30.

But the federal government never imposed a single nationwide business shutdown. The actual orders closing businesses, schools and public spaces and the decisions about how long to keep them closed were generally made by governors under their own state authority.

The Trump administration issued guidance, but governors were not under federal orders requiring them to continue the shutdowns and mandates.

It was largely the governors who determined how severely and how long their individual states remained shut down.

This would be another major element of Doc's "panic and hysteria,".

The prolonged state shutdowns cannot fairly be laid primarily at Trump's feet.

Donner,

Look up the Cochrane review on masks.

Its conclusion was not that masks can never work. It found that, in randomized studies, encouraging people to wear masks produced little or no clearly detectable reduction in COVID or other respiratory infections.

The researchers compared medical masks, N95 respirators and no mask groups. When they looked at who actually became infected, the overall benefit was minimal and statistically uncertain.

That is quite different from the confident claim that widespread masking and mask mandates had been proven to substantially reduce transmission.

The debate over masks certainly came close to creating the very "panic and hysteria" Doc talked about. People were shamed, excluded and treated as dangerous for questioning claims that were far less certain than officials admitted.

In hindsight, much of it looks like theater and virtue signaling masquerading as settled science.