I see that there are forty six No Minister posts marked with the tag of “Covid-19 Masks”, some of which are cross-over articles covering other aspects of the pandemic, but all of which make the point that they were useless in preventing people from spreading Chinese Lung Rot, catching it, and thus useless in slowing the spread of it.

And, like other actions taken during the C-19 Pandemic, all this was known in advance. Dr Fauci in February 2020:

“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 out gross droplets if someone coughs or sneezes on you. I do not recommend you wear a mask”

And the CDC, perhaps without realising it, had admitted the same thing:

As 2020 progressed the Meta evidence began pouring in (these are just four, check the link for others):

  1. A May 2020 meta-study on pandemic influenza published by the US CDC found that face masks had no effect, neither as personal protective equipment nor as a source control. (Source)
  2. A Danish randomized controlled trial with 6000 participants, published in the Annals of Internal Medicine in November 2020, found no statistically significant effect of high-quality medical face masks against SARS-CoV-2 infection in a community setting. (Source)
  3. A large randomized controlled trial with close to 8000 participants, published in October 2020 in PLOS One, found that face masks “did not seem to be effective against laboratory-confirmed viral respiratory infections nor against clinical respiratory infection.” (Source)
  4. A February 2021 review by the European CDC found no high-quality evidence in favor of face masks and recommended their use only based on the ‘precautionary principle’. (Source)

Or you could just look at this graph of an isolated Pacific Island that has good stats:

But what do such things matter in the face of fear-driven propaganda driven by every institution in society – and across every society like the USA…

… and New Zealand

But even by early 2022 the truth was beginning to break through into the public arena via the MSM and Social Media that had blocked it for two years:

The Mask Narrative crumbles: (Feb 2022)

YouTube allows users to say masks didn’t stop Covid (Aug 2022)

Essentially, you are now allowed to claim masks don’t work (Aug 2022)

By February 2023 even the New York Times got in on the act, though without acknowledging those nasty sceptics/ conspiracy theorists / nutters / CRANKS who – you know – turned out to be have been right all along:

The most rigorous and comprehensive analysis of scientific studies conducted on the efficacy of masks for reducing the spread of respiratory illnesses — including Covid-19 — was published late last month. Its conclusions, said Tom Jefferson, the Oxford epidemiologist who is its lead author, were unambiguous.

“There is just no evidence that they” — masks — “make any difference,” he told the journalist Maryanne Demasi. “Full stop.”

But, wait, hold on. What about N-95 masks, as opposed to lower-quality surgical or cloth masks?

“Makes no difference — none of it,” said Jefferson.

What about the studies that initially persuaded policymakers to impose mask mandates?

“They were convinced by non-randomized studies, flawed observational studies.”

As Ace of Spades noted at the time:

I’m sure you’ve noticed all the media and technocratic non-elite rushing to confess their errors? Remember, confessing errors is what they themselves say distinguish them from Disinformation Spreaders. If they don’t confess their errors, they are Disinformation Spreaders and Conspiracy Theorists.

Towards the end of the year, new studies appeared which struck a different blow against mask wearing: asymptomatic people (those showing no symptoms) could only spread the virus in very rare circumstances:

The paper, published in the August issue of the journal The Lancet Microbe, found that infected people presymptomatically–that is before they developed symptoms–very rarely had the ability to infect others.
…
What this means is that compelling people without Covid symptoms to wear masks in any number of environments–including, most controversially, schools–along with quarantining healthy people, closing schools, and other social distancing measures likely yielded far, far less societal benefit than we were told.

In other words, when you showed symptoms of C-19 the good old method of just staying home so you didn’t infect other people was the ticket. You didn’t need to wear a mask in public because you were already not in public. That link says that both studies employed methods of analysis more rigorous than the original observational or modelling studies:

The Lancet paper detailed the results of what is known as a challenge study, where participants were purposefully infected with SARS-CoV-2 (the virus that causes Covid) and then monitored in a controlled environment. The researchers, from Imperial College London, then tested for presence of the virus on the inside of masks worn by participants, their hands, and the air and surfaces in individual rooms that participants were kept in for at least 14 days. The authors found that just 7% of emissions into the air and environment from infected participants occurred before the first reported symptom.

This is an arresting finding, considering that it contradicts the prevailing wisdom among health professionals, authorities, and the public. Modeling studies–which are conjecture, based on subjective inputs from the modelers–as early as May 2020 had estimated that roughly 30% to 50% of community transmission occurred before reported symptoms. This set the narrative for the pandemic, and was used as a justification for much of the policies imposed on the public.

Incredibly I still see people wearing them, often while driving alone. But perhaps I’m being too harsh on ordinary people. After all, when confronted with this evidence (and for once, credit is in order for CNN to have done this) Dr Fauci responded as follows:

So masks work at the individual level – but not on the pandemic level. Sure. That makes total sense that only a doctor or someone with a PhD can figure, FFS. I’ll leave the last comments to these two men:

“Fauci confronted with most definitive data analysis possible that masks make ZERO difference against Covid. Not a little, not slight – Zero. And he just mutters some numerical illiteracy bullshit about ‘individual protection.’ He’s a fraud and a liar” – Buck Sexton (Conservative writer)

“It’s really hard to assume Fauci’s disastrous ‘mistakes’ were in good faith when he refuses to acknowledge obvious facts that don’t require a PhD to decipher. It looks a lot more like ‘TRUST THE SCIENCE!’ only applies when it suits Fauci’s personal or political narrative,” – Cliff Sims (Former Deputy Director of National Intelligence)