By Katrina Trinko | The Daily Signal
A new Cochrane Review analysis of masking studies finds that when it comes to an entire population, there’s no evidence to support that masking reduces spread of a disease.
Or as the lead author of the analysis, Tom Jefferson, put it in an interview with journalist Maryanne DeMasi, “There’s still no evidence that masks are effective during a pandemic.”
Great. Glad we — and so many of America’s kids — had to put up with masking for so long.
And this isn’t some fly-by-night study, as even journalists from liberal outlets acknowledge. “Cochrane Reviews are widely considered the gold standard of evidence-based medicine,” wrote Slate’s Liz Highleyman.
“The paper — a rigorous assessment of 78 studies — was published by Cochrane, an independent policy institution that has become well known for its reviews,” acknowledged The Atlantic’s Yasmin Tayag.
Some are responding to the study by noting it doesn’t mean that, personally, masking is the wrong choice. “Even if mask recommendations might not have a population effect, high-quality masks still work on an individual level if that person consistently wears them,” wrote former Planned Parenthood CEO Dr. Leana Wen in The Washington Post.
But that misses the entire issue. I, like many other Americans, have never had an issue if individuals want to mask. (While I miss your smiles and grimaces, I certainly think it’s your choice to do what you want regarding masking.)
But what I did have an issue with is the government forcing masking.
According to Ballotpedia, a whopping 39 states—including 17 states with Republican governors—imposed mask mandates during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Nor were these mandates short-lived, done during the initial panic about the pandemic and then quickly ended as governors realized this was going to be a long haul. With the exception of four states, these statewide mandates lasted 148 days or longer, with Hawaii “winning” the crown by imposing a horrifying 704 days of masks.
Of course, the federal government imposed a mask mandate on transportation. Top federal government officials, including most infamously Dr. Anthony Fauci, endlessly promoted masking, fueling and lending credibility to state and local mask mandates.
And what for?
Perhaps even more infuriating is that we could have known masking didn’t work in early 2020, before endless months (or years) of mandated masking, before young kids’ language development and facial-recognition skills were affected by long-term masking.
Jefferson, the study’s lead author and a senior associate tutor at the University of Oxford, was also behind a similar review of studies released in November 2020 that found no evidence for masking being effective. But in his interview with DeMasi, he said that study was actually ready seven months before it was published—right at the time governments across the world were making critical decisions.
He said Cochrane made them jump through hoops: “For some unknown reason, Cochrane decided it needed an ‘extra’ peer-review.” When the study was finally released, Cochrane accompanied it with an editorial.
“The main message of that editorial was that you can’t sit on your hands, you’ve got to do something, you can’t wait for good evidence … it’s a complete subversion of the ‘precautionary principle,’ which states that you should do nothing unless you have reasonable evidence that benefits outweigh the harms,” Jefferson said.
Good to know that science can’t be politicized.
But one thing should be clear from this new analysis: We need freer discussions. During much of the pandemic, liberals wailed about misinformation and disinformation. Social media sites, such as Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube, took steps to censor so-called “misinformation” about COVID-19 and how to handle it.
Even more upsettingly, the government pressured Twitter. “The United States government pressured Twitter and other social media platforms to elevate certain content and suppress other content about COVID-19,” tweeted journalist David Zweig in a December “Twitter Files” expose.
“When the Biden admin took over, one of their first meeting requests with Twitter executives was on Covid. The focus was on ‘anti-vaxxer accounts.’ Especially Alex Berenson,” tweeted Zweig, referring to a former New York Times reporter who became known for challenging the conventional “wisdom” about COVID-19.
And that wasn’t the last time Biden would put pressure on Twitter.
“In the summer of 2021, President [Joe] Biden said social media companies were ‘killing people’ for allowing vaccine misinformation. Berenson was suspended hours after Biden’s comments, and kicked off the platform the following month,” Zweig continued.
When Berenson sued Twitter, he got access to internal documentation. Those documents, Zweig wrote, “showed direct White House pressure on the company to take action on Berenson.”
So even if the federal government didn’t impose a nationwide mask mandate, it helped squelch free discussions that could have led to different outcomes and different pressures on state governors.
Living in a blue neighborhood during the pandemic, I used to frequently pass the world’s most obnoxious sign on lawns: “In this house we believe: Black Lives Matter / Women’s Rights Are Human Rights / No Human Is Illegal / Science Is Real / Love Is Love / Kindness is Everything.”
But here’s where I do agree: Science is real. And I hope this latest study will convince all Americans, whatever their ideological persuasion, that we should realize we gave the government far too much power to control our lives during the pandemic–and that it wasn’t even based on science.
Anyone with simple add and subtraction skills knew this. the blue masks can filter to 3 microns. The virus particles are smaller then 1 micron. Thus, the masks cannot filter the virus. — So now we know the people pushing masks, and those still wearing them are all stuck in stupid.
Limitations of the Cochrane Review on Masks
. . . just six of the 78 trials included were conducted during the COVID-19 pandemic. The others focus on other respiratory illnesses, like the flu.
. . . also combines studies where face masks or respirators were worn continuously5 with studies where these tools were used inconsistently. . . .adherence with interventions was low in many studies. . . Scientists aren’t following a person around to see if they are actually wearing the intervention consistently. . . one section looks at how well surgical masks prevent the spread of illness, while another section compares surgical masks with N95 respirators. . . [but] there are issues with expecting surgical masks to perform in a comparative way to respirators. . . [the Review] also does not include a random control trial comparing wearing an N95 with no mask. . .
(SOURCE: https://www.health.com/cochrane-review-do-masks-work-7112631)
They had studies done prior to the pandemic, knowing this fully well.
Any contractor who’s worked in a dusty site could have told you, from every day experience.
This is why libraries are so important. The studies were in the library, in a book. But you couldn’t find it easily on the Internet because the f’d with the search engines. Now they want artificial intelligence to run the search engines, how do think that will work? They are already playing games with it.
Propaganda, what type of countries thrive on propaganda?
Is that what We want?
Masking was/is nothing more than a power play by the state to reduce the population and show who is compliant to their illegal “mandates” of forced health service denial and or treatments. You know like the Nazis did. As much as I see these papers making strides to show the FACTS, I still see the dimwitted folks of VT around wearing masks . I also cannot get into a doctor, dentist or eye doctor w/ o mask. Same goes for hospitals , rides in ambulances and lastly NEMT.
Some of us who from the start KNEW this was all a big scam were and are still treated like we are the monster who were selfish or better yet, so uncaring for the old and sickly and let’s not forget the children.
No, I am still ashamed of my fellow citizens, ALL OF THEM. You people, who walk around wearing a diaper to virtue signal your compliance disgust me.
All for money , all for prestige ( virtue signaling)
We will never get an apology
We will never get JUSTICE
We will never get the people responsible punished for what they did, not in ignorance, but with the full knowledge that they were killing people and putting a boot on the neck of, as time has shown, the poor and disabled.
I and my wife are purebloods. We are still very much alive and healthy as we can be, even without the machinations of the Vermont Health Network. Even with being told hundreds of times WE were the selfish ones , WE were wrong. I guess we wern’t.
We have never even been tested for that fake named illness. Is it real , yes, it is the common cold or the flu and when you do what they did to “treat ” it , you get people dead. Now it is about the “vaccinated”, of all things, getting sick and dying.
I will be sad watching all of you die or be maimed from the shots. I will also smile as the karma of your own selfishness is shown to you in all its ugly glaring color.
Do you all think God will look down on you with mercy for what you have done? Probably, if you repent, but me, I will never forgive what you supposedly “progressive” thinkers have done to this country , this state or me and my friends and family. It has all been a scam. We have been telling people and giving evidence from the beginning. Don’t ask for forgiveness, as I have none for you. You all are no worse than the NAZI soldiers who “Just Followed Orders” .
To all who are like me and my wife, Thanks for holding the line, no one else will give you the credit or the proper pat on the back for being diligent about your own body and what the government cannot make you do.
To all those who were too afraid to act, I am sorry for your weakness. Fear is the mind killer to live in fear is to be no better than an animal. God says not to fear. Have faith . My faith is strong, because the will of man is weak, look at what they have done. I do believe that God will not help us in this we need to help ourselves as this has all been caused by decisions that others had no power to make and we, when we could and should, did nothing to stop it, well most of you.
Do I sound angry? Do I sound resentful. Wouldn’t you? Don’t you? If not, why not?
Truth!
Just more proof your government is not as worried about your health as they pretend to be. One could have deduced that from them not containing the millions of illegal invaders streaming across the border with who knows what kinds of virus/illness. Only the n95 mask offered some protection with others especially cloth masks not being able to contain the 0.3 micron size of covid. It did impead our children’s development and caused more sickness from holding in breath expended germs. Don’t trust the gov, media, and be very leary of the medical profession who all conspired to silence known truths about the vax and masks by medical professionals who knew it was bogus.
It was know 100 years ago that masks don’t prevent the spread of respiratory viruses. They tried masking during the Spanish flu and it didn’t work.