Posted on 02/02/2023 9:57:48 PM PST by SeekAndFind
A massive international research collaboration that analyzed several dozen rigorous studies focusing on "physical interventions" against COVID-19 and influenza found that they provide little to no protection against infection or illness rates.
The study, published in the peer-reviewed Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews, is the strongest science to date refuting the basis for mask mandates worldwide.
Nearly 60% of South Korea's population has now tested positive for COVID despite nearly three years of consistent universal masking with overwhelming compliance
When will it be enough for "experts" to admit masks don't work? pic.twitter.com/LS0JF9niog — Ian Miller (@ianmSC) January 25, 2023
And of course, the CDC still recommends masking in areas with "high" rates of transmission (fewer than 4% of US counties, as Just the News notes), along with indoor masking in areas with "medium" rates of transmission (27%).
Masks are still required in educational institutions in Democratic strongholds such as New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, Washington and California, according to the Daily Mail. Boston Public Schools denied its "temporary masking protocol" in early January was a "mandate," following a public letter against the policy by student Enrique Abud Evereteze.
South Korea is still requiring masks on public transport and in medical facilities after dropping COVID mandates in most indoor settings, including gyms, Monday, Reuters reported. -Just the News
According to the Cochrane study, which included the work of researchers at institutions in the U.K., Canada, Australia, Italy and Saudi Arabia, a total of 78 studies were analyzed. Most recent additions to the meta-analysis were 11 new randomized controlled trials.
As unlisted study author Carl Heneghan - who directs the Centre for Evidence-Based Medicine at the University of Oxford noted on Twitter: "Wearing masks in the community probably makes little or no difference to the outcome of influenza‐like illness (ILI)/COVID‐19 like illness compared to not wearing masks."
Wearing masks in the community probably makes little or no difference to the outcome of influenza‐like illness (ILI)/COVID‐19 like illness compared to not wearing masks (risk ratio (RR) 0.95, 95% confidence interval (CI) 0.84 to 1.09; 9 trials, 276,917 participants — Carl Heneghan (@carlheneghan) January 30, 2023
Harms were rarely measured and poorly reported (very low‐certainty evidence). — Carl Heneghan (@carlheneghan) January 30, 2023
The Danish study had trouble finding a major journal willing to publish its controversial findings that wearing surgical masks had no statistically significant effect on infection rates, even among those who claimed to wear them "exactly as instructed."
Mainstream media overlooked red flags in the Bangladeshi mask study, which found no effect for surgical masks under age 50 and a difference of only 20 infections between control and treatment groups among 342,000 adults. -JTN
Bottom line, mask wearing "probably makes little to no difference," when it comes to influenza-like or COVID-like illnesses, regardless of type of mask used.
2/ LARGE Cochrane Rev (just published 1/30/23) of RCT data ALSO CONFIRMS NO BENEFIT of N95 masks vs. med/surg masks, in either community (n~8K) or HCW (n~8K) settings for prevention of flu-like illness or lab confirmed flu https://t.co/N4TkgI4uUR pic.twitter.com/0DCdYAPo7x — Andrew Bostom, MD, MS (@andrewbostom) January 31, 2023
We're sure the cult of Fauci will now start insisting peer-reviewed meta-analyses aren't 'the science.'
Tada... Just like they said in the beginning... So they said in the end.
Mask that aren’t N95 medical grade are absolutely useless... But it made the fearful feel safe. That was the entire reasoning behind the ‘mask’ mandate... Reassuring the fearful that they had nothing to fear. Even though they did, and didn’t... They did get Covid and most of them did survived. 90% of Covid deaths were people over 70 with health conditions that made them susceptible to any respiratory illness.
When masks used by the public are not preventing the cold or flu, have not ever prevented either for years, then the masks are not going to prevent Covid either. I don’t need a study by experts to give me permission to know what I already knew.
Spread the word, then.
Shout it from the highest Laptops!
Now we would like to see studies about any HARM, that was done to people, (especially children), who were FORCED to wear them for hours and hours on end.
I recall reading an article that said masks contain titanium dioxide, which apparently causes no problems, unless it is inhaled- then it becomes carcinogenic.
And what about psychological damage?
Also, large numbers of babies, and toddlers, had to be referred to Speech therapists, because of mask wearing.
How much more damage has been done?
This all needs to be looked into.
But the Chinese population has been very familiar with masks for decades - as a cheap prophylactic against sneezes and the common cold.
Even if proven to be barely better than sneezing into your armpit ...
And why would the US medical establishment suddenly recommend masking up, even knowing that they were just slightly better than a kerchief?
And they never counted our annual flu either. How many Covid deaths were not Covid at all.
I still see many people wearing their face diapers even in red Oklahoma. I am thinking about making a T-shirt that says: “2020 called and they want their facemask back”.
Studies? But the media told us that science is when a government employee makes a declaration on TV. We don’t need studies.
Fauci said in early Jan. 2020 that masks don’t work and Covid was just a bad flu.
That’s the last time he told the truth.
After Davos that year he did a 180. Wonder why???????/s
Excerpts from the study quoted in the following...
https://www.cochranelibrary.com/cdsr/doi/10.1002/14651858.CD006207.pub6/full
What are the limitations of the evidence?
Our confidence in these results is generally low to moderate for the subjective outcomes related to respiratory illness, but moderate for the more precisely defined laboratory‐confirmed respiratory virus infection, related to masks and N95/P2 respirators. The results might change when further evidence becomes available. Relatively low numbers of people followed the guidance about wearing masks or about hand hygiene, which may have affected the results of the studies.
[...]
Implications for practice
...The observed lack of effect of mask wearing in interrupting the spread of influenza‐like illness (ILI) or influenza/COVID‐19 in our review has many potential reasons, including: poor study design; insufficiently powered studies arising from low viral circulation in some studies; lower adherence with mask wearing, especially amongst children; quality of the masks used; self‐contamination of the mask by hands; lack of protection from eye exposure from respiratory droplets (allowing a route of entry of respiratory viruses into the nose via the lacrimal duct); saturation of masks with saliva from extended use (promoting virus survival in proteinaceous material); and possible risk compensation behaviour leading to an exaggerated sense of security (Ammann 2022; Brosseau 2020; Byambasuren 2021; Canini 2010; Cassell 2006; Coroiu 2021; MacIntyre 2015; Rengasamy 2010; Zamora 2006).
Well, of course wearing surgical masks does little to protect the wearer. They are not designed to do so.*
Note however that hospitalization rates in countries with high compliance mask wearing tend to be low. Lower virion levels in the air lead to initially smaller infections. Initially smaller infections usually (usually!) lead to less serious illness.
*Quality(!) N95’s used correctly do a good job of reducing virion levels present from being inhaled. But how many people ever had a useful supply of N95’s? I tried to survey my friends, acquaintances, church, people in stores, etc., and came up with 0.3%. One of which was me.
The KF94 masks (South Korea) were shown to have done about as well as the N95s in particle test reports. They’re much easier to breathe through and easy to wear (better for manual laborers). One needs to avoid the Chinese knockoffs, though. H.A.C. is one of the Korean companies that makes real ones.
I know several people who did manual labor in high human traffic environments (thousands of people per day in crowded conditions at times) without getting sick through the whole epidemic. They wore KF94s but were also vaccinated after vaccine availability (mandatory for those essential workers). They tried N95s but didn’t like them.
One employee wore N95s the whole time, but he was a slow mover. Still don’t know how he could stand to wear that thing while lifting, even slowly.
The employees I mentioned were properly instructed on how to wear, handle and dispose of the masks, by the way. They were also instructed on hand washing, using hand lotion, etc.
Speech impediments are off the charts.
Other, similar muzzle studies have yielded almost identical results. That’s real science in action: different researchers getting the same or similar results independently. We know the Democrat media is pushing dogma and propaganda rather than science because they say we can’t question it. The scientific method’s first step is, “Ask a question.”
I knew all along that muzzle mandates were never about stopping a virus. Those imposing muzzles weren’t serious about curing or preventing covid. Their actions prove it.
Muzzles were meant to break us of our individuality and dehumanize us. That’s why slaves had to wear them back in the day. Once again I thank the Canadian trucker protestors who ultimately broke the covidians’ power.
I could have told them that in a 20 minute evaluation using common sense along with two 10 minute coffee breaks.
people over 70
I’d make that people over 50 - lots of parents, grandparents and greatgran’s:
50=64 199K
65-74 249K
75-84 287K
85+ 295K
https://www.statista.com/statistics/1191568/reported-deaths-from-covid-by-age-us/
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