On the heels of research that reported a 40% increase in COVID infections among regular mask users, the public masking menace has taken another shot to the McNuggets. This time, from a past that reinforces what we’re seeing now. Masks make matters worse.
Not to beat a dead horse dewormer narrative, but before the politicization of mask compliance and mandates, there was a respected body of evidence that was affirmed by science and scientists. Public masking was useless against the flu virus. But the Chinese do it, so Marxists decided that we should too. With few exceptions, the political and public health classes failed the test. They chose Marxism over science and rapidly embraced the totalitarian police state mentality about enforcement. It’s not a good look, and there’s no shortage of words on these pages about that, but our objection wasn’t just political. The science hasn’t changed, and more recent research affirms what UK Heath Minister Dame Jenny Harries has been saying since March 2020.
Professor Dame Jenny Harries, now the head of the UK Health Security Agency, explained that the policy wasn’t based on scientific reality and had the effect of instilling a “false sense of security,” convincing people that they would reduce their risk of becoming infected if they wore a mask.
She also told the inquiry that government advice on how to make a mask out of bits of cloth and old t-shirts was wholly “ineffective.”
Whatever your position was or is on public masking or reasonable exemptions from it, the problem (wholly aligning with what was passed for despotic mandates) was the false sense of efficacy and the increased likelihood of harm. While Norweigan researchers found that regular masking resulted in up to a 40% rise in COVID-19 infections – quite the opposite result of the stated purpose – there are numerous risks unrelated to flu that come with blocking your airway. But masked meant compliant, and new revelations about old science continue to damage the brand.
We’ll always have flu, and it will always be nasty for vulnerable populations, but if you can’t get everyone else to wear your gang colors, then the tyranny needs a new groove.
The WEFers, the UN, and its WHOs in Public Health Whoville need to find a replacement or a way to counteract the rise in “science” that contradicts their mask messaging. And while it doesn’t take much to get a local lib-majority council to impose one even now, if you’ve been paying attention, mask-wearing is less popular than the latest COVID booster. Useless Social Distancing is non-existent, and few, if any, give you the side-eye if you sneeze or cough in public.
“Bless you” is more likely than what we had from 2020-2022. Lane Nazis with hands shaking from rage, pointing at arrows on the floor in a direction opposite the one you travel. No arrows, no pointing, no angry eyes above even more useless cloth masks, but both fear and tyranny still lurk in the minds of weak men and women—Tin-pot local dictators on both sides of the aisle who keep running for and getting elected to office.
If we want mask mandates dead, those folks will need to be shown the door. Still, much like the complacency over meaningful election integrity reform outside what the left calls the radical right, that’s not happening to scale. Until it does, we can’t pronounce the policy doomed.
As much as we’d like to do that.
