Australian Study Claiming Mandatory Masks Stopped Second Wave Is Total Crap Says Experts

A “world-first” Australian study which Victoria’s government has held up as proof its mandatory face mask policy worked is riddled with basic errors and should never have been published in a major journal, medical researchers and experts say.

Victoria first made face masks mandatory outside the home in Melbourne during its second coronavirus wave in July 2020, but the Department of Health has been unable to provide any scientific research or studies upon which the decision was made.

Instead, the Department of Health directed Australian news outlet to a paper published in July this year by the Burnet Institute – an influential public health body which has come under fire in recent months for its alarmist predictions – as justification for the mandate which has resulted in thousands of dollars in fines for Victorians.

“There has been a lot of low-quality research that has come out in the pandemic, but for this to be used as a basis for a policy change is staggering,” said Dr Kyle Sheldrick, a medical researcher and PhD candidate at the University of NSW.

“To me it’s very clear this has not had a close peer review, partly because of the serious and substantive issues, but [also] it just clearly hasn’t been proofread,” said Dr Sheldrick.

“When I look at this particular piece of research, it is very, very low quality. I was staggered to see this was published by a major journal.”

Another researcher, an eminent Australian clinician and scientist who spoke on the condition of anonymity, was equally scathing.

“It’s extremely lightweight. I think it’s a totally feeble article. It doesn’t have a rigorous methodology and it is weak in its scientific inference. I’ve been around a long time – I teach how you do clear thinking, I teach how you do reproducible science. I’m a bit of a stickler for these things.”

Dr Sheldrick said despite its obvious flaws, very few scientists would be willing to publicly call out the study.

“Not just in relation to this paper but in general I think there has been a reluctance to criticise research and to criticise public health interventions [during the pandemic] and to be seen as a wrecker,” he said.

“Unfortunately there is a culture in science which sees criticising other researchers or research as something fundamentally bad – that we should be presenting a united front to laypeople.”

Malone is one of many doctors who have been completely persecuted merely for discussing issues relating to COVID treatments and vaccine side-effects.

Dr Malone also expressed how he was being attacked by the Atlantic, Facebook and J&J.

For extensively exposing the Vaccine lobby, even GreatGameIndia is being targeted and being accused of spreading misinformation for the flimsy reason that our tweets were shared widely after the controversy.

The Burnet Institute study relied on images from the photo library of The Age newspaper showing Melbourne community settings to conclude that mask usage rose from 43 per cent to 97 per cent after the July 22 mandate came into effect.

Dr Sheldrick said it was “hard to think of a worse methodology to answer this question than just looking at which photos are collected by a metropolitan newspaper”.

“Even ignoring the fact that the photos were taken for an editorial purpose, that this is not a random sample, when you look at the actual data in the Excel spreadsheet it is stunning to me,” he said.

The spreadsheet lists the date, time and location of 44 photos – 19 taken before the announcement, 18 after mask rule came into effect and seven in between. Nearly all of the photos in the before group were taken between 2pm and 4pm, while nearly all of the photos in the after group were taken between 8am and 12pm.

“Which just means the data set is useless,” Dr Sheldrick said.

“As a responsible researcher, I can’t draw any conclusions from that. You could just as easily draw the conclusion that mask wearing is different in the morning and afternoon.

If a student came to me and said, I’m going to compare these two sets of photos and draw some conclusion about whether a policy worked, you would send them away to think about it.”

MORE AT LINK!

one of Australia’s “respected” newspapers in 2003 re SARS1:

27 Apr 2003: Sydney Morning Herald: Farce mask: it’s safe for only 20 minutes
Retailers who cash in on community fears about SARS by exaggerating the health benefits of surgical masks could face fines of up to $110,000.
NSW Fair Trading Minister Reba Meagher yesterday warned that distributors and traders could be prosecuted if it was suggested the masks offered unrealistic levels of protection from the disease.
“I’m sure everyone would agree that it is un-Australian to profiteer from people’s fears and anxieties,” Ms Meagher said...

Health authorities have warned that surgical masks may not be an effective protection against the virus.
“Those masks are only effective so long as they are dry,” said Professor Yvonne Cossart of the Department of Infectious Diseases at the University of Sydney.
“As soon as they become saturated with the moisture in your breath they stop doing their job and pass on the droplets.”

Professor Cossart said that could take as little as 15 or 20 minutes, after which the mask would need to be changed. But those warnings haven’t stopped people snapping up the masks, with retailers reporting they are having trouble keeping up with demand...

Mr Bell (John Bell from the Pharmaceutical Society of Australia) agreed with Professor Cossart’s assessment regarding the effectiveness of the masks.
“I think they’re of marginal benefit,” he said. “In a way they give some comfort to people who think they’re doing as much as they can do to prevent the infection.”

That seems to be the mentality of travellers to Asian destinations, who are buying and wearing the masks while overseas...
Rosemary Taylor, of Kirribilli, arrived in Sydney from Shanghai last week after a two-week holiday in China. Ms Taylor and travelling companion Joan Switzer had worn the masks during the trip home, even though they had been warned they were of little value.
“We were told you need 16 layers on your mask for it to offer 95per cent protection,” Ms Taylor said.
https://www.smh.com.au/national/farce-mask-its-safe-for-only-20-minutes-20030427-gdgnyo.html

same “respected” newspaper re SARS2 in 2021:

16 Sept 2021: Sydney Morning Herald: Double masking is our secret weapon against Delta
by Jeremy Howard, Distinguished research scientist at University of San Francisco
Australia is being crushed by something we’ve not seen before: exponential growth in COVID-19 cases, even with lockdowns and mask mandates. But right under our noses – quite literally – we have an un-deployed secret weapon that is cheap, easy and effective at slowing down the spread of the virus: better masks.

I recently returned to Australia from Silicon Valley. Nearly 18 months ago, I realised that wearing masks could help flatten the curve. That lightbulb moment inspired me to advocate for the universal adoption of mask-wearing. I led a scientific team that in April 2020 wrote the first and largest evidence review of masks effectiveness against the spread of COVID-19. I published an op-ed in The Washington Post and formed the #Masks4All movement that kick-started mask wearing in the US and globally...
https://www.smh.com.au/national/double-masking-is-our-secret-weapon-against-delta-20210830-p58nbu.html

the entire FakeNewsMSM in Australia fails to question the use of masks; they never mention the millions of filthy “covid”-laden masks being discarded willy nilly. only pollution they care about is “carbon dioxide”!!

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