The Cato Institute has published its latest working paper, a critical review of the evidence for face masks to prevent the spread of Covid. Entitled “Evidence for Community Cloth Face Masking to Limit the Spread of SARS‐CoV‑2: A Critical Review” and written by Ian Liu, Vinay Prasad and Jonathan Darrow, the paper is an admirably thorough and balanced overview of the published evidence on the efficacy of face masks. While even-handedly acknowledging and summarising the studies that show benefit, the authors’ overall conclusion is that: “More than a century after the 1918 influenza pandemic, examination of the efficacy of masks has produced a large volume of mostly low- to moderate-quality evidence that has largely failed to demonstrate their value in most settings.”
At 61 pages in length, however, not everyone will make it through to the end, so here’s a TL;DR, with some key quotes to serve as a handy overview. The paper is, of course, worth reading in full, though.
Here’s the authors’ own summary from the abstract:
The use of cloth facemasks in community settings has become an accepted public policy response to decrease disease transmission during the COVID-19 pandemic. Yet evidence of facemask efficacy is based primarily on observational studies that are subject to confounding and on mechanistic studies that rely on surrogate endpoints (such as droplet dispersion) as proxies for disease transmission. The available clinical evidence of facemask efficacy is of low quality and the best available clinical evidence has mostly failed to show efficacy, with fourteen of sixteen identified randomised controlled trials comparing face masks to no mask controls failing to find statistically significant benefit in the intent-to-treat populations. Of sixteen quantitative meta-analyses, eight were equivocal or critical as to whether evidence supports a public recommendation of masks, and the remaining eight supported a public mask intervention on limited evidence primarily on the basis of the precautionary principle. Although weak evidence should not preclude precautionary actions in the face of unprecedented events such as the COVID-19 pandemic, ethical principles require that the strength of the evidence and best estimates of amount of benefit be truthfully communicated to the public.
The authors open by recalling the initial advice on masks from the WHO and others and the pre-Covid evidence it was based on.
Until April 2020, World Health Organization COVID-19 guidelines stated that “[c]loth (e.g. cotton or gauze) masks are not recommended under any circumstance”, which were updated in June 2020 to state that “the widespread use of masks by healthy people in the community setting is not yet supported by high quality or direct scientific evidence”. In the surgical theatre context, a Cochrane review found “no statistically significant difference in infection rates between the masked and unmasked group in any of the trials”. Another Cochrane review, of influenza-like-illness, found “low certainty evidence from nine trials (3,507 participants) that wearing a mask may make little or no difference to the outcome of influenza-like illness (ILI) compared to not wearing a mask (risk ratio 0.99, CI 0.82 to 1.18).”
Considering mechanisms for transmission and thus modes of operation for masks, the authors review the evidence for aerosol transmission and find it very likely. They argue that the ability of masks to inhibit the passage of sufficient aerosols to protect the wearer or others, whether through tiny holes in the material or leaking round the sides, is limited. They write:
[F]iltering capability is unlikely to be reliable surrogate for infection control, since exhaled air necessarily either leaks around a mask’s edges or passes through it. Such leakage has been shown to account for the vast majority (~5:1 ratio) of particle penetration of standardised surgical masks, and exhaled air easily passes around the edges of most cloth masks. One study of cloth masks simulated leakage and found that a hole equal to ~1% of the mask area decreased mask efficiency by over 60%… In a study of N95 respirators, 25% (158 of 643) professional healthcare workers failed to properly fit their mask, despite knowing they were being studied and receiving instructions on how to achieve a proper respirator fit.
Cloth masks, they note, had particularly poor filtration properties in simulated real-world settings: “Cloth masks sewn to CDC specifications offered ~18% inward and 0% outward filtration efficacy at the 0.5 micron size… One mannequin study found that between 5%-20% of respiratory secretions were captured by standard surgical masks during simulated tidal breathing due to face mask leakage.”
Turning to clinical evidence, they summarise the findings of two gold-standard randomised controlled trials (RCTs), which indicate little to no benefit from mask-wearing.
There have been two large-scale RCTs evaluating the use of facemasks at limiting the spread of SARS-CoV-2. One [DANMASK] failed to show a statistically significant benefit to those randomised to wear high-quality surgical masks in both the intention-to-treat and per protocol (i.e., excluding those who reported not wearing masks as specified in the protocol) analyses. The other [in Bangladesh] failed to find a statistically significant benefit to cloth masks, but found an 11% relative reduction in COVID-19 prevalence for surgical masks that was marginally statistically significant, with the confidence interval spanning 0% to 22%. In the latter trial, absolute reductions in COVID-19-like illness associated with mask-wearing were only 1% (reduced from 8.6% in control villages to 7.6% in intervention villages), while absolute reductions in symptomatic seroprevalence were less than 0.1% (from 0.76% in control villages to 0.68% in intervention village), raising questions about whether resources devoted to mask production, awareness, utilization, and enforcement could be deployed to greater public health benefit if directed at alternate interventions, such as vaccination, contact-tracing, or isolation.
They add that “a large RCT (around 40,000 participants) in Guinea-Bissau on community cloth face mask use against COVID-19 is ongoing”, which is worth looking out for.
They critically review the evidence from observational studies, and also from other influenza-like illness. For the latter, they summarise:
In non-healthcare settings, of the 14 RCTs identified by the authors that evaluated face mask efficacy compared to no-mask controls in protecting against respiratory infections other than COVID-19, 13 failed to find statically significant benefits from facemask use under intention-to-treat analyses. In communal living settings, four of five RCTs failed to show statistically significant benefits to masking, and the promising results of the fifth study were not confirmed when its authors sought to replicate the results in a much larger follow-up trial. Of eight RCTs that evaluated face mask efficacy against respiratory illness transmission in nonhealthcare household settings, all eight failed to find a statistically significant benefit for the use of face masks alone compared to controls in their intention-to-treat analyses, and only three found statistically significant benefit in highly selective sub-group analyses.
The follow-up trial mentioned actually found masks were counterproductive.
[A] much larger (7,687 participants) randomised controlled follow-up study by the same research group not only failed to show a statistically significant benefit for mask wearing, but the per-protocol analysis showed higher point estimates for mask wearers compared to non-mask wearers for both clinical respiratory infections (12% (97/828) vs. 9% (141/1497); odds ratio [OR]: 1.3) and laboratory-confirmed respiratory infections (50% (46/93) vs. 41% (50/122); OR: 1.2).
More broadly, they consider the issue of mask harms, focusing in particular on elevated infection risk:
Although some evidence suggests masks may cause non-infection-related harms, such as breathing difficulties, psychological burdens, impaired communication, skin irritation or breakdown, and headaches, the most concerning potential harm to health is an increased rate of disease spread.
While evidence of this isn’t necessarily high quality, it is there.
Multiple household studies have found higher instances of respiratory sickness in masked intervention groups than in unmasked controls. In one household source-control medical mask trial, point estimates of the primary outcome measure of influenza-like illness in the intention-to-treat analysis were higher in the surgical mask group than in the no mask group (22.3% (21/94) vs. 16.0% (16/100)), but the results were not statistically significant and adherence was poor… In a cluster-randomised trial of cloth masks compared with medical masks in healthcare workers, rates of influenza-like illness in the cloth mask intervention arm, where 56.8% of workers wore a mask more than 70% of the time, were more than three times higher compared to the “standard practice” control arm, where 23.6% did so (2.3% (13/569) vs. 0.7% (3/458)).
As a possible cause of this, they suggest mask-wearing might encourage people to interact more, or to lean-in when talking. Masks might also split larger droplets into smaller droplets, they suggest, or become contaminated through touching or re-use.
On the cost of masks, they note: “Although masks are individually inexpensive, the collective costs of producing and distributing an adequate and continuous supply of masks to a global community of 7.8 billion people is not trivial, nor are the environmental harms that result when they are discarded.”
They caution against unthinking application of the precautionary principle, pointing out: “Recommendations to impose mask mandates based on the precautionary principle fail to account for the possibility that masks cause harm, or that masks may have varying benefits and risks in different settings.”
They are concerned by the lack of interest in getting to the truth on masks, putting it down to the widespread public commitment to masking policies making the scientific endeavour politically fraught.
Once officials or others became publicly committed to a position on masks, it became difficult to advocate for high-quality evidence generation, leading to a situation in which, despite the prevalence of masking policies, only two randomised trials have been performed to address the question of face mask efficacy for SARS-CoV-2.
They close with a warning, that a hypothetical future single high-quality study finding benefit must not be taken to override all the evidence to date of a lack of benefit:
When repeated attempts are undertaken to demonstrate an expected or desired outcome, there is a risk of declaring the effort resolved once results consistent with preconceived notions are generated, regardless of the number or extent of previous failures. Scientists and public health officials should exercise caution to ensure that this potential bias does not lead to a cessation of research once the first high-quality study demonstrating mask efficacy is reported.
As I say, worth reading in full.
To join in with the discussion please make a donation to The Daily Sceptic.
Profanity and abuse will be removed and may lead to a permanent ban.
Rip it off, yeah!
‘Covid passports’ for pubs coming to Wales
Covid passes may be used to keep pubs open at Christmas – BBC News
Passports macht frei
Open for me
But not for thee
The Indians who let Drakeford dance away at their Diwali Disco seemed to like him, they let him go unharmed.
What’s Impfen Macht Frei in Welsh?
Mae brechu’n rhyddhau.
Or, in better Welsh, celwydd noeth – a big fat lie.
Welsh is unusual in that the word for Big Fat Liar is Drakeford.
Perhaps the quicker this is brought in, the quicker it will bring things to a head.
Only if it’s resisted. There’s been no sign of that thus far.
Can’t help but agree. This has got to play out fully for people to see how dark it is. And it’s going to get very dark. And many STILL won’t WANT to see it but they’ll have no choice. And then they’ll be left with only their conscience to decide where they go next.
The accomoanying covvimap shows ‘cases’ in my county just over the 400 mark Last week it was well over 600.
It’s called ‘rising numbers’.
“It appeared that there had even been demonstrations to thank Big Brother for raising the chocolate ration to twenty grams a week. And only yesterday […] it had been announced that the ration was to be reduced to twenty grams a week. Was it possible that they could swallow that, after only twenty-four hours? Yes, they swallowed it. […] The eyeless crature at the other table swallowed it fanatically. passionately, with a furious desire to track down, denounce, and vaporize anyone who should suggest that last week the ration had been thirty grams. Syme, too-in some more double complex way, involving doublethink-Syme, swallow it. Was he, then, alone in the possession of a memory?”
― Orwell George, 1984
Should read
“Pubs to be used to enforce introduction of vax passports via vax compliance. “.
Surely the BBC headline reads:
“Covid passes will be used to close pubs for good this Christmas.”
As we all know, even the injections don’t provide any protection so we can be damn sure that a bloody ‘phone app won’t be of any use.
The pub landlords and restaurant owners should stand together and refuse to comply.
Pubs can be closed down by local authorities using licensing regulations which would be much more difficult to defend in Court than Covid laws of dubious legality.
Segregation passports, so evil they don’t even hide it now
As with previous interventions they are picking on pubs because most people do not use them regularly and many look down their noses at people who do.
There is a YouTube channel in which a pleasant young chap takes us on twenty minute walking tours of ordinary areas of Victorian London. At least twice in each presentation he will say
“Now this building used to be a pub . . .”
We can expect many more of those shortly.
Archbishop Vigano Appeals for a Worldwide Anti-Globalist Alliance
https://rumble.com/vpelhb-breaking-exclusive-archbishop-vigano-appeals-for-a-worldwide-anti-globalist.html
Is this the same study that the Dr Hillary quoted this morning on GMB as showing the huge benefit of masks?
GMB are amongst the worst with him and Sridhar pushing their nonsense every day. Long since stopped watching!
“Sridhar pushing her nonsense every day”
‘Hammer of the Scots!’
Have their been studies in Luton, Dewsbury, Rochdale, Burnley, Rotherham and Bradford so see the effects of wearing a burka/niqab? Infection rates down in those towns? If face masks work, so must a niqab, eh?
Anyone engaged in such a study would be denounced as racist.
Well, it is a “face covering”. Mind you I’ve seen face masks under “face coverings”!
If so, two different interpretations of the same study clearly demonstrate there is still no clear evidence that masks are effective, No study anywhere has come down heavily on the side of the benefit of masks. The best they have ever come out with is ‘they may reduce infection’ which is another way of saying ‘they may not’. The last time I looked the government’s own website was very vague on the subject saying masks might be beneficial in certain settings. This is nowhere near strong enough for requests let alone mandates.
It goes back to yesterday’s conversation, masks are solely about gauging the public mood for compliance in general.
It’s a clever ploy since nobody can complain that wearing a mask is complicated, it’s inexpensive although some choose to make them a fun but costly fashion accessory and it rarely inhibits normal daily activity.
Equally there are plenty of easy get out clauses to avoid the government being sued but at the risk of opprobrium from the Lockdown conscious or Covid Wary’
“I wear my mask to protect others, including uou”. Bareface-shaming.
Christmas is coming,
For what will you ask?
Please kindly Santa,
Give me a mask!
There’s something so jockstrap about them, isn’t there ..
Men with them on…looks like they’re wearing their wife’s knickers across their face.
Nearly opened up Photoshop just then but decided against it.
Next year they’ll be selling ankle tags that play Christmas carols.
Uptick from me but
+ 
= 
There are two worlds out there. My weekend was spent in busy pubs and similar places where not a mask was to be seen yet supermarkets (at least in my area) are still a mecca for the dear old muzzles. I often wonder how many wear them or don’t wear them depending where they go. Wear them in shops but not in pubs / restaurants. Mind boggling.
Face nappy wearing is well down on trains now – and they were one of the worst places for it until relatively recently. Even Northern Rail’s persistent passive-aggressive announcements are clearly not stopping more and more people from abandoning the muzzle!
There’s an ad on YouTube about the post lockdown reintroduction of a Stagecoach inter-region service in which nobody is wearing masks which I found strange.
Most people on.local Stagecoach buses still seem to wear them.
In a supermarket you’re anonymous, so you can’t be ridiculed or called out as irrational, and you’re just a fish in a large school. In a pub, you might have to face criticism and disapproval from those who know who you are. It’s about identity and being responsible for that position.
The may / may not debate is only even relevant in a theoretical untried situation. Fact is that now we’ve had 18 months of enforced muzzling on and off in many countries around the world, and in not a single case can muzzle mandates be seen in the stats – it’s literally impossible to tell whether there was one, and when it was enacted / removed (and the same applies to lockdowns, antisocial distancing and other vicious measures too, of course.
Therefore the only reasonable conclusion can be that in practice face nappies don’t work – all the Maskivist ‘modelling’ in the world can’t explain why something which they claim works has no measurable impact anywhere!
I agree. I have no doubt whatsover that over the past eighteen months extreme efforts will have been made by WHO and world governments to prove conclusively that masks work but they’ve repeatedly come up with zilch.
I would like to demonstrate in Dr. Hillary’s face that masks are no better at keeping out Covid than my underwear and trousers are at keeping in farts.
Hillary said a publican who objected to lockdown should stick to pulling pints, conveniently ignoring that lockdown shut his pub.
I remember that telly screen encounter, the Dr. came over as an arrogant prick.
The publican had come to public attention for for publicly berating a politician, to his face, about the effects of lockdown on his business.
Something to do with this?
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/nov/17/wearing-masks-single-most-effective-way-to-tackle-covid-study-finds
i haven’t been able to read it as my iPad won’t let me! Probably recognised a crap piece of journalism in a crap newspaper and said “computer says no”.
It’s utterly bizarre that they can make claims like this when there’s well over a year of worldwide stats showing absolutely no benefit – if muzzle mandates are completely invisible in the stats (which they are), any claim that muzzles are ‘the single most effective way to tackle covid’ should be treated with the contempt it deserves!
Tell me something I didn’t know.
But but just imagine if we didn’t wear masks cases would be through the roof… they say.
The frankly perverse obsession with these things is purely to do with signalling ones virtue.
And of those that do why do they wear some home made piece of filth? Surely an FFP3 one would be better?
Nutters.
There’s a lot of elephant trumpet reactions going on with covid.
People keep on telling me that it is important that they play the trumpet all the time because it scares off the elephants, and when you respond that there are no elephants they say ‘that shows its working’.
This is actually rather a difficult ‘logic’ to overcome; I’m sure that some people will be wearing masks to the shops etc for the rest of their lives.
Yes and it’s simply because for the vast majority of the public it’s easier to go along with consensus that to ask the tricky questions and find that everything is based on flawed logic. Which is why there is so little critical resistance to these measures.
“…some people will be wearing masks to the shops etc for the rest of their lives”
Those to whom I’d suggest such an idea a year ago, who’d then dismiss it as ridiculous, now react with a shrug and a sigh inside their muzzles.
Saw a ‘new’ dentist yesterday; new for me anyway as my previous dentist had packed in his practice last year because of the pressures. My new torturer seemed helpful and pleasant enough but she had no face at all. Disturbing.
No virus either is there?
Yet they’re still a legal requirement in Wales.
There never has been any scientific evidence that they offer anything but the most puny of protection, but governments around the world have created laws to force people to wear them. It is rather weird.
No, FACE COVERINGS (not masks) are compulsory. Showing it’s there to keep the scare going not for health reasons.
Scotchland too, plus vaxxports for a “vaccine” that doesn’t prevent the spread.
It’s only weird if you assume that the goal is public health rather than public submission.
Not only do they provide no protection they become a nice little petri dish for all the stuff the wearer has been unable to exhale properly.
There’s a good reason why we cough and masks prevent that.
In all these studies there is never any discussion about the basic policy *which is the wrong way around*.
Everybody must wear a mask to protect who exactly, and why can’t that person be protected just by wearing a better mask themselves? That way it has a fighting chance of working due to physics – a filter works better under suction rather than under pressure because there is less likelihood it will leak
The whole thing is backward at the most basic level, which means the enterprise must be about tapping into a weakness in the human psyche, not fixing a physical problem.
We’re all in this together that’s why….
You’re right of course. If said individual is so terrified that they need a mask then surely staying at home would be “safer”. Then I can carry on with no mask.
If said individual has a requirement to be out but is still terrified then they could wear a respirator or an ffp3 mask and goggles. Then I can carry on with no mask.
The problem is that a certain group expect everyone else to protect them which is the definition selfish. Yet as the non mask wearers, we are deemed selfish for not protecting others!!!
Totally backward!
or out yourself as even more paranoid than average and wear this
%3Ffit%3Dscale
TV drama seems to largely ignore the masks, implying that they don’t exist and that the world is just as it was in 2019. The only drama that has embraced masks is Grey’s Anatomy and they wear things just like this guy and oh my goodness, talk about killing off your drama – it seems so weird.
It does make me think about what it might actually mean at a deeper level, to blank off people’s faces … it’s pretty shocking when you think about it and shocking that so few people do consider the impact of this on society.
Was noting that very phenomenon last night watching big Apple+ drama Invasion. It’s like they’re representing a different world isn’t it. Don’t know whether to see this as a source of optimism or not; imagine if they all wore masks upon leaving the house like that fucking nauseating HSBC advert with sell out and traitor to humanity Richard Ayoade.
Oh that one make my
blood boil – quick, where’s the remote!
Would be rather fun if he suffocated. We could all have a laugh then.
But you have to protect the NHS. Apparently.
Have you noticed that those who smugly claim that ‘we’re all in this together’ are the financially-secure middle-classes who are least affected? Don’t hear many people in the hospitality industry making that sort of comment. Can’t imagine why not…
yes I apologise for repeating myself… they’re face coverings, not even masks!
Everybody wants to be Hannibal Lecter! Or, with the black masks, a mysterious Ninja warrior!
I’ve looked at a few recent (November 2021) airport videos on YouTube and there you see the extent of this utter madness. A sea of face masks. All destined for landfill, the oceans, or to be hung from trees or thrown on the ground just about everywhere.
Buying shares in companies that make/distribute face masks could be profitable!
Whereabouts in the world is most of the PPE manufactured? (Rhetorical question)
China is my guess. I have not made an investigation into this. A company in Finland makes face masks – TehoFilter in Sievi. There is a company in Finland that makes the material for the masks (Ahlstrom-Munksjö in Tampere) and a company that makes them, or at least packs them, in Hanko.
I haven’t bought any face masks, my collection consists of those I’ve grabbed where they’ve been offered, such as at my workplace, at my workplace’s private health centre, and at Toyota where we’ve had our car serviced. I’ve been fortunate to be able to avoid wearing a face mask most of the time – just for the shops, health centre, and at Heathrow airport last January (and on the two planes I took, and at Amsterdam airport).
There are one or two people on this forum who claim you don’t need to wear a face mask at an airport, and just have to pretend to wear it on the plane. I’m sure you can get away with the odd moment, when no-one is looking! But if I were going to fly anywhere, I wouldn’t be setting off to any airport without at least one face mask with me.
I’ve used a face mask in the shops when shopping with my partner as she really believes in The Virus, and is also worried about people looking at her if she isn’t wearing one. I don’t use the ‘hand sanitiser’ and she has given up on nagging me about washing my hands when we get home. After 20 months of not having caught ‘Covid’ I think even she is coming to realise it’s really not a big danger.
Anyway, ‘Vaxx Passes’ have already been introduced for domestic use within Finland – and the same is coming for Norway, Denmark and Sweden. Not very restrictive now, but, of course, the screws can be tightened down at any moment.
There was an early video showing the cheap pale blue masks being made in a sweatshop in Vietnam or The Philippines by heavily sweating individuals in highly unsanitary conditions with raw materials and finished product scattered around randomly including on the filthy floor.
well you see they backed themselves into a corner at the start by all coming out and saying masks don’t protect you and of course anyone sensible was also pointing out that even the packaging says the same thing.
So then some genius came up with the brilliant but highly illogical idea that masks only blocked things in one direction and therefore they were to stop others getting infected.
Hey presto, not only do we have a useless policy but by claiming it’s to protect others people will be shamed into doing it because who would want to be the person seen to be wanting to infect everyone else.
There are so many ways that masks don’t work.
Even if they were 100% effective when worn, as soon as you move it away from your mouth it’s not working.
So at a very simple level, if you’re wearing a 100% efficient mask 10% of the time, 90% of the time it’s not working.
The simplest way to visualise this would be to think of a 100% efficient mask as holding your breath. All good as long as you’re not breathing…
Don’t talk about not breathing on Twitter btw, it’ll get you banned for 24 hours.
When the Govt first decided to have a crisis, I was doubtful about masks so started looking. I found a study by the University of Alabama from 2010, so unaffected by Covid politics, that wanted to know how masks dealt with dust and pollutants. It was sophisticated in measurement and tested a surgical mask, and cloth covering, a DIY dust mask and an N95.
It found that the masks stopped the following percentages;
Dust mask 6.1%
Bandana 11.3%
Surgical mask 33.3%
N95 89%
Average particle size was 1-6 nanometres
The report did mention in passing that viruses such as coronaviruses have a particle size of 0.125nm or smaller.
So, I was immediately aware they were effectively useless, without all the leaking and constant fidgeting. The Govt were clearly in no doubt and never insisted, because you didn’t have to prove a reason not to wear, but was entirely about showing compliance.
Try getting the BBC/Sky/ITV to explain this to the masses….
Not in a million years, which is the tragedy of the whole shit show.
I’m still waiting for the panorama uncovering the covid un truths…
Micrometres?
A surgeon explained that if he absolutely had to cough during an operation he would face directly at the patient because most of the bad stuff was expelled through the sides of his mask.
A pre-covid study showed that there was no difference in the final outcome whether surgical teams wore masks or did not.
FDA Asks Federal Judge to Grant it Until the Year 2076 to Fully Release Pfizer’s COVID-19 Vaccine Data
https://aaronsiri.substack.com/p/fda-asks-federal-judge-to-grant-it
Wonder WHY? Something big to hide????
Still talking about the benefits of face masks? Wasn’t this thoroughly discussed back in March 2020? And now it’s November 2021 and we’re still on the same subject?
Round and round we go.
It’s irrelevant if face masks work or not, if they are mandatory to be worn in shops in Wales and Scotland, that’s all there is to it. You can always say you’re ‘exempt’, can’t you? Problem solved!
Try saying ‘exempt’ at an airport or on a plane/ferry/Eurostar/long distance train in Italy or France, and see how that goes down.
Problem solved when you’re the only human being, surrounded by a heaving sea of faceless zombies?
Hahahahaha.
I’ve never worn a mask in an airport and have travelled a few times during the pandemic. In the UK no one cares anymore. On the flight they don’t even say anything as long as it’s under your neck so you’re at least pretending
Seeing is believing. I’ll let people know my experience next time I fly. Having a face mask ‘under your neck’ counts as wearing one, in my book.
Yup did six hours on a plane with it under my chin. No problems or complaints from the aircrew
From memory just before the first mask mandate. Dictionary definition
‘To wear’ = to have about ones person
I agree with your last point. I’ve never worn one in the UK, but in France in early summer 2020, the armed police would target anyone unmuzzled in their muzzled city zones. So I just wore it around my neck until seeing police, as most of the locals did. At St Pancras, UK immigration “randomly” selected me being the only non-muzzled (and wearing an anti-lockdown t-shirt), but their intimidation failed because I had avoided their little trap by retaining my photocopied QR docket provided on the French-side (which many had binned). They seemed most disappointed, but it made me feel happy that the queue had seen how powerless they were to take any action against me.
Separately in late summer 2020 I had to wear a muzzle in all sorts of settings in Europe because the fascism was much more established. On long distance trains, armed police were getting on at stations to remove any filthy unmuzzled.
At least I know how to deal with the pathetic UK attempts at enforcement, thankfully the pig dictator hadn’t got the balls to do what most of Europe was doing.
An unexpected benefit of life with a government composed of idle, incompetent Eton schoolboys interested solely in laughing at the great unwashed with rampant profiteering and Bullingdon club antics.
Competent, efficient, industrious government = Population poisoned weekly and muzzled permanently.
Whichever way, we’re cornered.
Bully Boys Club. All people you wish to avoid on dark alleys.
I don’t know what your photocopied ‘QR docket’ means – at what stage it was photocopied (and why?), and what it was for?
The ‘environmentalists’ are strangely quiet when it comes to the billions of face masks being manufactured – apart from the littering the environment, it must use a fair amount of ‘fossil fuels’ to manufacture them and distribute them. What a waste of the Earth’s resources.
Where is the Little Goblin of Doom when you need her?
It was early on where they had introduced the passenger locator forms. If you flashed your phone screen at the departure border staff they would give you a printed QR code. Only problem was that they were all photocopies of the same QR code that had been hastily cut out by hand. It was a detailed QR that if real would have contained a lot of data. I wish I had scanned it to see what it really contained – it was probably something like “Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet…”.
Obviously they had assessed the intelligence of the sheeple and decided that they were too stupid to understand that all the QR codes were the same.
Many of them were left on the train at St Pancras and they were demanded from the people that they “randomly” selected. It was just more pointless theatrics to make sure everyone knew there was an emergency and they were doing “stuff” about it.
Is this real? Presumably a 20th generation (say) photocopied QR code would start reading “Looremsch iphshurmndulllor shitammetsch…”
Great to check this out but I enjoy not owning a pocket policeman phone.
The government has brought the discussion back into play.
Just yesterday bozo left No.10 wearing a mask to get to his Prime Ministerial car.
It’s all theatre.
Meanwhile out in Guardian land
The article references the BMJ but there is no link to the actual paper.
I expect they have cherry picked data to deliver the results they wanted, which seems to count as “scientific research” these days.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/nov/17/wearing-masks-single-most-effective-way-to-tackle-covid-study-finds
Unfortunately it is this bent research that our Government and its corrupt advisors will take as gospel.
They use this research because it backs them up.
Actually, given their diet of lies I don’t know why they bother. A statement backed up by garbage research is still a lie.
Nowhere in that piece is anything said of the problems caused by obliterating peoples’ faces. Nowhere do journalists ask the reason why many do not, will not, wear the fucking things – or like Pig Dictator and his henchmen, rip them off whenever they forget the cameras are on. Why do MPs remove their muzzles when standing up speaking in Westminster?
Worth repeatedly asking; barely worth answering.
and that’s why all those places that still have strict mask mandates have very few covid cases. oh wait…
Boris nearly died of Covid. How can you be so cruel?
I took out an onion and cried.
A while back, they were saying 92%.
Take a card. Any card.
I wonder if the timing of the Guardian article is concidence?
More lies from the Groan.
Here is the study: https://www.bmj.com/content/375/bmj-2021-068302.
It is infuriating. Here in the US, masks and NPI’s are almost entirely partisan. For those of us who just want our lives back, bunk studies like this are used to enforce social distancing in blue states. It doesn’t matter that the researchers are using a bunch of old observational studies from the Spring and Summer of 2020 in which seasonality and preexisting immunity were entirely discounted. They just cherry pick studies that give them the conclusions they want despite the fact that none of those observations have held up.
In my son’s place of work (Wilco’s in Halesowen, West Midlands) he reckons that among the customers, the maskateers are now less than 50%.
Must be time for another mandate then. The people are insufficiently fearful.
Spread the word that the Chinese spray their masks with The Virus when they are manufacturing them. That might put a few people off using them? Pre-infected. Great way of spreading a bio-weapon!
The authors of the report may inadvertently missed one very useful aspect of mask-wearing: Mask-wearing among the population illustrates the wearer’s compliance with government directives, their continuing fear and acquiescence indicates the success of the Nudge (Fear & Propaganda) Unit, and nicely continues the deteriorating health of a large part of the population through increased bacterial infection and oxygen reduction.
That’s not a very useful aspect. That’s the main purpose.
I’ve not read the study – so the following comment may be completely wrong – please correct me if this is the case. . . .
As I understand it, the remit of the study was to review the evidence regarding the benefit of masks at preventing the spread of the virus. That’s only half the story. There are an increasing number of studies (some published here on DS) that suggest there could be harms incurred by those who wear a mask for prolonged periods. When one takes this into consideration, it’s clear to me that there are no net benefits to masks at all, and the net loss could be very substantial indeed – especially if the psychological impacts of mask wearing are thrown into the mix.
had a few doc appointments in the last few days, problem being lack of hearing and each time have had to explain that I need to lip read or just can’t hear, glad to say the masks including the doc’s were removed. Deadly pandemic, no, visual control, yes
Wow. Hang on. Isn’t the Cato Institute a deep-state idea-laundering asset? What’s going on here?
Personally, I did my research and come to the conclusion that there was absolutely no benefit in wearing a face-nappy and since day I never wore one and the longer this nonsense went on the more convinced I became that mask-wearing seemed to be little more than a psychological trick with which to increase public fear and coerce people to conform and adhere to all the daft rules – for me mask wearing became political theatre to control the masses and the masses fell for it hook, line and sinker.
Now I think there is nothing more depressing than the sight of people who are still wearing their flippin masks – its the equivalent seeing grown mature adults still sucking there thumbs – its ridiculous.
Ditch the mask and get rid of those stupid plastic face shields too.
That battle (but not the war) has been lost. It would not matter who or even which authoritative body (plural bodies even) made UK public announcements that masks do not work or actually cause diseases – the sheep have absorbed the previous message too deeply and some will continue to mask up for the rest of their lives. Time to stop bothering and move on to more serious matters of concern UNLESS a new mask mandate is announced without self- exemption.
Benefit was not the object of mask mandates.
They are designed to get people to eat shit and say it tastes delicious, exactly what they have done.
This is a review/meta analysis of dozens of already existing studies.
Just as the BMJ/Monash/Edinburgh one which comes to the very opposite conclusion, peddled by the Guardian today, is.
There is as such zero new evidence in both.
They can both be summarized as such:
Biased garbage in, weighted as per ones bias, desired garbage result out.
Anyone with an IQ above room temperature KNOWS that masks have zero positive benefit here but many negative side effects.
Anyone living in the real world KNOWS that people do not wear masks properly, exacerbating their negative side effects and rendering lab studies totally unrealistic and invalid.
Anyone aware of Swedish schools and their non-existant case, transmission and death rates KNOWS that masks haven’t and cannot have made any positive difference elsewhere, only negative ones.
Sadly, most people therefore can be classified as having an IQ below room temperature, not living in the real world and being unaware of Swedish schools.
In particular, politicians, ‘journalists’, ‘public health’ professionals, scientismcists and ‘doctors’ aka quacks.
“politicians, ‘journalists’, ‘public health’ professionals, scientismcists and ‘doctors’ aka quacks” Ah, those at the top of the tree in these “professions” know very well they are telling Big Lies. They very much live in the real world.
From the paper ‘They are concerned by the lack of interest in getting to the truth on masks, putting it down to the widespread public commitment to masking policies making the scientific endeavour politically fraught.’ Applies to all NPIs.
From what people have written on this site, I think the face nappy wearing in UK and Florida is very similar. Despite there being no State enforcement, about 50% still wear them inside any public area. Doubtful if these people will ever stop now.
Depressed this morning as its only 2 weeks before we fly back to the prison state that is France. Dreading what we will find there as ‘cases’ are going up substantially so all the NPIs will be rolled out again for Xmas. No doubt about the conditioning of ‘prison’. When you are ‘in’ you get used to confinement. When you escape you realise what freedom feels like, but the reinternment is going to feel worse. To a greater or lesser extent this psychological ‘warfare’ has effected everyone. They are changing the way we think, behave and react , often without us appreciating it.
The slightly worrying thing in all of this Covid shite, and especially the denigration of the un-jabbed is that I saw a poll that said 58% of the British public supports measures against the pure-bloods. Whilst most polls can be taken with a pinch of salt, I’m sure there is a rather large portion of the population who would be quite happy to go full camps and ovens for us.
can we start calling vaccinated people muggles?
The same British public that claim to be concerned about Climate Calamity but which only 10% say they are prepared to pay to do anything about it.
What has the effectiveness or not of masks got to do with this legislation? It is purely a power exercise by the elite medical activists to see how far they can push their control.
https://brownstone.org/articles/do-masks-reduce-risk-of-covid19-by-53-how-about-80/
As I indicated below.
On the crap Guardian/BMJ 53% mask efficiency story aka fairy tale.
I recieved an email the other day about how beards render dust masks useless. Great big lumpy bits of dust. Not viruses. Dust. https://mailchi.mp/afssupplies.co.uk/beardafs?e=e8e053fe5e
Too right. Hence the (Cold War, Gulf War 1 etc era) requirement for soldiers to be clean shaven in the event of NBC activity. Tight seal between respirator and face. It was never just about looking smart, as it had been in the past.
Will somebody PLEASE tell sadist Khan, and the rest of the know-nothing politicians that take such pleasure in creating fear!
No point. They won’t listen.
Give it a couple of days and it will be retracted, the authors will apologise deeply, and the doomsday fetishists will get to breathe a mask-obstructed sigh of relief that the end is still coming.
Perhaps the best way to put this to bed is if everyone, and I mean everyone, wore a mask for a month or two and let’s see what happens. We should have done this last year because we know what the outcome would have been and we could have finally debunked this myth.
The benefit is I can see who complies.
They test for the flu since they’ve never isolated Covid-19. Which makes me wonder how they can tell there is a delta variant. They never isolated the virus but they use a test to show the damage of a solution does on monkey kidney cells then show the cellular debris as proof of the virus. So, they can use this method to claim an UNENDING! amount of variants. A lot of cancers and “viruses” are probably just different forms of parasites. Since the tests can’t differentiate between cold and flu and covid then doesn’t that mean ivermectin cures both the cold and the flu? Welcome to “they’ve been lying to us our entire lives about everything”. Get your Ivermectin while you still can! https://ivmpharmacy.com
Two types of people in this world. Mask wearing fuckwits and the rest of us.
“…but if they save just one life…” . I can hear the converted sheep uttering that mantra every time the evidence is put before them. Give me strength!!
Yeh, OK, so they don’t work. But, hey, let’s keep wearing them just in case, eh?
In early 2020 I raised questions about the efficacy of face masks with my MP. In reply he stated that no RCT (Random Control Testing) or Medical Risk Assessment had been conducted on masks for daily use outside a sterile environment such as an operating theatre. I realised then that it was about subjugation and not about the virus.
“…No Evidence of Benefit”
No Shit Sherlock?
On Wednesday on passing a neighbour walking down the street, they shouted I should be wearing a mask because apparently, “cases” are soaring in the town. Really? Anyhow I offered to send her several papers which dispute the efficacy of masks. She stood silent for a moment, furrowed her brow and said: “No, I don’t want to read them,” and scurried away.
The psychological damage is very deep and I’m thinking irreversible.
Well, it kept them busy. Over a year ago I read a relevant BSI standard on the subject, and came to the conclusion that it was junk, and never used them at all. Here is an extract of the summary part of a set of notes I cobbled together in Summer 2020.
Great document