Pro-Mask Study Flawed; HCQ Study Shows Benefit (Scripps)

"Staff behavior" in Bangladesh mask study "caused large and statistically significant imbalances in population sizes," peer-reviewed study says. Hydroxychloroquine "blocks SARS-CoV-2 entry" into the pathway favored by Omicron, another finds.

"The purpose of randomized control trials is to establish a causal link between interventions and outcomes," notes the Trials paper. "However, causal implications are diminished in the presence of unblinding, ascertainment bias, and bias-susceptible endpoints. Unfortunately, in the Bangladesh mask trial we [find] evidence of all of the above."

Scripps Research Institute researchers across several departments used "super-resolution imaging" to determine the antimalarial drug "directly perturbs clustering of ACE2 receptor," which facilitates COVID infection, "through two distinct mechanisms in high and low tissue cholesterol," which is "critical to both viral entry and immune responses."