The “experts” have been wrong so often about their policies and assertions about the covid virus that there have been pleas for a “pandemic amnesty.”
I would like now to take a look at one of my predictions about covid, related to the use of masks that was published in the autumn of 2020.
There are numerous other rules for good mask-wearing, including laundering after use. However, how many people actually grab a clean, fresh mask every time they use one? How many people properly launder (i.e., use bleach if washing by hand).Californians have lived with mask mandates for over 6 months now. Perhaps it is a good time to review if they are working. A group of researchers, including A.J. Kay, author of “The Curve Is Already Flat,” graphed the timing of the mask mandates and COVID-19 deaths, showing a steep rise following their implementation….There has been a great deal of debate if masks prevent the spread of the coronavirus. However, the real question should be, “Do the strict mask mandates work?” They don’t.
Tom Jefferson, an Oxford epidemiologist, and 11 colleagues conducted the study for Cochrane, a British nonprofit that is widely considered the gold standard for its reviews of health care data. The Cochrane Study, as its now known, conclusions were based on 78 randomized controlled trials, six of them during the Covid pandemic, with a total of 610,872 participants in multiple countries.
The conclusions, which were summed up by Jefferson in The New York Times as part of an op-ed written by Bret Stephens is that mask mandates did nothing.
The most rigorous and comprehensive analysis of scientific studies conducted on the efficacy of masks for reducing the spread of respiratory illnesses — including Covid-19 — was published late last month. Its conclusions, said Tom Jefferson, the Oxford epidemiologist who is its lead author, were unambiguous.“There is just no evidence that they” — masks — “make any difference,” he told the journalist Maryanne Demasi. “Full stop.”But, wait, hold on. What about N-95 masks, as opposed to lower-quality surgical or cloth masks?“Makes no difference — none of it,” said Jefferson.What about the studies that initially persuaded policymakers to impose mask mandates?“They were convinced by nonrandomized studies, flawed observational studies.”
So when a leading epidemiologist sums up a detailed review of a massive body of work and asserts mask mandates didn’t make a difference, the case is closed.
Not so fast. Not if you are Big Tech or Big Media, perhaps enjoying some connections to Big Pharma and/or Big Government.
In my quest to get information, I was limited in my search by this “helpful” suggestion from Google.
Then, I stumbled upon the Los Angeles Times‘ hot take on The New York Times op-ed.
In a nutshell, the author of that op-ed, Michael Hiltzik, neglects to mention the actual conclusion of the Oxford epidemiologist and bitterly clings to limited studies in his defense of mask mandates.
Among them are a study of an outbreak aboard the USS Theodore Roosevelt, where sailors lived and worked in close quarters, which found that masks produced a 70% reduced risk of infection.Another study of 33,000 pupils in eight school districts in Massachusetts found an infection rate of 11.7% for unmasked and 1.7% for masked children.During the 2021 outbreak of the Delta strain of COVID, outbreaks were 3½ times more likely in schools without masking rules compared with those with the mandates.
As an added bonus, Hilzik complains about “right-wingers” and “covid deniers” in a spectacularly elitist screed.
New research by Canadian scientists recently published in the Journal of Theoretical Biology suggests that rates for covid may be close to endemic levels. Given the adherence to mask mandates in the early stages of the pandemic, if those policies had worked, we would not have reached this stage.
Two conclusions:
1) Wear masks if you wish, but don’t expect population-level mask mandates to work against an airborne virus that may have been genetically enhanced to be extra-sticky to human respiratory tissue.
2) I was right, again.
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