The great mask reversal

How masks became a mainstay of public health, overturning decades of scientific consensus

Mar 13, 2024

On May 11, 2020, Stephanie Warriner left her Toronto hospital room to find something to eat. She wasn't wearing a mask. Guards confronted and restrained her. She suffered brain death due to "asphyxia following struggle and exertion" [1]. Her body was allowed to die two weeks later. Her family sued. The judge dismissed the case. Nobody will be held accountable for her death [2].

Other similar episodes happened around the world. What follows is only a tiny fraction of them. On April 11, 2020 a Philadelphia man was violently dragged from a bus by police for refusing to wear a mask [3]. On May 9, 2020, an Australian man protesting draconian COVID policies was restrained, arrested, and forcibly masked [4]. On May 14, 2020, a mother was wrestled to the ground by a squad of police officers in front of her child for not wearing a mask on a New York subway [5]. She sued and won. On August 11, 2020, a 21-year-old Australian mother of three was choked and arrested for not wearing a mask. She had been to the doctor and had a mask exemption. She was charged with assaulting a police officer [6]. On September 23, 2020, a woman was tased and arrested at a high school football game for refusing to wear a mask [7]. On May 20, 2021, a grandmother and Sunday school teacher spoke at a school board meeting against the school’s policy forcing children to wear masks. She was arrested [8]. On July 4th, 2021, a 12-year-old Australian girl was pepper sprayed and arrested by police in front of her family for not wearing a mask [9]. On June 15, 2021, an employee at a hardware store attacked a customer with a baseball bat for not wearing a mask. He beat the customer [10]. On July 1, 2021, elderly Australian store owners were beaten and arrested by police for telling customers not to wear masks [11]. On September 3, 2021, an Australian man was assaulted by police for not wearing a mask. He locked himself inside a car, but they smashed his windows and arrested him [12]. On September 24, 2021, five men entered a store in Australia without masks, and an elite police unit savagely beat and arrested them. When the incident was caught on camera, charges were dropped [13]. On October 4, 2021, a teenage boy objecting to the use of masks was arrested and ejected from a school board meeting. Some of the police involved were themselves not wearing a mask [14]. On April 26, 2022, a man at Costco threatened to pepper spray customers and employees who were not wearing masks, claiming they were "threatening his life" [15].

During the pandemic, countless people's rights were violated without any benefit. All of these episodes happened because CDC and other public health organizations misled the public about the science of masking. They called it science, but it wasn't science at all. It was ideology.

What is most shocking is that the public health establishment has long known that the available evidence does not support masking for viral pathogens.

In 2019, the World Health Organization published a systematic review and meta-analysis on the use of face masks for the prevention of influenza, involving ten high-quality studies with more than 6000 participants [16]. Its conclusion:

"There was no evidence that face masks are effective in reducing transmission of laboratory-confirmed influenza."

In May 2020, the CDC conducted its own systematic review and meta-analysis, this time of fourteen high-quality studies [17]. Its conclusion:

"Although mechanistic studies support the potential effect of hand hygiene or face masks, evidence from 14 randomized controlled trials of these measures did not support a substantial effect on transmission of laboratory-confirmed influenza."

In 2019, when asked whether people should wear masks and socially distance themselves to avoid infection, Fauci laughed and called this “paranoia” [18]. Emails also show that in February [19] and March [20] of 2020, Fauci knew that masks do not protect against respiratory viral infection.

In early February 2020, Fauci himself wrote in a private email to the United States Secretary of Health and Human Services Sylvia Burwell [19]:

“The typical mask you buy in the drug store is not really effective in keeping out virus, which is small enough to pass through the material. It might, however, provide some slight benefit in keep [sic] out gross droplets if someone coughs or sneezes on you. I do not recommend that you wear a mask, particularly since you are going to a very low risk location.”

Fauci’s assistant also forwarded a summary of a morning meeting to participants [20]. In it, the presenter says, consistent with the evidence at the time and now:

“I can see an argument for a theoretical benefit but the data is scarce and studies have many flaws.”

Meanwhile, in March 2020, Trump’s Surgeon General Jerome Adams reported faithfully the randomized controlled trial evidence that masks do not work. He even warned masks might increase the risk of COVID [21]. (He would later become one of the most zealous mask promoters.)

However, by April 2020, advice had reversed. Here is CDC at the time [22]:

“CDC is advising the use of simple cloth face coverings to slow the spread of the virus and help people who may have the virus and do not know it from transmitting it to others.”

There was universal scientific consensus pre-April 2020 that masks did not work. But, somehow, post-April 2020, what had once been scientific consensus had suddenly become "misinformation".

In July 2020, Anders Tegnell, in charge of Sweden's COVID response, said he did not mandate masks because they are unscientific and provide false reassurance, which might actually increase the spread of COVID-19 [23]. He was fiercely criticized [24]. But he was simply reporting the evidence; his critics were appealing to emotions.

The same thing happened with the Cochrane Collaboration, the world’s most esteemed research organization, when it analyzed the evidence and concluded that, after dozens of randomized controlled trials there was no good evidence that masks were effective [25]. It was lambasted by the establishment as misleading or worse.

How does something like that happen? How does scientific consensus become "misinformation" within just a few months, without any change in the actual science? How is it that institutions continue imposing mask mandates despite overwhelming evidence in the opposite direction?

This is a gravely serious question that must be answered.

Forbidden Science

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