Scott J Balsitis Profile picture
Jan 6, 2022 6 tweets 2 min read Read on X
The truth about masking children is starting to hit the front page: we never had evidence that it's helpful, and the harms are obvious. 🧵bbc.com/news/health-59…
New UK study finds the same result as all the other studies: if there is any benefit, it's so tiny that it can't be accurately measured. assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/upl…
There are clear negative educational impacts of masking, with the main benefit being making students "feel safe." Alternatively, we could make them feel safe by telling them that the children have always been low-risk and the vaccines work.
UK government report: "there are downsides to face coverings for pupils and students, including detrimental impacts on communication in the classroom"
And yes, masks are particularly challenging for people with disabilities:
And the obvious conclusion: stop masking children. It's an intervention with no clear evidence of benefit, if there is benefit it's incredibly small, and the harms are clear, obvious, and widespread.

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More from @DrScottBalsitis

Aug 11, 2022
Great new guidance from Children's Hospital of Philadelphia's Policy lab. "Our recommendations encourage a less stringent approach to school-based COVID-19 mitigation..." policylab.chop.edu/sites/default/…
Isolation protocol for COVID cases: when you're sick, stay home. No pre-specified number of days or need for a negative test to return. "Individuals should remain home until fever-free for at least 24 hours, and until symptoms are improving."
End contact quarantines. "Schools and early childhood programs in regions in which quarantine is no longer required by health departments should allow exposed individuals to remain in school and to participate in activities."
Read 9 tweets
Jul 23, 2022
The science doesn't support LA mandate. Here we show why. LA isn't actually in the CDC "High" tier + high-quality data shows mask mandates are ineffective. Using data everyone knows are inaccurate to justify a useless mandate is terrible public health.🧵 dailynews.com/2022/07/22/bri…
Co-authored with @drklausner, former CDC medical officer and USC Professor of Public Health, LA physician @houmanhemmati, and Neeraj Sood, professor of health policy at Price School of Public Policy and Director of COVID Initiative at Schaeffer Center
Mandate is based on hospitalization numbers that everyone agrees are inaccurate. LA Public Health's own data say that COVID is actually the cause of hospitalization in only 40% of cases. Irrelevant bystander in 60%. But even that's an overestimate. publichealth.lacounty.gov/media/coronavi…
Read 25 tweets
Jul 12, 2022
This article is a litany of totally-not-okay reasons to recommend additional boosters. Topping the list is
"because we have vaccines we want to sell before they go bad." 1/ washingtonpost.com/health/2022/07…
Totally-not-okay reason #2: someone has a "leaning."
Totally-not-okay reason #3: Some experts are "worried" and "concerned" that a new strain "might" be "a little worse."
Read 6 tweets
Feb 19, 2022
New data updates today in the #UrgencyOfNormal toolkit! I'll go into detail here on the updates to (1) better quantify how vaccines address COVID risk for older adults, and (2) delve into what vaccination rates in children really mean (and don't mean). 🧵urgencyofnormal.com
The slide on vaccine protection for those >65 yrs now shows absolute risk levels, rather than just % vaccine efficacy, and compares COVID risk levels to the flu for this age group.
From CDC data, peak flu hospitalization rates in the >65 year old age group range from ~10-50 per 100k per week. The six most recent pre-pandemic years are shown here. gis.cdc.gov/GRASP/Fluview/…
Read 12 tweets
Feb 5, 2022
CDC reports another study that fails to control for vaccination rate differences between mask-wearers (higher vax rate) and non-mask wearers (lower). Vaccines were highly protective vs infection (pre-Omicron), so of course the mask group has lower rates. The vaccines work.🧵
Using proper control groups is critical, and the most basic principle of good study design. If you don't control for obvious confounding variables (vaccination rate) that will impact the result, you can't assign the effect to the variable you're testing (masks).
Like many other studies, this one lacks a well-matched control group and instead "adjusts" the raw data after the fact, for multiple uncontrolled variables, to generate the numbers reported as the take-home message. These adjustments inject researcher assumptions into the data
Read 16 tweets
Jan 25, 2022
Kids desperately need normal life back. To support everyone trying to understand the overall best for them right now, we've created this Advocacy Toolkit. It boils down the data on vaccines, Omicron, and mental health to advocate for kids as whole people. urgencyofnormal.com
The toolkit is an independent collaboration of diverse voices from the medical community. Its origins came from partnering with our own children's schools to help them make sense of the data and make wise choices.
Although there are many articles written about COVID, there wasn't one simple place that integrates and balances all the critical data needed for parents, students, teachers, and mentors to make the decisions they're facing right now. This toolkit was created to meet that need.
Read 25 tweets

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