Were Covid Masks Useless?

Most of us laughed at what a joke the mask rules were.  When you walked into an airport they shoved masks at you, made you social distance and then proceeded to make 250 of you into a metal tube sitting on each other’s laps. You needed to keep your mask up at all times while on the plane except to take it down to eat a peanut or sip your Coke!  Today we read that even the NYT editorial page I saying masks did nothing.  Read it for yourself because I don’t have a subscription for NYT but found another source reporting it.

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In an op-ed this week from columnist Bret Stephens, the New York Times had its first coverage of an explosive new Cochrane review of medical studies that concludes there is no evidence mask mandates did anything beneficial at all during the Covid pandemic, anywhere in the world, under any conditions whatsoever. The question in the article’s headline: “Will any lessons be learned?”

Masking was a key component of the government’s response to Covid under both Presidents Donald Trump and Joe Biden, and the mandates remain a major point of political contention.

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.”

What about the utility of masks in conjunction with other preventive measures, such as hand hygiene, physical distancing or air filtration?

“There’s no evidence that many of these things make any difference.”

 https://www.mediaite.com/print/nyt-op-ed-covers-explosive-study-finding-mask-mandates-useless-will-any-lessons-be-learned/