Free Republic

A review of the studies done so far has concluded that wearing masks really does help prevent the spread of covid-19. It is far from the first paper to come to this finding, so why does the issue remain so controversial? The problem is that it isn’t easy to carry out individual studies of the highest standard during a pandemic. That standard is a randomised controlled trial (RCT), in which people are randomly assigned to either get a treatment or intervention, in this case wearing a mask, or not. Because of the practical difficulties, only two RCTs have looked at...

If anything can sum up the charm of Sarah Palin, Governor of Alaska and now the Republican Party’s vice-presidential nominee, it is perhaps the nickname she gave her husband, Todd: “First Dude”. It would, after all, take an icy heart not to warm to an oil rig worker and commercial fisherman from the far reaches of Alaska’s North Slope: a man’s man; a beer drinker; a salt-of-the-earth type. As far as the US public was concerned, Mrs Palin might as well have been married to Jeff Bridges in The Big Lebowski. Adding to the charm were the stories about the...