LogFAQs > #942066392

Mr Lasastryke posted...

my point is that the premise that there's one single thing that has to be "the answer" and everything else is "not the answer" is stupid. if you concede that mask wearing has an effect and reduces the spread (as muffin did in his facebook post), then it's obviously PART of the answer. again, it's just not the ONLY thing that reduces the spread and nobody is saying that it is.

It's weird that it falls to me to explain the basic concepts of linear regression, but fine, here goes.

Let's say that scientists are working to answer the question "Why do people in country X seem to get lung cancer more than people in country Y?" They do some studies and they determine that the following factors contribute to whether or not an individual person gets lung cancer: Smoking, Environmental Pollution, Occupation, Diet, and Exercise. Five factors that contribute. So based on that, it's fair to say that "exercising prevents lung cancer." And if we were to notice that Thailand has more cases of lung cancer than Bolivia, we might say "Maybe Thailand should exercise more so that they can have lower rates of lung cancer like Bolivia does."

But wait... it turns out those five factors do not contribute to lung cancer equally. Let's say that the scientists discover that smoking contributes 50% to lung cancer risk, environment contributes 25%, occupation contributes 15%, diet contributes 9%, and exercise contributes 1%. It's still technically true that getting enough exercise "helps" prevent lung cancer. But it's also of completely trivial importance compared to smoking, environment, and occupation. If it turns out that Thailand has more smokers, worse pollution, and more people in high-risk occupations, it's not even worth taking the time to even look at whether or not their rates of exercise compare favorably to Bolivia. We need to focus on the things that actually matter a lot, not the things that matter only a little.

There's little to no data that suggests masks and social distancing matter a lot. Only a small amount of data to suggest they matter a little. And not much of that really... most of the mask/distancing stuff is "common sense" rather than data driven (and I'm pro-common sense... up until it is disproven or made doubtful by actual data!) For as long as they're the only things we're aware of, they're probably worth doing for certain individuals (particularly those at high risk) but almost certainly not worth mandating/requiring. What we really need to do is figure out what the actual important factors are.


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SmartMuffin - Because anything less would be uncivilized - https://imgur.com/W66HUUy
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