Emily has been consistently pro mask throughout her writings the last 18 months, though her enthusiasm hasn't been as pronounced probably since Omicron (this is just personal gauge of reading her substack and previously her twitter feed).
Regardless, careful falling to the logical fallacy of "ad hominen" - you are attacking the arguer (she doesn't have the credentials) not the argument itself (the study is poorly designed). By that logic should we have dismissed Katelyn writings when she rose to prominence on social media just because prior to 2020 her published papers were largely focused on domestic violence, poverty, LE, economic stressors, etc, and not on infectious disease?
Regarding the study you linked: "Mask adherence and rate of COVID-19 across the United States", the study reference period was Apr - Sept 2020, then compare to May - Oct 2020.
All claims it makes should you re-run for future dates fall apart. There are a number of subsequent studies that make a similar mistake, not realizing that the seasonality would bias results against warmer climate states when restricting to that time frame.
For reference there 700K covid cases in California during the study reference period. That number would triple within 4 months, despite California having some the strictest mask mandates and adoption rates. Or use Illinois, it *only* had 236K cases during the reference period, which is credited towards masks. But within 4 months, cases quadrupled. But in Florida, cases only doubled between Sept - Dec. Was this due to masks then?
Studies like this, if their claims are falsifiable, should produce the same results when date ranges are adjusted (i.e., you should be able to reproduce the claims regardless of the 5 month window of time you choose). In this case, it fails that replication test.
KB: "So, let's be clear here. You appealed to authority in using a link to Emily's and I merely pointed out she is a professor of Economics."
MD: There is no appeal to authority, I only noted that Emily is someone who believes in masks, so for her to pick apart a pro-mask study is notable. I figured linking her rebuttal as opposed to Vinay Prasad would reduce risk of dismissal by ad hominem.
I'm familiar with positive and negative study design, though hadn't seen that link, which is useful as a refresher.
As for the rest of your post - I'm not entirely clear on your point, it seems like you are re-refuting the John Hopkins study Emily also picked apart, is that your intention? If so, I don't disagree with either her or your critique of that paper, even if the point it establishes is probably true. But again, seems rather than tackling the arguments you are focused on the credentials and political affiliations of the authors, which goes back to my original point - attack the argument not the arguer (and at this point, I think Sweden is vindicated in their approach).
KB - I reached that conclusion by comparing the excess mortality in Sweden against her Nordic neighbors, Europe, Israel, the US, and South Korea.
Evaluating excess deaths for 2020-2021, Sweden had 4.2% more deaths than usual (using 2016-2019 as baseline), which ranks below all of Europe (range of 8%-20%), South Korea (8.8%), Israel (12%), the United States (21%), slightly below Finland (5.5%) and Denmark (4.9%). Only Norway (2%) had lower excess deaths. [1]
Additionally, when you examine the details of the excess deaths, Sweden had zero excess deaths in the 0-64 age group in 2020 and 2021. [2]
Note that the article you linked was to the preliminary findings of the commission from October. In the final report recently published the tone was softer: "In comparison with the rest of Europe, Sweden has come through the pandemic relatively well and is among the countries with the lowest excess mortality over the period 2020-2021". [3] While I don't put much stock in the report either way - politicians are prone to saying they were right while always leaving window open to "we could have done better" - I suspect the softer tone was due to Denmark exploding in cases in the end of 2021 and early 2022, but just speculating.
And finally, I think there has been a double standard regarding Sweden - critiques always compare them only to their Nordic neighbors, never to Germany, Israel, the UK, etc. Which is strange because we don't hold restrictions of comparison to anyone else. We compare the US to South Korea, Japan, New Zealand all the time, yet Stockholm is the same distance to Berlin as Chicago is to Denver.
Yet the comparisons to Finland, Denmark, and Norway, even we accept them, fail to realize that all of those countries sent their kids back to school in the spring of 2020 without masks anyway, and had the lowest mask adoption rates in the entire world - which makes it odd to cite them as "doing it right" when arguing masks made a measurable difference in the pandemic.
_________
Sources:
I made this graphic a month ago, it compiles the sources below, but is slightly out of date (i.e., Finland since then added another 1,000 deaths to 2021), but it gives good visual of what I am saying if you don't want to bother recreating pivot tables https://imgur.com/a/EpbGWbg
KB - running out of room, if you reply to this maybe go to a parent comment :)
1) To your question "what made you bring up Sweden"... it was you who brought them up when you quoted: "Lars Jonung, PhD, professor emeritus of economics at Lund University in Sweden -- a country that famously opted out of lockdowns and only recommended masks in public". - I was merely pointing out that apparently didn't matter after all.
2) I'm unclear why you are citing papers from August 2021 when we have data current up through mid February 2022. Much has changed since then. In the link you shared it marveled that Denmark only had 334K cases compared to Swedens 1.1 million. Since that article was published Denmark exploded to 2.79 million and Sweden is now at 2.44 million, despite having double the population.
3) The excess mortality - the best measure of response - demonstrates that Sweden had a better outcome than every country except Norway (and even Norway sent kids back to school throughout pandemic without masks, so I'm not sure what point is proved by citing Norway). You can check my math, I gave you the links above. Maybe this changes in the future?
4) The paper you shared from Statista drives home my point earlier - notice how Sweden was only ever compared to places which did better than Sweden (of which there are very few). If we can compare Florida to California, or Vermont to Missouri, we should be able to compare Sweden to Germany, France, or Israel. Of course, now that we have two full years of pandemic data and Sweden has emerged with the 2nd lowest excess death rate in Europe, it really doesn't matter restricting comparisons to her direct neighbors, the data shows the approach didn't incur the cataclysm predicted.
Emily has been consistently pro mask throughout her writings the last 18 months, though her enthusiasm hasn't been as pronounced probably since Omicron (this is just personal gauge of reading her substack and previously her twitter feed).
Regardless, careful falling to the logical fallacy of "ad hominen" - you are attacking the arguer (she doesn't have the credentials) not the argument itself (the study is poorly designed). By that logic should we have dismissed Katelyn writings when she rose to prominence on social media just because prior to 2020 her published papers were largely focused on domestic violence, poverty, LE, economic stressors, etc, and not on infectious disease?
Regarding the study you linked: "Mask adherence and rate of COVID-19 across the United States", the study reference period was Apr - Sept 2020, then compare to May - Oct 2020.
All claims it makes should you re-run for future dates fall apart. There are a number of subsequent studies that make a similar mistake, not realizing that the seasonality would bias results against warmer climate states when restricting to that time frame.
For reference there 700K covid cases in California during the study reference period. That number would triple within 4 months, despite California having some the strictest mask mandates and adoption rates. Or use Illinois, it *only* had 236K cases during the reference period, which is credited towards masks. But within 4 months, cases quadrupled. But in Florida, cases only doubled between Sept - Dec. Was this due to masks then?
Studies like this, if their claims are falsifiable, should produce the same results when date ranges are adjusted (i.e., you should be able to reproduce the claims regardless of the 5 month window of time you choose). In this case, it fails that replication test.
KB: "So, let's be clear here. You appealed to authority in using a link to Emily's and I merely pointed out she is a professor of Economics."
MD: There is no appeal to authority, I only noted that Emily is someone who believes in masks, so for her to pick apart a pro-mask study is notable. I figured linking her rebuttal as opposed to Vinay Prasad would reduce risk of dismissal by ad hominem.
I'm familiar with positive and negative study design, though hadn't seen that link, which is useful as a refresher.
As for the rest of your post - I'm not entirely clear on your point, it seems like you are re-refuting the John Hopkins study Emily also picked apart, is that your intention? If so, I don't disagree with either her or your critique of that paper, even if the point it establishes is probably true. But again, seems rather than tackling the arguments you are focused on the credentials and political affiliations of the authors, which goes back to my original point - attack the argument not the arguer (and at this point, I think Sweden is vindicated in their approach).
KB - I reached that conclusion by comparing the excess mortality in Sweden against her Nordic neighbors, Europe, Israel, the US, and South Korea.
Evaluating excess deaths for 2020-2021, Sweden had 4.2% more deaths than usual (using 2016-2019 as baseline), which ranks below all of Europe (range of 8%-20%), South Korea (8.8%), Israel (12%), the United States (21%), slightly below Finland (5.5%) and Denmark (4.9%). Only Norway (2%) had lower excess deaths. [1]
Additionally, when you examine the details of the excess deaths, Sweden had zero excess deaths in the 0-64 age group in 2020 and 2021. [2]
Note that the article you linked was to the preliminary findings of the commission from October. In the final report recently published the tone was softer: "In comparison with the rest of Europe, Sweden has come through the pandemic relatively well and is among the countries with the lowest excess mortality over the period 2020-2021". [3] While I don't put much stock in the report either way - politicians are prone to saying they were right while always leaving window open to "we could have done better" - I suspect the softer tone was due to Denmark exploding in cases in the end of 2021 and early 2022, but just speculating.
And finally, I think there has been a double standard regarding Sweden - critiques always compare them only to their Nordic neighbors, never to Germany, Israel, the UK, etc. Which is strange because we don't hold restrictions of comparison to anyone else. We compare the US to South Korea, Japan, New Zealand all the time, yet Stockholm is the same distance to Berlin as Chicago is to Denver.
Yet the comparisons to Finland, Denmark, and Norway, even we accept them, fail to realize that all of those countries sent their kids back to school in the spring of 2020 without masks anyway, and had the lowest mask adoption rates in the entire world - which makes it odd to cite them as "doing it right" when arguing masks made a measurable difference in the pandemic.
_________
Sources:
I made this graphic a month ago, it compiles the sources below, but is slightly out of date (i.e., Finland since then added another 1,000 deaths to 2021), but it gives good visual of what I am saying if you don't want to bother recreating pivot tables https://imgur.com/a/EpbGWbg
[1] https://www.mortality.org/
[2] Note - this is a direct download xls file: https://www.scb.se/en/finding-statistics/statistics-by-subject-area/population/population-composition/population-statistics/pong/tables-and-graphs/preliminary-statistics-on-deaths/
[3] https://www.thelocal.se/20220225/swedens-pandemic-strategy-fundamentally-correct-coronavirus-commission/
KB - running out of room, if you reply to this maybe go to a parent comment :)
1) To your question "what made you bring up Sweden"... it was you who brought them up when you quoted: "Lars Jonung, PhD, professor emeritus of economics at Lund University in Sweden -- a country that famously opted out of lockdowns and only recommended masks in public". - I was merely pointing out that apparently didn't matter after all.
2) I'm unclear why you are citing papers from August 2021 when we have data current up through mid February 2022. Much has changed since then. In the link you shared it marveled that Denmark only had 334K cases compared to Swedens 1.1 million. Since that article was published Denmark exploded to 2.79 million and Sweden is now at 2.44 million, despite having double the population.
3) The excess mortality - the best measure of response - demonstrates that Sweden had a better outcome than every country except Norway (and even Norway sent kids back to school throughout pandemic without masks, so I'm not sure what point is proved by citing Norway). You can check my math, I gave you the links above. Maybe this changes in the future?
4) The paper you shared from Statista drives home my point earlier - notice how Sweden was only ever compared to places which did better than Sweden (of which there are very few). If we can compare Florida to California, or Vermont to Missouri, we should be able to compare Sweden to Germany, France, or Israel. Of course, now that we have two full years of pandemic data and Sweden has emerged with the 2nd lowest excess death rate in Europe, it really doesn't matter restricting comparisons to her direct neighbors, the data shows the approach didn't incur the cataclysm predicted.