I would strongly advise actually reading the Scientific American article before reading the City Journal article criticizing it. I don't think the City Journal author accurately conveys the point that the original article is trying to make and decides to leave out certain information that completely confuses the issue.
For example, the City Journal article contains lines like "
Oreskes asserts that Cochrane's findings were made with "low to moderate" certainty". From that reading, you'd probably assume that the statement was Oreskes opinions but when you read the original Scientific American article it is clear that it was the authors of the report themselves who described the certainty as "low to moderate".
The City Journal article also fails to mention that Cochrane themselves have come out stating that their article has been misinterpreted.
Cochrane says it outright:
Quote:
Many commentators have claimed that a recently-updated Cochrane Review shows that 'masks don't work', which is an inaccurate and misleading interpretation.
And while you're at it, consider reading the original
article itself. Here's their conclusion:
Quote:
Author's conclusions
The high risk of bias in the trials, variation in outcome measurement, and relatively low compliance with the interventions during the studies hamper drawing firm conclusions and generalising the findings to the current COVID19 pandemic.
There is uncertainty about the effects of face masks. The lowmoderate certainty of the evidence means our confidence in the effect estimate is limited, and that the true effect may be different from the observed estimate of the effect. The pooled results of randomised trials did not show a clear reduction in respiratory viral infection with the use of medical/surgical masks during seasonal influenza. There were no clear differences between the use of medical/surgical masks compared with N95/P2 respirators in healthcare workers when used in routine care to reduce respiratory viral infection. Hand hygiene is likely to modestly reduce the burden of respiratory illness. Harms associated with physical interventions were underinvestigated.
There is a need for large, welldesigned RCTs addressing the effectiveness of many of these interventions in multiple settings and populations, especially in those most at risk of ARIs.