Free Republic

Twitter on Sunday removed a tweet from one of President Donald Trump's top Covid-19 advisers falsely claiming masks don't work to prevent the spread of coronavirus. The tweet no longer appeared on the site as of Sunday morning, replaced with a note saying "This Tweet is no longer available" and a link to Twitter's rules and policies explaining why the company removes or limits certain posts. The tweet in question, posted on Saturday by Dr. Scott Atlas, read, "Masks work? NO: LA, Miami, Hawaii, Alabama, France, Phlippnes, UK, Spain, Israel. WHO:"widesprd use not supported" + many harms; Heneghan/Oxf CEBM:"despite decades,...

CLAIM More people who wear masks become sick with COVID-19 compared to non-mask wearers, therefore masks don’t work or are making us ill SOURCE: Jordan Davidson, The Federalist, 12 Oct. 2020 DETAILS Flawed reasoning: The comparison made in the claim is not related to mask effectiveness, but is simply the result of the fact that the study included many more people who wear masks as compared to people who never wore masks to begin with. Of all 314 individuals in the study, there were only 11 who never wore masks. By default, a comparison of the proportions of people who...

Recently, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention put out a “study” claiming that the imposition of mask mandates in Arizona reduced new COVID cases by 75 percent. This is just another example of the weak “science” that the CDC has spewed for months. The piece is simply a report, not a study. And it isn’t a particularly good report. It suffers from extreme justification bias. In other words, the authors of the report had a desired outcome when they put their report together. In fact, one of the authors of the report is the head of the Arizona Department...

"Actually, it appears that masks are today more like what the Vichy French were to the advancing German forces." This is in response to Governor Jay Inslee pontificating, "What aircraft carriers were in World War II, masks are today."

A simple trick can reveal whether your face mask offers sufficient protection: Try blowing out a candle while wearing it. A good mask should prevent you from extinguishing the flame. The rule isn't foolproof, but it should help weed out masks that aren't very protective. Ever since the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) began recommending cloth masks for the general public in April, researchers have been evaluating the best materials for filtering the coronavirus. An ideal mask blocks both large respiratory droplets from coughs or sneezes - the primary method by which people pass the virus to others...

Breathe easy. A new study suggests that surgical face masks don’t cause a buildup of carbon dioxide or restrict oxygen, despite opposing claims. The study, on the “Effect of Face Masks on Gas Exchange in Healthy Persons and Patients with COPD,” which was published in the Annals of the American Thoracic Society on Friday, was conducted after a group of Florida residents challenged Florida’s mask-wearing mandate in June, arguing that wearing the protective face coverings could result in the buildup of too much carbon dioxide.