Most students receiving higher education in Connecticut must wear masks. Facts have proved that masks have caused controversy across the country, and Connecticut is no exception. In this paper, Carson Swick (Carson Swick) put forward the argument against wearing a mask, which triggered controversy and rebuttals, the most notable of which was the argument and rebuttal from an anonymous Reddit user.
At the same time, in a newspaper run by students at Yale University, a student named Jack Barker wrote an article with the same views as Swick, but his argument was not questioned. Therefore, I want to negate Buck's argument. Buck sometimes accuses the Yale government of hypocrisy, and I cannot fully respond to this because I have not been to Yale since 2017. What’s more noteworthy is that I don’t think there is a need to defend the Yale government and postpone this task to anyone connected with Yale. I only focus on Buck’s attack on the mask, which constitutes most of his arguments. Since the University of Connecticut and Yale University have similar COVID-19 restrictions, this forum seems appropriate.
Buck started his argument with the low number of COVID-19 cases and deaths in Connecticut (and Yale University), and said that due to the low numbers, COVID-19 “no longer represents a public health crisis in the Yale community.” Almost immediately, people should Feel the need to respond: “Throwing away when [COVID-19 health measures] have worked and continues to work to stop [the rise in COVID-19 cases] is like throwing away your umbrella in a storm, because you have not been Get wet," as used in the aforementioned Reddit response.
It is Buck's responsibility to prove that these low cases and deaths are only due to vaccination, and other measures (such as masks) have nothing to do with it. Before he took on this burden, it was wrong to use Connecticut’s low COVID-19 numbers as the reason for his argument rather than against it, because Connecticut still has effective mask regulations in schools, higher education institutions, government buildings, etc. . Buck has no evidence that masks are not a factor in these ideal numbers.
Buck’s first direct attack on masks was to accuse them of being a “damp hotbed of bacteria” that endangers the health of professors, but this attack has no factual basis. The ScienceDirect study he cited for this pointed out, “These results show that double-layer SM [surgical masks] with higher filtering capabilities can significantly reduce surface contamination [surgical masks] in the surgical work area,” and suggested, “Surgery The doctor must change his/her mask at every operation interval."
All in all, the study does not mean that masks are inherently harmful to a person's health or are collectively ignored, but that double masks or wearing high-filter masks are the best way to reduce the creation of a "humid bacteria breeding ground" environment. If it fails, it is enough to replace the mask every two hours. Therefore, Buck should tell his professors to wear high-filter masks or change masks after each class, and don't stop wearing masks altogether.
The study admits that it only applies to the masks they used in the study, and all other masks may not have this problem. The study stated, "In addition, we are also aware that there may be many brands of masks made of different materials. Some of them may perform better than others in preventing microbial shedding. Comparing masks of specific brands is beyond the scope of this study. In other words, the study only involved one type of surgical mask, and admitted that all other masks of different materials may not have this problem. One of the masks worn by Professor Buck that does not have this problem is very reasonable.
This narrowness caused Buck’s statement to say: “It’s really painful to see the professors talking for hours in the damp bacteria breeding ground, they panting and squinting their eyes through foggy glasses. ," completely illogical. This research does not apply to my mask, your mask, or Professor Buck's mask. If this is the case (it clearly does not), Professor Barker’s solution is to wear a high-filter mask or change the mask after each class, rather than stop wearing the mask altogether, and this study did not raise this point. This is Buck’s strongest argument that masks are harmful to health. From now on, he will argue that masks are useless.
Buck continues to quote an article by Connor Harris. This article was cited by the Missouri Attorney General in his lawsuit against a group of public schools. In addition to other relief measures, he is also seeking a ban on wearing masks in these public schools on the grounds that "science does not support the requirement of school children to wear masks." The judge appointed by the Republican Party rejected his request. Like the person appointed by the Republican Party, I have no impression of that article, nor convincing. Baker mainly cited this article as evidence to prove that his opposition to wearing a mask is justified. If so, but you won't find it in the Yale Daily.
Barker’s next source is a randomized controlled trial from Denmark. The trial found that “compared with the recommendation to wear a surgical mask when going out, there is no reduction in -2 Infection incident." However, Buck's argument here is specious. The American College of Physicians’ study clearly stated, “However, the results of the study should not be used to draw conclusions. Suggesting that everyone in the community wear a mask will not effectively reduce SARS-CoV-2 infection because the trial did not test masks. Role in the control of the source of SARS-CoV-2 infection.” However, this is exactly what Buck is doing because he is using this research to justify the proposal to oppose masks based on the ineffectiveness of masks.
As Prof. Trish Greenhalg and Dr. Deepti Gurdasani explained in 2020, the study is flawed because "[w] Although the study involved random allocation of participants (and therefore counted as a randomized controlled trial or RCT), it did not It must be a high-quality science. According to published protocols and papers, it seems that there is no involvement of clinical trial units (a common method for quality inspection of RCTs) and no data monitoring team (again, expected in high-quality RCTs) )) And (most worryingly) there is no formal ethical approval. The gold standard for RCT is listed in the CONSORT statement. The authors of DANMASK-19 did not mention the CONSORT standard in their paper."
However, even if he admits that the study is problematic and the authors strongly object to Barker's use of their research in his anti-mask argument, Barker seems to have misunderstood the study. The study acknowledged that people wearing masks are less likely to be infected by 18%, but this is too trivial to be a pure accident. The author pointed out that the study did not pay attention to source control ("the ability of masks to prevent the spread of viruses from the wearer to others"), and this is the main reason for advocating the use of masks. They specifically stated: “It is important to emphasize that this trial did not address the impact of masks as source control or as protection when social distancing and other public health measures are ineffective.” Finally, use this research as a “stop mask” The argument of "carnival" is seriously wrong.
Buck continued to oppose a randomized controlled trial that provided results contrary to his position. My question here is, why are randomized controlled trials inherently better than observational studies? This is the question Buck must answer. Even if this Yale study is flawed by the author’s acknowledgment, what makes randomized controlled trials have an advantage? "Although this study involves random allocation of participants (and therefore counts as a randomized controlled trial or RCT), it does not necessarily make it a high-quality science," is a sentence I quoted earlier, which is more important here than it is. It used to be.
Barker also opposed the author in his own research. He said: “[T] His research failed to find a statistically significant benefit of cloth masks.” The author said, “[Cloth masks] mitigated in our study. The study said, “[T] The effect was even greater in villages where the team distributed surgical masks instead of cloth masks. In these areas, the number of infections dropped by 11% overall.” The premise of the study is that the effect of cloth masks is already very good, otherwise the word "bigger" would not be used. To be fair, the term "important" is subjective and vague. However, in context, Buck blatantly argued that the benefits of cloth masks are so small that, despite the research and the author, they both believe that cloth masks, although inferior to surgical masks, still provide significant benefits.
Then Buck took over the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the World Health Organization. The aforementioned Reddit post said: “In any case, here are 65 studies that show that masks help prevent the spread of COVID-19 and ensure the safety of the wearer,” and continued to quote the CDC webpage Barker’s attack. Barker accused all 65 studies of apparently low quality, but this attack was clearly biased. Failure to define low quality will lead readers to the correct conclusion that these studies are of low quality because they hurt Buck’s narrative. A "high-quality study" will support Buck's claim that masks are harmful or useless.
One might assert that Buck called these studies of low quality because they were observational, and high-quality studies were randomized controlled trials, but this argument is also untenable. Similarly, Buck has the responsibility to prove why randomized controlled trials are preferred over observational studies. Once he has done this, he must explain why it is not hypocritical that he cited an observational study? If the observational research is of low quality, then the research that Buck cited about masks as a "damp breeding ground for bacteria" is illegal because low quality is illegal, and Buck admits (assuming low quality is a synonym for observational research, which is self-explanatory) The only other reasonable conclusion since Buck) failed to define low quality). In the end, if CDC did not provide randomized controlled trials to prove their position, wouldn't it mean that Barker did not provide randomized controlled trials or observational studies to prove that all masks are harmful or useless?
Someone might argue that he did prove that masks were useless by citing a report from the World Health Organization in 2019, which included 10 randomized controlled trials, which "found that although masks are'mechanically reasonable', there is no evidence. Shows that masks can effectively reduce the spread of the virus. Laboratory-confirmed influenza.'” He also used this report to argue that before COVID-19, evidence “shows that masks have minimal impact on the spread of respiratory viruses at best.”
I strongly disagree. The report said on page 26: “Some studies report that low compliance with masks may reduce their effectiveness. A study shows that surgical masks and N95 (respirator) masks can effectively prevent the spread of influenza.” Participants in countless studies refused to wear masks, which reduced the effectiveness of masks. Therefore, the report concluded that “[T] has no evidence that masks can effectively reduce the spread of laboratory-confirmed influenza.” However, the conclusion is that lack of evidence is evidence of lack of evidence. If all participants wear masks, then in this case, Buck's argument will have an appeal that it lacks. You can’t use people who refuse to wear masks as evidence that masks don’t work, because it’s like saying that medicine doesn’t work without taking medicine.
Even the report did not cover this unreasonable situation, which is why the study said, “During severe epidemics or pandemics, it is conditionally recommended that asymptomatic people wear masks to reduce community transmission. Although there is no evidence Shows that this can effectively reduce transmission, but from a mechanism point of view, the potential effectiveness of this measure is reasonable." The study did not mistake the lack of evidence as evidence of absence, but Buck did. Therefore, he did not fulfill the burden of randomized controlled trials showing that masks did not work. In general, these 10 randomized controlled trials included people who did not wear masks, thus artificially reducing the effectiveness of masks, which the report acknowledged.
As for the second point, when science clearly doesn't say so but says "the science before COVID-19 overwhelmingly showed that the impact of masks on the spread of respiratory viruses is minimal at best", it is purely historical denialism on the contrary. In 2017, a study by the National Center for Biotechnology Information in the United States stated that “there is currently a lack of consensus on the efficacy of medical masks and respirators for medical workers in fighting influenza”, but “the trend indicates that medical masks have a certain degree of protection and greater protection. Research is needed to measure the efficacy of these devices." Contrary to Buck’s statement, there is no overwhelming consensus in one way or another, but the trend’s recommendations are contrary to Buck’s assertion that masks are in the worst case. It's useless, and in the best case, it has only a negligible effect.
Buck said, "I am not citing the above research to say that masks do not work," while saying that "there is no conclusive evidence that they actually work." These two statements are obviously contradictory, and the first statement is clearly wrong. Buck’s whole argument is that the scientists got it wrong, and the anti-masks were right when they said masks were harmful or useless. However, Buck’s argument is not only a failure from the perspective of appealing to authority, but also from the perspective of appealing to logic. Barker was correct because "randomized controlled trials did not provide good evidence for masking", but he mistakenly underestimated the CDC's 65 observational studies to argue that "there is no conclusive evidence that [mask] is indeed effective" The absurd claim. Buck believes that just because COVID-19 may last indefinitely does not mean that masks must be worn, but the CDC (which Yale University and the University of Connecticut follow) has never advocated permanent masks, and scientists are already saying "relax mask requirements." It will be safer "Early next year, after more children have been vaccinated and the holiday travel season has passed."
Buck argued that a COVID-19 breakthrough will inevitably occur at Yale University because other universities are the same, but the source he cited for this statement denied this. His source said that “most institutions continue to operate'nearly normal'” and those that have not adopted a laissez-faire approach to COVID-19. The source cited Liberty University as an example of the latter. That university is already operating in accordance with Buck's policy, which means that it does not follow CDC guidelines at all. This is why they "[be severely hit by] positive cases and had to switch online before Friday." This is because Liberty has "few mitigation strategies". Most universities that rejected the Buck policy did not face this problem. Barker’s source said: “Duke University is very aware of the importance of increasing security protocols. This is the worst week since the pandemic began in late August, with 364 cases. Despite the fact that approximately 95% of campuses have been vaccinated Vaccines. Two weeks after suspending canteen gatherings, requiring masks inside and outside, and allowing teachers to transition to distance learning, the number of cases dropped by half." Did Buck accidentally quote the source of this pro-mask or something?
Finally, I summarized a few key points. Buck seemed to admit that removing the mask would cause an outbreak, as he did at Duke University and Liberty University in the sources cited, but he argued that “these cases will not result in a large number of hospitalizations or deaths.” In other words, as long as Buck's policy resulted in "negligible" college student deaths and hospitalizations, it was enough for him. I want to know whether those "trivial" deaths and hospitalizations are of great significance to the family members of students who have been negatively affected by Buck's policy. Buck said: "Yale is very young and healthy. Almost everyone is vaccinated," but Duke has all these characteristics and is still affected by Buck's policy. He falsely claimed that the mask instructions were useless, claiming that they would last forever without evidence (since Buck graduated next year, this is meaningless), and that the virus killing about 1,000 people every day is not a crisis. This is absurd.
© Copyright-Daily Campus
Daily campus 1266 STORS ROAD STORRS, CT 06269, USA 860-486-3407 EIC@DAILYCAMPUS.COM
Daily Campus is an independent, student-run newspaper of the University of Connecticut. We strive to provide the UConn community with fair, accurate, relevant and editorially independent content, treat students' interests as our own, and provide students with the best environment for them to learn, experience and develop skills related to news media.
Sign up for our weekly newsletter