MASKS
The Fabulous Fauci—who likes seeing himself on camera more than Narcissus adored his reflection—was out last week touting triple, or maybe it was quadruple, masks. After all, if one mask protects everybody but you, because the official line is my mask protects you, then two masks protects two other persons beside yourself. Three protects three, and so on.
Or maybe people believe masks protect themselves? Then, as I pointed out on Twitter, since the efficacy of protectiveness decreases logarithmically, then nothing less than an infinite number of masks will protect you 100%.
Now, masks have not worked yet. But they will! We just haven’t given them sufficient amount of time to work. Or wait. Maybe they do work. They must. Experts tout them. And these people all have advanced degrees in expertology.
Here, for instance, is the official CDC NYC coronadoom daily attributed deaths.
Mask use in NYC was light at first, in March 2020. But by sometime in April it soared to at least 95%. You can see my first-hand observations marked on the plot.
Masks work, and so they cured the doom around June, as you can see. The deaths, after all, went down. Had to be masks. No vaccine then. But there were mask mandates.
Restaurants were semi-open in summer. That must have caused the small number of deaths you see down in the mud of the chart; that constant background. Masks were being worn everywhere still, so it must be the masks were still saving lives. And it must have been open restaurants that were killing people, but only in small amounts.
The cold hit in the fall. Mask usage soared to 98-99%, sometimes to 100% – 1 (me). But deaths began to rise!
Since masks work, the cause of these deaths had to be something else. The only other culprit—which couldn’t possibly be the lockdowns or the weather, which causes voluntary lockdowns—had to be restaurants. They were closed.
Well, this is a great scientific discovery, that closed restaurants cause coroandoom deaths! Because masks work, masks work, a scientific conclusion. So the deaths had to have another cause. Somehow, something about the closed restaurants seeped through the masks, and started killing people in earnest.
“But Briggs, you fool. Deaths are decreasing again, as is obvious. Everybody is wearing their masks, which prevents all infections, which is scientifically true. So how can deaths be going down?”
Great question, Science Learner. Easy. Because The Godmother announced that—no, not that he was going to stack nursing homes again, killing more elderly, and winning more awards—but he announced that restaurants would be allowed to open again on Valentine’s Day.
“Yeah, so what? They’re not open now. Closed restaurants kill fast, as we have seen, and it’s only open restaurants that kill people slow.”
Right. That can only mean the to-be-opened restaurants are producing, from the future, some kind of tachyon-coronadoom canceling signature.
“That’s amazing! Surely you’ll get the Nobel for this.”
I’d turn it down. I’m too modest to accept.
“You are humble, it’s true. So the real conclusion is that masks work?”
Certainly. They wouldn’t keep saying masks work unless masks work.
My only advice is that be sure your medical technician doesn’t mix up your anal and nasal swab when you get your test.
Update As I was posting this morning, the radio say “good news” in “worst ever” pandemic (false), “cases and hospitals are plummeting”. Yes, the p-word. Election effect.
Update Tip from Darren Nelson: Wisconsin’s Mask Mandate Hasn’t Worked and Here’s the Proof
VACCINE
The Johnson & Johnson vaccine is out. Unlike the other, more radically experimental mRNA vaccines, this one is seemingly more old-fashioned. Simplified: takes an ordinary coronavirus (which causes the common cold) and modifies its DNA to mimic a dumbed-down version of the coroandoom virus.
This vaccine has touted efficacy rates much lower than the others, but also more believable. They say those who get the doom with it are less sick.
I haven’t had the chance to review the safety data yet. But the vaccine itself has fewer question marks.
More coming on this.
BOOK UPDATE
The book is back in stock! The Price of Panic.
The price is still $12.99 for the hardback. You can’t afford not to buy.
New review: here.
Website of similar name: price of panic.
THE NUMBERS
Sources: daily tests, CDC official toll number one, number two (the old weekly file, now suspect). Deaths by age. Covid & flu. WHO flu tracker. All current as of Monday night.
Here are the daily tests:
Good news is the testing has gone down a bit. Perhaps the vaccine news has calmed people from seeking tests. It’s still at nutty levels.
Every positive test the media falsely calls a “case”, when it is only an infection with varying degrees of seriousness—and most are not serious. The media really does not know how to tell the truth.
Here’s the other good news, the positivity rate of the tests. You’ll recall last week we discussed how the WHO told people to lower the PCR Ct rates, which should produce fewer positives—and fewer false positives.
Notice carefully this chart has nothing to do with the number of tests. Positivity wouldn’t, per se, fall because testing fell.
Fewer official positive tests mean, necessarily, fewer attributed coronadoom deaths, and also fewer “cases” (infections).
What is causing this? The lowered Ct is certainly part of this. But also the weather, as you’ll see next. Deaths of all diseases always drop starting the end of January. The vaccines, even though not widely administered, likely accounts for some of the drop, too.
My guess is the order of importance of cause is: lowered Ct, weather (maybe tied), and vaccines. Still too early to tell about vaccines.
CDC weekly ALL CAUSE death counts, or the Perspective Plot, from late 2009 until now. The late drop off is late counting: it takes up to eight weeks to get all data. We need to look at all cause deaths because we can’t quite trust the attributed COVID numbers.
The black line is deaths of any kind. The red is COVID. The blue line is flu+pneumonia (it’s the pneumonia that kills most flu patients). The blue is estimated starting mid year 2020 because CDC stopped separate reporting on flu. The suspicion is some flu and pneumonia deaths are being attributed to COVID.
You can see the initial peak in 2020, when the virus first hit in the northeast, and then a smaller bump when it spread south and west. The current January bump now is in line, and perhaps a bit higher, with what we expect to see this time of year.
DEATHS ALWAYS PEAK IN MID JANUARY, THEN DROP. EVEN WITHOUT GOVERNMENT INTERVENTION. PLEASE PASS THIS INFORMATION ON!
The January peaks are caused when we enter our voluntary lockdowns in winter, spreading bugs. This is also the “solution” governments hit upon to stop the spread of bugs. Lockdowns kill.
Here is the CDC deaths “involving” COVID.
Even with late counting it’s clear attributed deaths are on their way down—as we have been predicting. There is also concern some of these attributed deaths are flu or pneumonia and not COVID per se.
Here is another way to look at all deaths, the week-of-the-year all-cause deaths.
The 2020 estimated “excess” deaths (using my extrapolation model) are closing in. About 420 thousand. This will rise a bit with late counts.
IMPORTANT: these are not all COVID deaths! They include deaths from the “solution” to COVID, too. Plus increased suicides, septicemia and other iatrogenic kills, cancers, heart attacks, and everything else due to lockdowns.
The green line at the left are 2021 numbers; obvious under-counts. I include them to show where we are.
Flu is still missing, even into 2021. CDC found one pediatric death for flu this season. Here is the WHO’s global flu tracker, which still shows flu has gone missing everywhere:
The black line at the bottom far left is 2021. Flu is still gone the whole world over. Leading us to suspect some COVID deaths are really flu+pneumonia.
Here is the CDC official population mortality rates for the all causes other than COVID, and “involving” COVID (with and of; “involving” is CDC’s word).
Here are the same population fatality rates in tabular form:
POPULATION FATALITY RATES
Age COVID OtherCause
1 Under 1 year 0.0000110 0.00490
2 1–4 years 0.0000013 0.00021
3 5–14 years 0.0000014 0.00013
4 15–24 years 0.0000130 0.00081
5 25–34 years 0.0000510 0.00150
6 35–44 years 0.0001500 0.00230
7 45–54 years 0.0004100 0.00420
8 55–64 years 0.0009900 0.00930
9 65–74 years 0.0024000 0.01900
10 75–84 years 0.0062000 0.04500
11 85 years and over 0.0180000 0.14000
No matter what age, there is at least about a 10 times or larger chance of dying from something else then COVID. If you’re under 44, the COVID risk is tiny. Our level of fear is in not in line with the actual risk for the majority of the population.
About masks in depth, see this article and this one. I am also working on a comprehensive article about masks. Hint: they do not work.
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Dr. Been has a good review of the J&J vaccine here. https://youtu.be/zdX8TCR89kQ
So you’re saying severe cases and deaths (severe cases are a lot more common than deaths) would have been *equally common* (or close) if masks were rare, or much less common.
Can you share your reasoning, with numbers?
“They can be said to have had an effect only if the epidemic stopped completely” isn’t reasoning. If that’s not what you’re saying above, help me understand what you *are* saying.
COVID has done one thing that we have been unable to do for a very long time it has cured the flu. It is so amazing that now no one is dying from the flu anymore. This “stronger” virus has apparently come in and kicked the flu out of the virus pool forever.
I wear a mask everyday. I follow the protocol at every place I go to. This is not because I buy into the myth of mask working as advertised but instead it is just to make it so I am not ending up arguing with every single person. I tried this in the beginning and I would just be told that if I would not follow I can just stay home. This included my job, stores, pretty much everywhere I would try to go. Not long after that I would get beat up at these places for just trying to wear a breathable vented mask because the “CDC says they don’t protect others from catching the virus” as I was told everywhere. So most of the places I go to require me to wear a non vented mask; not always a surgical style mask but non vented. There are a few places that so far still don’t care but they are dwindling everyday. Really sad when if they would actually check the real data like you did and I had before they would see there is not correlation between mask wearing and positive test or deaths from COVID-19.
I really like your observations about restaurants. Around me they blamed the increased positive test not just on the closed restaurants but also on people visiting family members and having social gatherings like holiday parties. There was 0 proof to back this up but it was their shot in the dark to try to explain this.
One of the stories that I love to tell people is about a retired English Footballer who is in his 70’s that from the beginning of the virus isolated himself in one of his homes in Liverpool and had no contact with anyone at all. He got his food delivered to his home in a sanitary manor and all other necessary supplies were delivered to him the same way and guess what he contracted COVID-19. Apparently it just snuck into his house out of nowhere and infected him. No possible explanation was ever postulated for how this was possible and it is far from the only time that I have heard of a person that was 100% isolated coming down with the virus.
This historical reminder of a hero during WWII bears retelling: “dead typhus cells injected to test positive saved lives.” Seems to remind during this frenzy of Covid-19 testing and false, positive results counted as cases.
https://www.warhistoryonline.com/world-war-ii/polish-doctor-created-fake-typhus-epidemic-saved-8000-jews-wwii.html
Briggs excess deaths estimates continue to be the highest I’ve seen. Parsing ‘from’ and ‘with’ does not serve to explain why vast numbers would have died from other causes. The highest estimate I’ve seen for lockdown deaths is just north of 100 thousand.
Wilbur Hassenfus:
“Can you share your reasoning, with numbers?”
You must be new here.
Pingback: Mask Me, Darling—Why We Know Masks Don’t Work: Coronavirus Update LI — William M. Briggs | The zombie apocalypse survival homestead
Wilbur,
See the last link of the post, which links to dozens of papers showing masks don’t work. There are more papers than are in the link; I’m working on an update.
Wilbur Hassenfus, are you asking in good faith? You seem a little dense.
It has never been about the effectiveness of masks. It has always been about cowing the peasants into submission.
“Simplified: takes an ordinary coronavirus (which causes the common cold) and modifies its DNA…”
Correction: the vector is an adenovirus, NOT a coronavirus. The adenoviruses nucleic acid is DNA. J&J vaccine grafts in their DNA a __DNA-complement__ of the C19 virus RNA.
Darren-
I don’t disagree and am in the same situation with regard to masks.
I started work from home to avoid the mask lunacy in the plant.
Most businesses here will refuse service to the mask-free. For the persistent ones they will call the sheriff to haul you off under trumped up charges of trespassing or disturbing the peace.
Dr. Syed lost me 4 minutes in when he started rationalizing why the J&J vax needs to have a chimp adenovirus rather than a human one the body will destroy immediately.
“So, you’re telling me the human immune system works great?”
Hypothesis: masks cause MORE poor outcomes and death because mildly symptomatic people rebreathing their own exhalant are massively increasing their viral load, making the chances of overwhelming their body’s natural defenses greater.
Apparently Fauci changed his mind again yesterday, saying basically, “well, yeah there really is no evidence 2 or more masks would be better at reducing cases” (What sane person could ever have thought further restricting your airflow and increasing hypoxia and for extended periods could ever be healthy in order to provide a minuscule at best reduction in chance of getting a virus 99.98% of people survive contact with?).
…even as virtue signalling Blue Chekists on Twitter and elsewhere continue to post selfies wearing 2 or 3 masks to show how much THEY CARE ABOUT YOU! (my favorite was the California state senator – appropriately named Wiener, and whose main legislative claim to fame is advocating the de-criminalization of purposefully infecting people with HIV – who posted a multi-muzzle pic of himself with the caption “Double masking is where it’s at.” You just can’t make this stuff up! The mind reels at the combination of stupidity and hypocrisy. Give people HIV on purpose, that’s cool, just make sure to wear a double-mask over your face while doing it, lest you spread a far less harmful and deadly flu-like virus! Or maybe he likes the double masks as an aid to auto-erotic asphyxiation?).
Masks are nothing but a sick and evil cult at this point. Has nothing whatsoever to do with health, as it’s clear now that no one in a position of authority or power even pays attention to facts or data about masks or anything else – it’s all about control and submission.
Look at the utterly insane response the other day in Perth. One single case popped-up (allegedly – no facts about this “case” were presented in the story – was he actually sick? Was it a possible PCR false positive?…who knows) and the government ordered immediate full-lockdown of an entire population of 2 million people for at least 5 days…everything just shut on a whim, over one single alleged “case”! And what’s worse, people submit to this insanity! Last week 50,000 businesses opened at once in Italy and within 24 hours the government dropped lockdown and other restrictions. When will the alleged “land of the free and home of the brave” have the courage of these Italians? It’s nearing one year of this madness, and it can’t continue like this…people need to wake up soon!
In the same vein as: Do two apples a day keep two doctors away?
Nym-
Don’t forget masks are outstanding growth media for a variety of infectious bacteria.
You mean “NY minus NYC” where you say “NYC”.
What I say to the Branch Covidians, “A more effective mask is a plastic bag over the head , secured firmly around neck. Then I don’t have to listen to your perpetual gaslighting.”
““A more effective mask is a plastic bag over the head , secured firmly around neck. Then I don’t have to listen to your perpetual gaslighting.”
Please send one to Rod Dreher, who’s now touting even more panic and fear-mongering than usual over alleged mutations that will supposedly necessitate another year or more of Covid-based insanity destroying the world (depsite the vaccines – and nearly a year of muzzle wearing; how long until they admit they don’t work? – which he’s also all-in for, and which were supposed to save us all and allow us to “return to normal.” It’s now clear the powers that be will never allow any semblance of normal, sane life again. There will always be alleged mutations and Perth-like “zero-covid” extremism as excuses to justify endless tyranny. Life is finished.
Regarding people asking for figures that prove the inefficacy of masks, well, ask yourselves where in the whole world there is a simple statistic that shows that they work in the long term.
Every single stat that compares death/infection lines and masking timeline (compulsory, voluntary, transition) show, either a total independence of both concepts, or a dubious temporal correlation between the moment where they start being massively used and the skyrocketing of the infection figures, being this latter case less frequent.
Furthermore, we have something more valuable than “science”, which is its mother, Reality. Living on planet Earth, it takes some SERIOUS effort to not see the worldwide evidence that the virus does not give a damn if you wear one or not.
Examples: countries where compulsory masking was a religion, like Spain, Italy, have had horrible results all the way from february to 2021. Czech Republic, which was so proud of the measures taken, the docility and compliance of their citizens, and how well they worked in the first wave, suffered a tremendous second or third wave. Greece, which had a soft approach, had one of the best results in the world without masking, and dir really bad during the second wave. England has been baaaad with their lockdowns and masks, while Northern Ireland had great results. Sweden has had the most liberal approach, with almost no masking whatsoever, no confinements, and while they had some up and downs, the outcome is mostly excellent…as is the case in other scandinavian places with a harder take…
Etcetera, etcetera, etcetera.
Indeed Rogelio. Same goes in America. Places like Florida, where restrictions and mask mandates were lifted months ago, have had better outcomes – fewer “cases,” hospitalizations, etc – than places like California and New York with more draconian rules. Same with South Dakota (very open and few if any restrictions) versus North Dakota (draconian rules and muzzle mandates): No discernible difference in Covid cases or outcomes, yet with less willed destruction of life, liberty, and economy in SD.
Yet the media treats the governors of NY and CA as if they are models of enlightened leadership. And the guy (who claims to be a woman now) who presided over one of the worst Covid responses and mass nursing home death in Pennsylvania, is now promoted by Biden to a position of national influence and destruction.
“The cold hit in the fall. Mask usage soared to 98-99%, sometimes to 100% – 1 (me). But deaths began to rise!”
Briggs killed everyone by not wearing his mask! Expect a knock at the door from the Biden FBI.
Meanwhile another week where influenza mysteriously has next to no effect. I guess the argument could be made that the 2015-2016 flu season didn’t really kick off until the end of February, so it’s possible that we are in the same situation. But even the 2015-2016 season wasn’t this low in January.
According to the CDC the positivity rate for flu tests this year is between .2 and .3%. When considering false positives this is only possible if literally no one has the flu (and even then there should be more false positives).
Wilbur Hassenfus:
See?
There’s a reasonable chance that he does, in fact, understand your question. But I wouldn’t hold my breath (unless I were in an elevator with Briggs) waiting for a responsive answer.
Darren, you can buy ultrathin masks on etsy. Some of them are chiffon. You can breathe really heavily and it won’t even fog up your glasses if you’re wearing them. I still find them kind of hot but that could just be my rage at having to wear them
The CDC and Fauci have both said masks protect others from you and you from others. It is 100% clear that you are SAFE if you are wearing a mask. There are tons of places that say the masks work both ways. So, a person in a room who is not wearing a mask is NO DANGER. Got it?
My solution: I don’t wear a mask (unless the gorilla at the door demands it and I really need to enter) however, I NEVER TALK OR OPEN MY MOUTH, making me 100% safe to be around. Safer than with a mask, actually.
New to the mask lunacy argument! If air borne or droplet carried viruses find a pathway into the human body via the mucous lined nose and mouth then I would think a 95n mask might stop infection!
As a young boy growing up in Belfast Ireland we were taught back in The 50’s ” Coughs and sneezes spread diseases trap your germs in a handkerchief !” To add to that we were told to wash our hands constantly and threatened with eternal damnation if we ever were to touch our eyes , nose , mouth or stick our fingers in our ears without first washing our hands!
I guess today Covid-19 cannot enter bodies via our eyes and ears!
As for mask wearing and the efficacy of the vast array of masks now being developed as an international business where is The FDA and the usual regulation needed to insure these mask do as they claim!
It seems to, this layman, that wearing a mask is as healthy as wearing vinyl gloves to prevent the spread of germs! Once your gloves have touched more than one surface if they are not replaced they are a potential germ carrier! In wearing a mask, say as a bagger at a store, if the mask is not replaced after the first time it is adjusted by hands the mask then is a potential germ spreader when it is again adjusted as it will be numerous times during the days work!
Personally I believe we have all be duped again but this time they have found a big stick they can beat us all with ,at anytime they choose so long as we as individuals do not come together to ” Cry Wolf” and tell them to stop!
A 30 second absurdist stage play, à la Samuel Beckett:
Wilbur: Can you share your reasoning, with numbers?
Lee: You must be new here.
Briggs: (points out links above to abundant numbers and arguments re. masks)
Lee: (fuming) See Wilbur? But wait, I…that’s not what I meant…you…you just don’t understand the question!
Chorus: We’re on earth, there’s no cure for that! People are bloody ignorant apes! But one of the thieves was saved. There’s that at least. We have to come back tomorrow.
Dennis: (fuming) I’m a moron who eats paste.
Wow, this new form of ridicule is so fun and easy! I’ll just put words in people’s mouths that they never said!
For the truly slow: Wilbur’s question to Briggs was about *his* argument: what is it, exactly? Referring to *other* people’s work is simply dodging.
I see satire and humor are beyond you. “Just put words in people’s mouths they never said!” Do you say the same about Shakespeare with regard to Brutus and Antony? (Not that I’m comparing my little absurdist playlet to the great Bard!).
And Briggs’ links were to “his” arguments in previous articles going back as far as half a year…but never mind…some are beyond reason as well. Briggs makes “his” arguments – as well as citing others’ of course – about many things all the time…yet you pretend there are none and just accuse him and others of either not understanding the question, or refusing to give “responsive answers” with “his” arguments and numbers (or is citing CDC or WHO numbers forbidden? Must one compile one’s own numbers first-hand with personal testing, lab work, medical exams, etc. as well? In that case no one could ever make arguments about countless public policy issues, from masks to taxes).
What is his argument, you ask (and that of many others)? Well a detailed answer would require simply repeating literally in every detail almost every article over the past 9-10 months. But, if I may take a stab at boiling it down to a simple line you can perhaps understand: “Masks don’t f-ing work for their alleged purpose, and the numbers and data prove it quite clearly!”
Enough for today…I’m off to eat my pasty dinner…yum, yum!
Oh masks? Yes, I wear a mask every time I go into a store. But I don’t wear a mask to keep a virus out; I only wear a mask, along with dark sunglasses, to keep my identity private in front of the cameras. Hollywood stars have been doing something like this for years with sunglasses and hooded jackets. I just use the new etiquette on coronavirus to my own advantage.
Besides, masks by themselves don’t cover your eyes; they only cover your mouth and nose. And yet your eyes are just about as vulnerable to viruses as your nose and mouth. You would be better off with a face shield that covers your whole face than a typical mask if you want better prevent some coronavirus intake.
Simple cloth masks don’t work to stop human to human transmission of airborne viruses.
Same for disposable surgical masks.
And even if they did work at a high enough efficiency to slow the spread, all the current mask mandates won’t work.
Because none have this essential proviso: All men are required to be clean shaven.
The Novavax from the UK data is also out, looks more efficacious and is a more traditional vaccine (protein)–hopefully the FDA doesn’t require an entirely domestic US Phase 3 trial before approving here too. Also is a bit more remote from abortive tissue than the J&J vaccine.
Interesting piece on The Blaze about a reporter who came to Wyoming to see how the people felt about Liz Cheney. This a quote:
“Palmeri also said that some people refused to talk to her while she wore a mask, and she was very upset that she might have caught the coronavirus because she had to take her mask off with Wyoming residents.”
Apparently Wyoming has not bought the mask idea, even with reporters. Oh, and it’s extremely unlikely she would contract Covid no matter what she “thinks”.
Sheri: Reporters these days are such wusses! And she probably imagines herself to be “on the front lines.” Imagine what real reporters in danger zones, like Ernie Pyle (who was shot in the head and killed when troops he was with came under fire during the invasion of Okinawa in 1945), would think of this snowflake afraid a flu bug might be floating around while talking to someone.
Pingback: Safety Is The Slow Death – William M. Briggs
@Darren R. Cole
-Regarding 2020-2021 flu deaths – I have seen allegations that COVID-1984 has largely suppressed influenza infections by attacking those individuals who would otherwise have contracted the flu. If that is the case, perhaps a combined URI deaths number compared YOY would make more sense that overall/excess deaths YOY.
-Regarding masks – I wear a 3M 6200-series half-face respirator with 2097 P100 cartridges. I decided early on that if The Authoritae was going to force me to muzzle myself, I’d use a muzzle that has at least the possibility of somewhat protecting me. And “protecting me” is exactly my priority, my respirator has an exhalation valve. So far, no one around here has challenged me on it. It does, at least, direct exhalations at an approximate 90-deg downward, so I’d guess it is probably of the same magnitude of effectiveness as a Plexiglas shield…
That 3M thing looks kind of like a WWII gas mask! Probably no one says anything because they don’t know (or care about if they do know) the difference anyway regarding the respirator exhalation valve issue. All anyone cares about is that one be seen to comply with some covering over one’s face.
Abasing oneself and signalling one’s submission to arbitrary and inane diktats is the point, not actual effectiveness or public health.
One can ask basic questions, like if masks are effective, why did Germany and the U.K. recently go into lock-downs again? Mask compliance in those countries was/is extremely high, so if masks are even moderately effective, why would the repeated lockdowns be necessary?
And if masks are effective, why have 50% of deaths come from care facilities (and nearly 50% of deaths are still coming from care facilities), even though workers there are trained professionals wearing approved medical-grade masks?
But what does the science say? Here is a meta-review from May 2020:
Nonpharmaceutical Measures for Pandemic Influenza in Nonhealthcare Settings—Personal Protective and Environmental Measures
https://wwwnc.cdc.gov/eid/article/26/5/19-0994_article?fbclid=IwAR2V1hPqN0WKb2kXVExP_1UE9ARvru6mtPZvZN0w1jx0S3l3fXLhxMP_bXs
“We did not find evidence that surgical-type face masks are effective in reducing laboratory-confirmed influenza transmission, either when worn by infected persons (source control) or by persons in the general community to reduce their susceptibility”
I found another later meta-review from June 2020:
Facemasks for prevention of viral respiratory infections in community settings: A systematic review and meta-analysis
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32496254/
Conclusion: “Existing data pooled from randomized controlled trials do not reveal a reduction in occurrence of ILI with the use of facemask alone in community settings.”
I did find a meta-review from July-August 2020 that concluded that face masks were effective:
Efficacy of face mask in preventing respiratory virus transmission: A systematic review and meta-analysis
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7253999/
But they included case-control studies and cohort studies in their meta-review, not just randomized trials. Garbage, garbage, garbage! If you look at only the individual randomized trials that they included, no effect was found.
The CDC starting recommending masks on or around April 3, 2020. It seems their change in guidance was a political or religious one.
“It seems their change in guidance was a political or religious one.”
Indeed it was. Same with the WHO changing its mask recommendation in June, which they even admitted was due to political pressure, not actual science suddenly showing effectiveness of generalized public mask wearing even by people with no symptoms of any illness (so-called “asymptomatic transmission” is another thing invented for Covid, which a major U. of Florida study released a couple months ago also proved is not a real thing – no matter, politicians and health bureaucrats don’t care about facts or real science, only “The Science” approved and trademarked by the Agenda).
Masks are indeed a new religious and political cult designed to show one’s submission to the NWO, naught to do with real public health.
“Fewer official positive tests mean, necessarily, fewer attributed coronadoom deaths, and also fewer “cases” (infections).
“What is causing this?”
Orange man gone.
Ivermectin: not statistically significant? Is that an unholy reliance on P-values?
https://www.thelancet.com/journals/eclinm/article/PIIS2589-5370(20)30464-8/fulltext
Has anyone reviewed the accuracy of the following and its references: https://directorsblog.nih.gov/2020/08/25/masks-save-lives/
I’ve talked to my father-in-law, a research engineer of 45 yrs specializing in modeling and control of physical systems, about the “mathematical modeling” used in the primary paper referenced by the NIH on masks. He told me that any research paper worth reading will details the working assumptions about the modeling used. In particular, he suggested examining reviewing: 1) the mask model, 2) human actions assumed and their distribution, 3)…. he had about 10 items to be concerned with given the subject matter is live organisms and not inanimate physical systems. My question is: to what extent did the peer review of the paper examine any of this?
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32792562/