
What is it with the right wing and masks? I don't remember nuts going barefoot into grocery stores, demanding service, and then when told to leave making videos in which they presented themselves as updated Kings and Gandhis. Also, the evident desperation with which they insist that masks don't work, accompanied by the perpetually pumped-up volume, persuades me more than Dr. Fauci ever could that it's probably a good idea to wear a mask in crowded indoor spaces. Here is John Hinderaker, of the wingnut Power Line Blog, recently setting out from shore:
With airports and airplanes now liberated, masks are becoming a rarity. That is a good thing, as there was never any substantial evidence that masks work. This study of 35 European countries during the period from October 1 2020 to March 31, 2021, when the second covid wave passed through that continent, could put the last nail in the mask coffin.
Yes, that was pretty bad back when airports resembled Buchenwald. But I was curious about this study, and not less so when, proceeding through Hinderaker's account of it, I noticed that he never identified the author, nor the name of the journal, nor the methods used, such as how the percentage of mask users in different European countries was determined. He did, however, provide the same hyperlink that I reproduced in the above excerpt. When you click on it, you get taken here, where curiosity can in some measure be satisfied.
The author is Beny Spira. His byline above the article is a hyperlink, and when you click on it you read: "I'm not a medical professional." He is an associate professor of microbiology at the University of Sao Paulo in Brazil. Scanning the section on "Study Design" for an answer to my question about the source for data on mask usage, I read: "Daily data on COVID-19 cases and deaths and on mask usage were obtained for all European countries." Foiled by the passive voice! But there is a footnote in the table containing the actual data that says, "Percent of the population reporting always wearing a mask when leaving home." So it seems the answer to the question
How do you know what percentage of the people wear masks?
is
You just ask them and, after tallying their responses, import the percentages into your data table.
The article was published in a journal called Cureus. I'd never heard of it, though to be fair there's only three journals pertaining to similar subject matter that I have heard of: The Lancet, The New England Journal of Medicine, and The Journal of the American Medical Association. It's not one of those! When you google the journal's name, the first return is its website and, just below that, the familiar table labeled "People Also Ask." I assume the questions people also ask are a summary of what Google has determined searchers seem to be trying to find out when they type "Cureus" into the search bar, and they include:
Is Cureus a credible journal?
Is Cureus a predatory Journal?
Does Cureus reject?
The answer to the first question is: "According to my experience for that specific journal it's a very credible author oriented/friendly journal." That the journal is indeed "author friendly" is corroborated in the answer to the third question: "The Cureus peer review philosophy is 'peer review not peer reject.' Sometimes a peer reviewer will be a reasonable person who will provide good feedback that actually improves the article." The second question leads me to believe that some "journals" extract large sums from people desperate to publish articles somewhere, anywhere, and that googlers, perhaps aware that Cureus publishes almost anything, are wondering whether they'll have to pay.
Other articles included within the first page of top returns are "Cureus Publications? Worth it or just a waste of time" and "Cureus—Retraction Watch." The journal's own web site displays, at the top of its home page, "publication metrics": the average time to publish an article in Cureus is 37 days, and 41 percent of accepted articles are published for free.
"[T]here was never any substantial evidence that masks work," Hinderaker wrote, before putting forward this Cureus study as final proof that the question has now been settled.
As of this morning, there had been 137 responses to Hinderaker’s post. I read through them to see whether anyone had raised questions about the, shall we say, rigor of the "study." It was all just the Amen Corner. There is a large market for bullshit. A sampling of the comments:
I won't hold my breath waiting for this [study] to be the lead on national news!
BTW masks are the least of it, what about vaccines? I'm still watching charts and around the world and in California and Los Angeles, and the situation is no better there—data does not confirm that vaccines do anything useful, and there are general trends that suggest they are harmful.
I wore a mask exactly once to cash my $541.00 reward check at Costco. As soon as the money was in my hand, I pulled off my mask, and cancelled my membership.
The mask has its purpose. It covers the mouth and muzzles us. It obscures our faces and thus negates our expressions, our facial structure and ultimately our identity. Donning the mask is an act of announcing our frailty and fear. Unless we are truly twisted, it undermines our sense of self worth. We could go on and on . . . the mask is essentially a tool to subjugate and instill fear. Like the chicken who crosses the road . . . they have their reasons. And those gathered here on this excellent blog have our reasons to reject the mask. We still know how to think.
The ellipses are in the original of this last long one from Jeanne—nothing has been omitted. Even though 13 people upvoted the comment, it's not her facial structure I'm wondering about.