After our live interview on GB News on our findings of the UKHSA review, one of the two anchors, Philip Davies MP, received the following communiquè from the UKHSA:
Dr. Renu Bindra, Deputy Director of Public Health Clinical Response at UKHSA, said:
“The current evidence on face coverings suggests that all types of face coverings are, to varying extents, effective in reducing transmission of respiratory viruses in both healthcare and community settings. N95 respirators are likely to be the most effective, followed by surgical masks, and then non-medical masks, although optimised non-medical masks made of two or three layers might have similar filtration efficiency to surgical masks.
“The evidence specific to COVID-19 is still limited and does not allow for firm conclusions to be drawn for specific settings and types of face coverings. However, there is no evidence to suggest that face coverings and masks would be less effective at preventing the transmission of COVID-19 than any other similar respiratory infection.”
BACKGROUND
Throughout the pandemic, UKHSA published several rapid evidence reviews and a statement from an expert panel informed by review-level evidence (available here).
In the most recent version, review (update 2), studies were assessed by experienced reviewers using a risk of bias tool, which can be applied to most study designs (observational and interventional). In all three evidence reviews of the effectiveness of face coverings, all biases the reviewers felt were present were detailed in the supplementary tables and limitations were reported throughout, as well as in the conclusions and main messages.
In the overview of evidence conducted for the expert panel, reviews were assessed using AMSTAR 2, and key findings were given a confidence rating by combining the overview of evidence with expert knowledge and experience.
The most recent ‘Living with COVID-19’ guidance states that COVID-19 should be managed like other respiratory infections and only recommends face coverings for those with symptoms of a respiratory infection, who have a high temperature or feel unwell and are unable to avoid contact with others.
We appreciate John McCarthy’s comment: “Why do you waste your time on such nonsense?“
However, we take officialdom and responsibility seriously. So we read and reread Dr. Bindra’s message to make sense of it – but we were defeated, much like Mr. McCarthy foresaw.
Let’s start off in order of nonsense. The first statement says:
The current evidence on face coverings suggests that all types of face coverings are, to varying extents, effective in reducing transmission of respiratory viruses in both healthcare and community settings. N95 respirators are likely to be the most effective, followed by surgical masks, and then non-medical masks, although optimised non-medical masks made of 2 or 3 layers might have similar filtration efficiency to surgical masks. (emphasis added)
In contrast, our Cochrane review reports:
We are very uncertain on the effects of N95/P2 respirators compared with medical/surgical masks on the outcome of clinical respiratory illness N95/P2 respirators compared with medical/surgical masks may be effective for ILI… ‘The use of a N95/P2 respirators compared to medical/surgical masks probably makes little or no difference for the objective and more precise outcome of laboratory‐confirmed influenza infection.’ (emphasis added)
As the source of Dr. Bindra’s statement is not cited, we are at a loss to explain the source of such certainty.
However, here comes the bizarre bit. On April 14th, the Daily Telegraph reported: “A rapid review report published by the UKHSA investigated if high-quality masks, such as the N95, KN95 and FFP2 coverings, protect clinically vulnerable people in the community from catching Covid.”
The UKHSA rapid Review reported:
The purpose of this rapid review was to identify and assess the available evidence for the effectiveness of N95 and equivalent face masks as wearer protection against coronavirus (COVID-19) when used in the community by people at higher risk of becoming seriously ill from COVID-19 (search date: up to September 26th 2022). The review did not identify any studies for inclusion, and so could provide no evidence to answer the research question. (emphasis added)
And then Dr. Aodhán Breathnach, a Consultant Global Health Microbiologist at UKHSA and a Consultant Medical Microbiologist at St George’s University Hospitals recently published a study which found masks in hospitals had little impact on Covid transmission in the Omicron wave. He told the Telegraph: “In my view, there is no good evidence that N95 masks work any better than surgical masks.”
So what were Dr. Bindra’s statements based on?
The second paragraph of the statement is even more peculiar:
The evidence specific to COVID-19 is still limited and does not allow for firm conclusions to be drawn for specific settings and types of face coverings. However, there is no evidence to suggest that face coverings and masks would be less effective at preventing the transmission of COVID-19 than any other similar respiratory infection.
If the evidence relating to Covid is limited, it is because governments, public health bodies, foundations and so on refuse to carry out good quality studies to answer the question.
There is also a subtler point: the statement assumes SARS-CoV-2 transmission is different from that of all the other respiratory agents. However, we do not know this because good quality investigations based on molecular epidemiology methods have not been carried out on the transmission of other agents such as rhinoviridae, influenza or human metapneumovirus.
Dr. Bindra’s Background continues the series of puzzling contradictions:
Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, UKHSA published a number of rapid evidence reviews and a statement from an expert panel informed by review-level evidence (available here).
The link takes us to a page where the evidence of “face coverings” is out of date. The first review in the list is September 2021, which contains no convincing evidence of anything, as we have pointed out, study by study.
In the most recent version of the rapid evidence review (update 2), we pointed out that no included observational study had a protocol, analyst blinding or gave a clear definition of COVID-19.
In the overview, evidence was given a confidence rating by combining the overview of evidence with expert knowledge and experience. This is expert-level spin, as expertise is at the bottom level of evidence as it is opinion. A perusal of the panel report shows that it met three times: “The panel met three times on March 1st 2021, April 21st 2021 and May 12th 2021.” The conclusions are out of date, although the UKHSA website reports it was updated to March 31st 2023.
Perhaps the most ludicrous statement is: “It should also be noted that the most recent ‘Living with COVID-19’ guidance specifically states that COVID-19 should be managed like other respiratory infections and only recommends face coverings for those with symptoms of a respiratory infection, who have a high temperature or feel unwell, and are unable to avoid contact with others.”
It is in direct contradiction to what is in paragraph one, in which the claim that all types of face coverings are, to a greater or lesser extent, responsible for lowering the risk of infection.
So what can we conclude? The UKHSA statement is an opinion; it is poorly thought through, and it certainly isn’t based on the evidence. It is based on evangelism which is eroding what is left of trust in science.
When it comes to informing public health, who should we then trust?
Dr. Carl Heneghan is the Oxford Professor of Evidence Based Medicine and Dr. Tom Jefferson is an epidemiologist based in Rome who works with Professor Heneghan on the Cochrane Collaboration. This article was first published on their Substack blog, Trust The Evidence, which you can subscribe to here.
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For me the WEF represents the personification of Evil and anyone associated with it is likewise tainted.
Agreed , King Charles is upto his unusually large Ears in it ,as is his son Wills who has given Toothy Jacinda a climate non job !
I agree with anyone seeking to reduce the psychological elitist messaging of the WEF. Through the long tentacles of their influence, they have sought to engineer an image of solid intellectual foundations that simply do not exist. They create an artificial atmosphere of contrived consensus and pretend the only room for disagreement is about as large as the difference between the Tory establishment and Labour, or the establishment Republicans and the establishment Democrats. This is of course nonsense. But similarly the corrupting effect of their influence should not be underestimated.
Or rather they, the WEF, are a public pustule on the surface of a deeper more powerful confluence of global forces, which include corporate entities like Blackrock and Vanguard and billionaires like Gates and Bezos. The thing that should not be underestimated however, is the extent to which the vast wealth they control serves to unseat these people from the same realities and concerns as affect ordinary people. We understand how solitude and lead to psychological aberration and a lack of ability to empathise and socialise. Similar aberrations arise for the super wealthy. Some people are able to weather dissimilar experience and still recognise and appreciate the reality inhabited by others. This isn’t necessarily a sign of “empathy” either, but can be simply a sign of rationality or intellect. However we should be aware of our proximity to some truly harsh anti social behaviours exhibited and actually pretty widespread that have never, in truth, left this earth. It wasn’t too long ago that in the US, during the period known as the Wild West, there were corporate entities that gave rise the phrase “railroading.” The railroad companies were prepared to employ thugs to bully and kill in order to relieve citizens of their land.
The thing that, when viewed in a proper context, surprises me, is how many people think the globalist elites, having come through “Western” education, must now be civilised and divest of all such immoral drives, when their wealth insulates them and de-socialises them every bit as much, if not more than for the hermit loner living on a hill. Anyone who thinks that is asleep and simply not paying attention to what is occurring in the world.
So while I agree with this article and we need to break any propagandist psychology that conflates the WEF agenda with the truth, and while I agree we should laugh at these people, I also think they really are remarkably dangerous, and very very close to achieving their aim of global authoritarian domination and control.
Consider Blackrock now own 30% of the land in Ukraine.
Blackrock and vanguard private equity firms now own over 60% of the housing stock in the land of the Free.
Bill Gates has gone from owning no land to being the biggest landowner in the US.
and most worrying of all, private equity like Blackrock and Vanguard own roughly 80% of the S&P500.
This latter point is to my mind illustrative of the fact the authoritarian door is very very close to being closed on us.
The pandemic successfully saw the transfer of over a trillion in wealth to the global elites and very nearly as much out of the pockets of the ordinary citizen.
These facts, unfortunately, are harder to laugh at.
Excellent points.
The WEF serves a few useful purposes to the Trillionaires whom we never see.
They act as a point of coalescence with the global barons of wealth and industry allowing them to reinforce the goals of centralised authority and control
Create agendas that are implemented through UN treaties infiltrating all the way down to council level edicts from traffic regulation, energy usage, carbon taxing etc All designed to limit movement and constrain resistance.
They reward higher level bureaucrats and career politicians with social power manifesting in rewards such as travel, elite holidays, gifts, revolving door opportunities between government, corporations and NGOs so that their will always be a profitable landing place no matter how bad their public reputations become. All as long as they push the agendas.
They prepare the highest level elites for the transitions that are occurring and being forced through “polycrisis” offering them a place at the table no matter what engineered crisis occurs into the NWO.
They target emergent technologies and seek to appropriate them always in the aid of power and control by the few over the many.
So yes I wouldn’t sniff at the WEF.
Good point…I recall it was Rotterdam a few years ago that Bezos had a historic bridge removed and later constructed so he could sail his giant Yacht out of the city. That is an obscene amount of power and influence in the cold light of day. These people need taking down, this is not jealousy when they want to create a serf class with modern Robber Barons.
Egalitarian? Cobblers. The “anointed” think they know better than everybody else.
tof, for all the convoluted counter arguments in the article it really does boil down to:
The “anointed” think they know better than everybody else.
Although I would add – with menaces.
Menaces and then the jackboot in your face.
Bland, malevolent, ridiculous and uninteresting people who make sweeping, grandstanding pronouncements on big theatrical stages in a hideaway Swiss mountain resort about the futures of the other 7 billion or so other people in the world without any of their agreement or inclusion. Anyone associated with Davos should be psychologically assessed. It’s a hive of evil masquerading as the saviours of the world.
Hear, hear.
Don’t forget the others like the secretive Bilderberg Group.
Whitney Webb discusses with Peak Prosperity the Globalist technocratic plans, the new serfdom system, and Conspiracy vs cock-up.
https://youtu.be/tkLq54lVqHU?si=KpLw8W0rVb6v_u-p
Who wants one of my new T Shirts? ——–JUST START OIL .—-They come in a range of colours and in small, medium. large, XL and XXL. They are not at all “sustainable” and I am sick to death of hearing that word anyway. ———What is the difference between a Just Stop Oil idiot and a plank of wood? ——The Grain. ——–Yes folks that is the only difference. Basically the Just Stop Oil people are the same as a plank of wood. They will sit on their cosy couch in their nice warm house (courtesy of fossil fuels) with a laptop on their knee that couldn’t exist without oil. Infact nothing in their house could, and neither could their house, their bicycle or their sustainable cabbage. Then out they march to chuck soup over a Van Gogh———But ofcourse these people are just the Elites useful idiots. They are the ones that do the WEF’s dirty work for them while they sit sipping prosecco and knocking back the Lobsters at Davos carving up the world and deciding whether we should be allowed wood pellets or whether we should maybe collect all our toenail clippings and recycle them into windows for our sustainable dwellings. ———Roll up Roll up get your JUST START OIL T Shirts while stocks last.
Can I order one in nylon please?
Put a link in then or is this just irony. Patrick Heningson the old UK Column had a good T-Shirt…”We Are All Essential”.
Ron ——It was a joke mate. I thought that was obvious. But it isn’t such a bad idea to have one of my T Shirts now is it? It seems only those who scream the loudest get listened to. ———-I remember away back in the 70’s before all of the wokery and political correctness I saw a person with a T Shirt that said “Equal Rights for Gay Whales”—-Boy was he ahead of his time.
This has nothing to do with “aesthetics” (whatever that is supposed to mean in this context). It seems to me that the policies the WEF advocates for are either explicitly or implicitly going to reduce the freedom and prosperity of me and my family, therefore they are my enemies.
The Davos Gang (“weffies”) are a gang of cold-blooded psychopaths, plain and simple. Anyone who doesn’t believe in human rights, particularly individual rights, does not belong anywhere even remotely near the levers of power whatsoever. There is nothing redeeming about them at all.
Even someone in The Guardian of all papers called Davos a ‘Pit of Vipers’.
My opinion is that we need to re read the novel Brave New World, this is the text that is being followed by the WEF not so much 1984. In Brave New World, the citizens are conditioned to be happy, they indeed own nothing, but their conditioning is such from birth,
does any of that ring a bell?, look how happy the majority were to be locked up, told what to do in exchange for “free money” and not having to work, they didn;t mind about the loss of freedom, they thought it was great.
In Brave New world children are grown outside of the womb and depending on societies needs for Alphas (the elite) or down to Epsilons, (the drone low caste workers) the foetus were fed or denied the appropriate hormones, oxygen to ensure the appropriate brain development, these children were then raised and conditioned seperately to fulfill their pre prescribed goal by the technocrats.
This is what Schwab and his disciples are aiming at, when they state you will in the future own nothing and be happy, they mean that you and your future offspring will be conditioned to happily accept the limits on your existence which they the small band of elites allow.
Dont believe me? look at what they did during Lockdown, look at the relentless propaganda, the happy way individuals allowed their bodies to be taken over, how they are now programming us to accept a digitalisation of our very beings through vaccine markers in our bodies, chips under our skin to pay and of course to be tracked, and the kids are happy to accept it.
The WEFS are part of an ole entitled elite, they are scared of freedom of speech and the internet, hence their manic desire to control, the only way they can protect their position is for the population to happily accept the conditioning to expect less, and to be controlled in exchange for convenience.
In BNW there is no comparable computer technology (or nuclear weapons, discussed by the author in BNW Revisited). Therefore that imaginary society needed people, even if they were simply godless slaves and clones. Soon humans could be completely replaced by robots, which are far easier to control (maybe). The conscious human population is becoming superfluous and completely dispensable to these crazed megalomaniacs. We should be terrified. Word has it that the depopulated Ukraine is being reconstructed as the first completely SMART nation; a model for the rest of the world to copy.
I find this discrimination against human lungs and guts, the by far most spacious inner organs one will find when, well, gutting a human, extremely offensive. The Davos crowd clearly suffers from lung-and-gut-phobia!
“For one, the WEF has never met a new technology that it likes.”
Except, that is, for mass facial recognition surveillance, blanket digital ID systems including medical records, CBDCs and mRNA gene therapy technologies.
All of which conspire to be the greatest collective threat to our lives in modern history.
While it’s easy to mock and write the Davos/WEF cartel off as an oddball bunch of cosplay villain eccentrics, they have an exponentially increasing dominance, influence and power over all aspects of our lives and remain without doubt the gravest danger we face in the world right now.
These grasping feudalist predators need to be completely defunded and obliterated into irrelevance before they can kick our foot out of the way and slam the prison door shut.
Spot on , + these freaks run the WHO !