Face mask recommendations in schools did not impact COVID-19 incidence among 10–12-year-olds in Finland – joinpoint regression analysis

8 comments

  1. As results come in, they seem to be point statistical inconclusiveness to the mask’s direct effects. Clearly, more research would be required to make a strong claim that mask mandates were unnecessary.

    Critical we used measures known to work against such diseases, glad to have a scientific community generating more information after the fact.

  4. I worked in a school during this time and the biggest problem is that the kids don’t use the masks properly. There were many situations where they didn’t have masks on because it was impractical to ask dozens of kids to go to recess with a mask on and enter the building with a fresh one on. Several times a day for weeks on end. Also, many boys don’t know how to stay socially distant. There’s so much roughhousing going on that it’s almost impossible to not spread diseases.

  6. Well, people, especially kids, rarely wore the masks correctly and used surgical masks that only block droplets but do not stop aerosols.
    People coming sick to work/school are also the people that ignored the mask recommendations the most and surgical masks only work on the “giving” side.

    Proper N99 masks protect on both sides as they actually filter the air.

  7. We didn’t lie to the kids hard enough. If they believed they would die from Covid, they would use the masks more diligently. Otherwise, that mask is going in the pocket or on the chin as soon as the hall monitor isn’t looking, because wearing a mask fucking sucks and nobody wants to do it.

  8. When you see articles like this you have to ask a few things to see if it meets the standards of a quality scientific study and publication.

    The first thing to check is: Was it published in an independently-reviewed, blind and independently-fact-checked, peer-reviewed, high-ranking scientific journal mandating adherence to scientific excellence (e.g. not a predatory journal). In these notes:

    * The journal is [BMC Public Health which has a 1.3 ranking vs The Lancet Public Health which has a 10.591 ranking ](https://www.scimagojr.com/journalrank.php?category=2739&page=2&total_size=612). Not great there.

    * The journal does not have blind fact/peer review. Not a great finding.

    * The journal is a [pay to submit](https://bmcpublichealth.biomedcentral.com/submission-guidelines/fees-and-funding) model which many have indicated is a hallmark of predatory journals. (Not stating BMC is a predatory journal, but it is a marker) So not a great finding.

    The next thing to check is: do they account for population density differences in doing cross-population studies? They comared

    > Helsinki and Tampere (face masks not mandated in schools in this age group) and in Turku (face masks mandated).

    but when we lookup stats for Tampere and Tukuru we find Tukuru has an urban density 10x higher than Tampere, and overall density 2x higher.

    Tukuru Density 806.82/km^2
    Tampere Density 475.63/km^2

    Tukuru Urban density 9,993/km^2
    Tampere Urban density 1,211.0/km^2

    The #1 predictor of COVID spread was density. Did the article adjust for this? No. They just state

    > In August, the ADPC was highest in Turku and lowest in Tampere among the 10–12-year-olds (Table 1).

    Well – sure. That makes sense given a 10x density. If you want to compare populations – you have to pick ones that are equivalent in density, demographics, etc. This was not done.

    As a comparison – Kansas did this same study by allowing individual counties to pick masking requirements. The results … [they worked to slow the spread of COVID](https://www.cnn.com/2020/11/20/health/mask-mandates-kansas-coronavirus-wellness/index.html)

    Given the findings about the journal and the lack of finding comparable sized cities and lack of even a description of density of population – I rank this as a report of low confidence.

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