Otto Kolbl

Bin kein Experte, aber ich glaube, da kann man 15 oder einen anderen Zwischenwert angeben.

Massives Titan, also nicht nur Titanbeschichtung, sondern ganz aus Titan. Unverwüstlich, haftet nicht, kann irgendwie gereinigt werden, aber angenehm leicht.

There is so much I don't understand in all of this. Always happy to find people to discuss these issues in order, who knows, maybe to find some constructive solutions.

We brush our teeth each day. Some rigorous research indicates that with even less time and money we dedicate to brushing our teeth, we could use a nasal spray 3x a day and get a good protection against many colds, including COVID-19 and probably H5N1. Nobody talks about this. 2/

But what is behind all of this? "Collateral Global" claims to be preoccupied by the collateral damage due to the "policy responses". Of course lockdowns, school closures and gathering limitations have a massive socioeconomic impact. But face masks do not. Other measures even less. 1/

If instead, we continue relying on various types of study, where the "raw" efficiency factor can only be estimated indirectly with various assumptions, the universities with most resources and the highest prestige will win: Oxford, Cochrane, etc. "Face masks don't work" will be the outcome. 6/6

This factor must be evaluated in a real community, where the members help and motivate each other to get the best result. Nobody does this. Every single study design (except lab/mechanistic) only provides strongly diluted factors (OR or RR). We need to discuss and implement this very fast. 5/

We need a precise quantification of the "raw" efficiency of face masks. For example: in a classroom, if everybody wears a face mask, by what factor is infection risk reduced? This is what authorities need to decide: school closures or not? Nobody can come up with this factor. 4/

The only study design I can come up with is conducting RCTs in a controlled environment where the participants wear masks the whole day, unless otherwise protected against infection (e.g. sleeping in separate rooms or with filtered air). Military bases could be a possibility. 3/

The impact is diluted for example when HCW wear face masks when caring for certain patients, but not otherwise. This kind of RCTs will never tell us about the real impact of masks. But observational, mechanistic and epidemiological studies cannot achieve this either. 2/

I entirely agree with you. We must "systematically synthesizes evidence from multiple designs". However, RCTs are an important tool. I claim that it is not difficult to design RCTs which rigorously evaluate the efficacy of face masks, without diluting their impact. 1/

This is the planned, coordinated and publicly revealed plan to dismantle all forms of prevention and all measures against deadly pandemics. By University of Oxford Centre for Evidence-Based Medicine, Cochrane and many other universities. People must get sick, then doctors will (maybe) cure them. 3/3

YouTube video by Kellogg College, University of Oxford Evidence Based Medicine: Why it’s important and why it's controversial

Tom Jefferson and Carl Henegan (Oxford CEBM) talk in the video mentioned above about John Snow removing the pump handle: it was an empty gesture, useless, the cholera outbreak was already over. What goes up will come down again. The Youtube link starts at that moment: 2/
youtu.be/K_YWFvJVdeA?...

Home Everything you need to know about COVID-19

Hi everybody! I just saw the John Snow Project, where some of you are active:
johnsnowproject.org
This is definitely the kind of project we need to move prevention of COVID-19 and a better handling of the next pandemic forward. 1/

* by @juchti.bsky.social and me. One day, I will learn to deal productively with the fact that people might have different names according to the social media platforms.

An important review by Ungrin, @gosiagasperophd.bsky.social et al. of Loeb 2022. Some issues with Loeb 2022 are obvious, like the fact that the trial in Egypt took place during the Omicron wave, when risk of infection outside hospital was huge. This review find many more:
osf.io/preprints/me...

How Face Masks, instead of Saving Us, Became a Sign of Failure, Stigma and Division By Otto Kölbl and Christina Koch

For an investigation of face masks in the COVID-19 pandemic, from before the pandemic until now, have a look at the following article, by @CK65375 and me. Millions of deaths because in January 2020, WHO suddenly claimed face masks do not work. 21/21
ottokolbl.medium.com/how-face-mas...

How can @UniofOxford @CebmOxford, @cochranecollab tolerate that people holding such extremist views write highly influential guidelines and the Cochrane reviews which are supposed to implement them? When so many human lives are at stake? And how can we tolerate this? 20/

Physical interventions to interrupt or reduce the spread of respiratory viruses - Jefferson, T - 2011 | Cochrane Library Select your preferred language for Cochrane reviews and other content. Sections without translation will be in English.

Worse: in the video already mentioned above, Tom Jefferson claims that all Cochrane reviews, incl. pre-pandemic, come "to the same conclusion". This is dishonest. The pre-pandemic reviews conclude that face masks are "the best performing intervention".19/
doi.org/10.1002/1465...

Synchronicity of Deaths in the Pandemic Analysing the simultaneous occurrence of deaths

One example: "Synchronicity of Deaths in the Pandemic", i.e. the fact that COVID-19 mortality peaks in all British counties at the same time in spring 2020. Easy to explain. Measures. But if you deny the efficiency of all measures, →mystery →QAnon. 18/
trusttheevidence.substack.com/p/synchronic...

Trust the Evidence | Carl Heneghan | Substack Informing health decisions by separating evidence from opinion. Click to read Trust the Evidence, a Substack publication with tens of thousands of subscribers.

3) More worrying: Jefferson (author Cochrane reviews) and Heneghan (director Oxford University Center for Evidence-Based Medicine) have got a blog (behind a paywall, I had to pay Euro 70.- to these people). In one word: QAnon level. Really scary. 17/
trusttheevidence.substack.com

2) The medical community seems to be quite hostile to prevention which does not require the intervention of a doctor. No funding from big Pharma, no income from consultations. Just putting this here, without references. All purely speculative. 16/

1) Researchers in medical science strictly follow a pattern suitable for drug research. Prescribe a certain drug and see whether it is efficient. Drugs are standardized. No specific skill required to take a pill. Participants want to be cured. Nobody can see they took a pill. 15/

How is it that neither the authors (Loeb et al., Radonovich et al.), nor the peer reviewers, nor the Cochrane study authors and reviewers, nor others in the academic community see the problems? Several factors, which must be analyzed through rigorous academic research. 14/

Effectiveness of surgical masks against influenza bioaerosols Most surgical masks are not certified for use as respiratory protective devices (RPDs). In the event of an influenza pandemic, logistical and practica…

Another issue: What is a surgical mask? According to one study, several surgical masks commonly used in the UK healthcare sector were analyzed regarding filtration efficiency of bioaerosols. Result: Reduction by a factor 1.1 to 55, average 6. 13/
www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

But: For the Cochrane review, cases from studies where the difference surgical vs N95 is strongly diluted are added to cases from well designed studies. One study with strong dilution (Radonovich 2019), but more cases than the other studies, gets the upper hand. 12/

A randomized clinical trial of three options for N95 respirators and medical masks in health workers - PubMed Continuous use of N95 respirators was more efficacious against CRI than intermittent use of N95 or medical masks. Most policies for HCWs recommend use of medical masks alone or targeted N95 respirator...

MacIntyre 2013 is better: participants wear surgical or N95 the whole day. No problem, study conducted in Beijing. 3 groups: surgical, targeted use of N95, all N95. Result: In all outcomes with >10 cases, N95 better than targeted better than surgical. 11/
pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/23413265/

Observational & mechanistic evidence show that both surgical and N95 masks protect well against respiratory viruses. In an influenza wave, participants can also get infected from pre-symptomatic patients, colleagues, friends, at home, etc. The difference surgical/N95 is strongly diluted. 10/

Surgical Mask vs N95 Respirator for Preventing Influenza Among Health Care Workers Context Data about the effectiveness of the surgical mask compared with the N95 respirator for protecting health care workers against influenza are sparse. Given the likelihood that N95 respirators wi...

2) In two of the RCTs (Loeb 2009 and Radonovich 2019), the effect is strongly diluted. Loeb: HCW wear N95 or surgical masks when caring for patients with febrile respiratory illness, nothing with other patients, co-workers, outside work. 9/
jamanetwork.com/journals/jam...

What is the problem with the Cochrane studies 2020 and 2023? 1) They only take into account RCTs. Not the observational studies, mechanistic (lab) studies, and epidemiological studies, which show that face masks work and (observational & mechanistic) that N95/FFP2 is better than surgical. 8/