From Michael Green:
The excellent MCM—and everyone else—ignore a fundamental error of this CDC study that makes it uninterpretable.
Mark writes 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.” The study is incapable of supporting any such conclusion because it fails to compare the mask-wearing outcomes (COV+ vs COV-) of comparable groups of persons, and ignores the relevant stats for the remainder of the population. Yes, it compares the mask-wearing behavior of clinically symptomatic patients testing + for COVID with those testing – for COVID. But comparing the mask-wearing behaviors of symptomatic groups who are C+ vs. C- tells us nothing about the efficacy of masks unless we know how many people in the general population wore masks as each group did, and what their outcomes were. It is quite possible that the stats for people among the general population who wore masks as the C+ did had a very much better outcome (lower incidence of C+) than those who wore them less—and that is the relevant comparison, not one with symptomatic C- patients.
To make the point another way, consider these extreme cases. If the subjects (C+) and controls (C-) were the only symptomatic persons in a population of 300,000,000 and all of the other people wore masks 100% of the time, we might reasonably conclude that mask-wearing protected from both COVID and other flu-like-illnesses (OFLI). Or, if all of the remaining population was symptomatic, all tested positive for COVID, and never-ever wore a mask, we might reasonably conclude that mask wearing prevented some COVID but seems to have caused the control cases of OFLI.
Of course, the real world stats lie in between these imagined poles, but until it is specified, this CDC “study” remains a jumbled batch of uninterpretable numbers, despite all the excellent people it has seduced with actual tests of statistical significance between its meaningless numbers. This is a research methodology 101 error that readily deceives even intelligent educated laypersons, but should not have gotten by the CDC. Unfortunately, it is not the first time that the CDC has produced such nonsense.
Just for the record, masks are harmful, but part of a brilliantly evil inverted Milgram component of the COVID PSY-OP. Instead of torturing the innocent because the authority says it is necessary as in the famous Milgram experiment, maskers follow the authorities’ advice to save the lives of innocents by self-sacrifice and vigilance towards the pathologically selfish: those of us with our heads screwed on straight.