For those who think Fox News is not trending enough, One America News Network (OANN) has filled that gap. The cable program and news site, although launched three years before Donald Trump won the presidency in 2016, emerged as a pillar of pro-Trump propaganda during the course of his presidency. The network has notoriously expanded Trump’s meritless claims that the 2020 election was stolen from him. Before that, he took Trump-friendly positions on everything from the alleged “migrant caravan” in 2018 to the claim that the new coronavirus was developed in a Chinese biological weapons laboratory. Trump himself praised OANN, referring to the organization as a “big network” at the beginning of his presidency and urging his supporters to follow its coverage, as it helped him try to overthrow the 2020 election. And, like Trump and many on the right, the network is eager to politicize the COVID-19 pandemic and public health-related measures designed to combat it. Now, a recent OANN article presents such a shocking misinterpretation of a public health study that it seems almost intentionally in bad faith.
Certainly, many right-wing networks have politicized public health science; this is nothing new. But this OANN story, which was intended to report on a scientific study by the CDC, was such a blatant interpretation of science and statistics that public health experts are appalled by the public health implications of its misunderstood message. The title in question? “CDC: Face masks do not prevent COVID-19, study finds that masks have negligible impact on coronavirus numbers.”
In the article itself, the OANN staff writes that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) “admitted that masks do little to prevent the spread of COVID-19 amid increasing pressure to suspend masking mandates in the United States. In a new study, the CDC found that the masks had a negligible impact on the numbers of coronaviruses that did not exceed the statistical margins of error. “
The original CDC study is titled “Association of State-issued Mask Mandates and Permission to Meal at Local Restaurants with COVID-19 Case Growth and Mortality Rates at the County Level – United States, March 1 – December 31 2020. ” (You can find the study here.) He described the impact of masking mandates issued by the state between March 1 and December 31, 2020 in the 2,313 American counties that followed them (comprising 73.6% of the total number of counties). According to the study, COVID-19 case growth rates dropped 0.5% every day for the first 20 days after applying the mask in these counties. This was followed by falls of 1.1%, 1.5%, 1.7% and 1.8%, respectively, in successive blocks of intervals of 20 days after the implementation of the policy.
Likewise, the mask’s mandates coincided with a 0.7% reduction in COVID-19 mortality rates every day for the first 20 days after its implementation. This increased to 1%, 1.4%, 1.6% and 1.9% over the next 20 days.
OANN, on the other hand, begins by writing that “the CDC admitted that facial masks do little to prevent the spread of COVID-19 amid increasing pressure to suspend masking mandates in the United States. In a new study, the CDC found that the masks had a negligible impact on numbers of coronaviruses that did not exceed the statistical margins of error. “The agency says the CDC study found that mask orders” reduced infection rates by 1.5 percent during periods two-month rollover each “between March and December 2020. It also states that” the masks were 0.5 percent effective in the first 20 days of the mandates and less than 2 percent effective after 100 days. ” author (s) conclude with a little bit of implied sarcasm, adding that the CDC “still recommends the use of facial masks, although he admitted that such mandates do not make any statistical difference”.
Salon contacted public health experts who strongly disagreed with OANN’s interpretation of the CDC study.
“The OANN journalist misinterpreted the CDC report completely,” wrote Dr. Sten H. Vermund, dean of the Yale School of Public Health, to the Salon. “Both initial sentences are incorrect. The CDC reports that in a very short period of time, ‘the implementation of masking mandates has been associated with reduced transmission of SARS-CoV-2, while the reopening of restaurants for on-site dining has been associated with increased transmission’. THE [OANN] journalists use statistics ‘per day’ to give the false impression that the magnitude of the impact of wearing the mask was small when, in fact, the benefits were remarkably large. “
He concluded: “It is disturbing to see this level of scientific misrepresentation in the press.”
The CDC itself questioned OANN’s interpretation. “The data we now have conclusively shows that widespread use of masks is a very effective way to reduce the spread of COVID-19,” the CDC told Salon in a statement. They also noted that the OANN title was not accurate, as the study mentioned was not about masks: “It is important to note that the study did not examine the effectiveness of masks,” they added.
Dr. Jonathan Zenilman, professor in the department of medicine, division of infectious diseases at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, spoke to Salon over the phone and openly questioned OANN’s competence.
“I think they are misinterpreting the article,” explained Zenilman. After describing how OANN did not seem to understand the significance of the daily drops in the COVID-19 cases and deaths associated with the masks’ mandates, he speculated on “if they had someone who knows how to read these things to read this.” Zenilman noted that anyone who has done calculus in college can understand what the CDC is explaining.
“The CDC report is basically reporting the first order derivative of the curve, the change in the growth rate,” Zenilman told Salon. “It’s not reporting on the actual data. So if the growth rate is decreasing 1.5% a day, that’s going to add up, while basically they’re looking at it like, ‘Oh, there’s just a 1.5% difference between the two curves. ‘”
Dr. Russell Medford, president of the Global Health Innovation Center and Global Health Crisis Coordination Center, wrote to the Salon that “he is not sure what they (OANN) are talking about (the study is statistically significant)”, adding which reads the CDC report meaning the opposite of what OANN says. He interpreted it as saying that “masking mandates have been associated with statistically significant decreases in the case of county-level daily COVID-19 and growth rates of mortality within 20 days after implementation” and that “allowing dinner at an on-site restaurant” was associated with a statistically significant increase in the daily growth rates of the COVID-19 case beginning 41-100 days after implementation and statistically significant increase in daily mortality growth rates beginning 61–100 days after implementation. “
This is not the first time that OANN has published inaccurate information about COVID-19. In November, YouTube temporarily suspended and demonetized your account after uploading a video promoting a false cure for the disease. YouTube launched an “attack” against the OANN account for violating its policy that prohibits claiming that there is a guaranteed cure for the virus.