Cochrane Reviews has issued an editor's statement about the mask-wearing paper that has been getting so much attention lately.
Below, the statement, in which they both endeavor to clarify the implications of the study and take responsibility for the poor initial job of public communication.
This sort of post-publication clarification is a valuable service, and indeed it's not the first time that such as has been necessary for a paper about the efficacy of masks.
A 2020 paper in the New England Journal of Medicine was so frequently misrepresented by anti-mask commentators that it now carries the following editor's note prominently at the top of the article webpage.
One place where Cochrane can improve is to follow The New England Journal's lead and prominently link the editor's statement to the article webpage.
At present, there is no mention of the statement on that page. Hopefully this is a temporary oversight that will be quickly remedied.
https://www.cochranelibrary.com/cdsr/doi/10.1002/14651858.CD006207.pub6/full
Per comment here:
https://mastodon.social/@mmalc/110001456483664404
Too little, too late.
This could have been addressed immediately, and better headed off prior to publication. The damage has been done.
The buried lede: “What we learn from the Cochrane review is that, especially before the pandemic, distributing masks didn’t lead people to wear them, which is why their effect on transmission couldn’t be confidently evaluated.” That — THAT — is the big huge earth-shattering “mASks dON’t WoRk!!1!” research you’ve been hearing so much about. https://mstdn.social/@palafo/110001185320046756
Anthony Barente
Carl T. Bergstrom
Stan Yoshinobu
imdef
mmalc
Paul Cantrell