Quote (NetflixAdaptationWidow @ 2 Sep 2021 06:40)
You didn't propose a theory. You proposed a hypothesis. Now go look for data that tests it.
Theories are explanations. Hypothesis are predictions.
Theory: face coverings work to prevent spread.
Hypothesis: burkas will result in lower female infection where they are widely used.
An issue i can immediately think of though is that masking and covering primarily limits spread out and is less effective as preventing things from coming in, so the hypothesis wouldn't necessarily follow from the theory. There are likely going to be more important variables to control for that would be really difficult to fix.
And now that im googling it I'm realizing every lay source except a few defines them interchangeably. This makes me sad.
You're right, I was offering a
hypothesis, not a theory. I shouldn't be so sloppy with my choice of words.
On the actual issue: the men in these countries are not wearing a face covering similar to burkas, so there should be plenty of virus flying around, even if burkas do a good job at limiting spread by the women. So like I said, this burka effect - if it exists - would tell us something about the degree of wearer protection more so than about source control. But you're probably right that there's too many confounders. One aspect I hadn't thought about is the number of social contacts. In free, western societies, we're implicitly assuming that, at least on average, men and women have a comparable number of social contacts over the day - but this is definitely not the case in societies with a high rate of niqab or burka wearing.
So I guess it's a completely hopeless endeavor to try to get the data necessary to test my hypothesis out of countries like Afghanistan, Sudan or even just Saudi Arabia.
This post was edited by Black XistenZ on Sep 2 2021 12:25am