John P2022-11-13T15:01:26-05:00November 13th, 2022|

A study by Cowger and colleagues appearing in the Nov. 9 issue of the NEJM provides new evidence that the removal of universal school masking policies in Massachusetts was associated with an increased incidence of Covid-19.

From the accompanying editorial by Raifman and Green:

“The study used difference-in-differences methods, a rigorous form of causal inference for policies that are infeasible or unethical to assess in a randomized trial. During a 15-week period (March to June 2022), Covid-19 cases in school districts that had ended universal school masking policies (70 districts for most of the 15-week period) were compared with cases in school districts that sustained universal masking policies (2 districts for most of the 15-week period). The removal of universal school masking was associated with an additional 2882 Covid-19 cases among 46,530 staff (an estimated 81.7 cases per 1000 staff) and an additional 9168 Covid-19 cases among 294,084 students (an estimated 39.9 cases per 1000 students) during the 15 weeks. In school districts that had ended universal masking, approximately 40% of 7127 staff cases and 32% of 28,524 student cases were associated with the removal of universal masking policies.”

John P2022-11-06T17:05:08-05:00November 6th, 2022|

Even the Economist can see it clearly: “Covid-19 vaccines saved an estimated 20m lives during their first year“:

• A great podcast from Ezra Klein where he interviews Maryanne Wolf about how our current digital reading media and habits are adversely impacting our ability to focus deeply on what we are reading.

• The Washington Post’s editorial board has written a very good summary of the clouded origins of SARS-C0V2 here.  It’s worth a read.

• This is wickedly but painfully funny; from Michael de Adder of the Washington Post:

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