TIL that viral CDC mask study got shared 500,000 times but used a sample size of 34 people

I was scrolling through Facebook and saw that article about masks not working with the big CDC logo on it, turns out it was from a preliminary study out of some lab in Florida that only tested 34 volunteers over 2 days. My sister shared it in our family group chat and when I looked up the actual CDC page, they never even published that data as official guidance. The whole thing was just cherry picked numbers from a small trial that got blown up by a blogger with no medical background. How do we get people to check the source before hitting share?

3 comments

3 Comments

walker.julia19d ago

Man my own sister shared that same thing and I couldn't even.

felixm2919d ago

Man I couldn't even either, and my aunt posted that same thing in our family chat. I actually clicked the link and read the whole thing, and it was basically "we asked 34 people to wear masks for a weekend and here's what we found." My dumb self almost shared it too before I realized the sample size was smaller than my office meeting. It's like we all need a moment to ask "wait, who paid for this and how many people did they actually test?" before hitting that share button.

lucast8118d ago

Thing is, how do you even have that conversation with family without starting a fight? My sister got defensive when I pointed out the sample size, said I was "just believing the mainstream media." So what's the move when someone's already made up their mind based on a tiny study that confirms what they wanna believe?