Coronavirus Fact-Check #17: Masks STILL Don’t Work

Both the US and UK have seen the (attempted) re-introduction of facemask mandates amid “surging Covid cases” in the New Year.

On January 9th, ABC news headlined:

More US schools institute mask mandates as COVID cases rise

Reporting that public schools in New Jersey, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania and Michigan were re-introducing mask mandates. That follows late-December mandates imposed in Oakland and Iowa, among others.

It’s not much different in the UK, where there have been no mandates issued, but “experts” are “urging” people to wear masks to “limit the spread of flu, Covid and Scarlet Fever”, according to the Daily Mail. The OKHSA issued “guidance”, as they are wont to do.

Meanwhile, the Guardian is back to publishing manipulative op-eds attempting to “end the culture war” on masks, and turning the whole issue into nothing but a virtue signal.

All of this is, of course, pure propaganda that ignores actual science in favour “The Science^TM“.

Masks don’t work, that was our 6th Covid Fact-check, back in June of 2020.

For over two years we’ve been publishing piles of evidence that face masks not only do nothing to prevent the spread of respiratory viruses but are actually harmful in myriad ways.

We really don’t want to have to go over all the old research papers again…

…and we don’t have to, because there’s a new one.

On January 30th the Cochrane Library published an updated literature review on facemasks from Dr Tom Jefferson et al.

On cloth masks, a review of a dozen studies found:

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 laboratory‐confirmed influenza/SARS‐CoV‐2 compared to not wearing masks…

There you go. Maybe wear that quote on a lanyard instead of a mask this year.

You can read all our previous Covid fact-checks here.