Every now and again, @NYMag's @intelligencer decides to publish COVID misinformation.
The latest example comes courtesy of @davidzweig and centers around masking for kids.
It makes the same tired arguments that I've been hearing for months now. Let's take a look...
Zweig starts by misrepresenting a single study from Georgia that looked at 90K students/169 schools (cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/7…).
He insinuates that the study found no protection with masking for students.
In truth, student masking reduced COVID incidence by 21%...
The trend did not reach statistical significance, and the authors give a logical reason why.
But the trend was still there.
Also, the lack of statistical significance could have been due to the small sample size (only ~80 schools in the groups with/without masking)
Next, the Talented Mr. Zweig claims the CDC's science brief on COVID in K-12 schools (cdc.gov/coronavirus/20…) lacks studies of student masking in isolation.
I guess he missed this second Georgia study that linked student masklessness to COVID clusters? cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/7…
A similar episode/investigation in Israel revealed an uptick in cases at a school ***immediately after*** masking was rolled back. eurosurveillance.org/content/10.280…
Zweig opts to gloss over/downplay this inconvenient finding in a sidebar. 👀🧐 🤔
Finally, Zweig makes the most tired of tired arguments: "COVID, of course, is also a disease that tends to have much milder effects on children."
First, COVID can be both less threatening in kids AND STILL CAUSE A LOT OF SERIOUS DISEASE IN KIDS.
Moreover, Zweig makes the exhausting comparison of pediatric flu vs. pediatric COVID. Just so tired.
I guess he missed this CDC study from June showing COVID hospitalizations among teens were greater than hospitalizations linked to influenza over 3 recent flu seasons...
Not to mention, the CDC study even analyzed the flu season (2018-2019) that Zweig highlights in his bogus comparison!!!! 🤯🤬🤯🤬🤯🤬🤯🤬🤯🤬🤯🤬
The difference is clear as the daylight that his tired argument can't seem to see. cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/7…
P.S. For the people chirping at me about statistics:
A trend can be clinically significant but not statistically significant for the reasons I mention
Omicron now makes up 92% of sequenced cases in the New York and New Jersey region, based on the latest data from the CDC. That's up from the 13% reported last week.
1. I mentioned to @Steronious on @WNYC this weekend that we might eventually learn that omicron arrived here well before its first detection, based on evidence from overseas... wnyc.org/story/gov-hoch…
I am now wondering if this increase is partially due to increased efforts to find omicron cases. The variant is undoubtedly spreading 2-3x faster than delta...but damn, what a jump!
No matter what is ultimately revealed, we need more resources for genomic surveillance.
Indeed, the U.S. COVID outbreak could be transitioning into an endemic — where the coronavirus would continue to thrive in perpetuity, but vaccinated people would be largely spared the worst outcomes. gothamist.com/news/ny-breaks…
A COVID endemic would mean riding this rollercoaster of infection waves every few months or perhaps just every winter, and it could be brutal for unvaccinated people.
“Some consistent patterns have emerged: Two doses of an mRNA vaccine produce more antibodies, and more reliably, than an infection with the coronavirus does.”
“Only 85 percent to 90 percent of people who test positive for the virus and recover have detectable antibodies to begin with. The strength and durability of the response is variable.” nytimes.com/2021/10/12/hea…
NYC Officials Say School Windows Can Always Offer Solid Ventilation. Independent Scientists Disagree gothamist.com/news/nyc-offic…
And as a fun exercise in science media literacy, let's break down the Mayor's response...
Two weeks ago, Brian Lehrer asked @NYCMayor/@BilldeBlasio whether he had heard that the air purifiers @NYCSchools had purchased for every classroom in the city lacked HEPA filters, an industry standard.