Wearing face-masks — even fancier N95 masks — probably has “little or no” effect in protecting against COVID-19 and the flu compared to not wearing one, according to a massive new British meta-study.
“There is uncertainty about the effects of masks,” concludes a team of 12 international researchers in the study published Jan. 30 in the peer-reviewed U.K. journal Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews.
“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,” an abstract of the U.K. study states.
Moreover, the study concludes that among medical workers, even the more robust N95 masks did not yield greater protection compared to more standard masks, which might surprise people who wear the boxier masks believing they are gaining heightened protection from COVID.
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“There were no clear differences between the use of medical/surgical masks compared with N95/P2 respirators in healthcare workers when used in routine care to reduce respiratory viral infection,” reports the abstract. The authors conclude: “The pooled results of RCTs [randomized controlled trials] did not show a clear reduction in respiratory viral infection with the use of medical/surgical masks.”
The researchers analyzed at 78 “randomised controlled studies” through October 2022 that looked at physical measures people take to avoid getting a respiratory infection like influenza or COVID-19 — from hand-washing and using hand sanitizers to wearing various types of face-masks.
Meanwhile, the CDC is “still recommending masking in areas with ‘high’ [COVID] transmission levels — fewer than four percent of U.S. counties — as well as indoor masking to protect high-risk contacts in ‘medium’ counties (27 percent),” reports Just the News in a story on the British study.
The Cochrane study described N95 masks as “close-fitting masks that filter the air breathed in, more commonly used by healthcare workers than the public.” A recent Substack article by Megan Mansell seeks to explain why N95 masks don’t work.
A “plain language summary” of the U.K. meta-analysis gives the following as among the potential reasons for the inefficacy of masks:
- “lower adherence with mask wearing, especially amongst children”;
- “quality of the masks used”;
- “self‐contamination of the mask by hands”;
- “lack of protection from eye exposure from respiratory droplets (allowing a route of entry of respiratory viruses into the nose via the lacrimal duct)”;
- “saturation of masks with saliva from extended use (promoting virus survival in proteinaceous material)”; and
- “possible risk compensation behaviour leading to an exaggerated sense of security.”
Regarding hand hygiene, the meta-study found that “following a hand hygiene programme may reduce the number of people who catch a respiratory or flu‐like illness … compared with people not following such a programme.” It also reports that several studies that it analyzed found people complaining of “discomfort” wearing masks.
The authors recommend more and better studies on the practical effects of supposedly protective measures and approaches, including “physical distancing,” e.g., the requirement of a six-foot gap between people widely embraced by authorities during the COVID pandemic.
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Just the News reports researchers for the Cochrane study “are affiliated with a geographically disparate range of institutions in the U.K., Canada, Australia, Italy and Saudi Arabia. Half are affiliated with the Institute for Evidence-Based Healthcare at Australia’s Bond University. The corresponding author is the University of Calgary’s John Conly.”
JTN reports that masks are still required in educational institutions in blue states New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, Washington and California, citing a story in the Daily Mail.”
EDITOR’S NOTE: What is behind the current war against America’s children? Why are so many adults killing their unborn children right up to the moment of birth, or even after? Why are millions of kids sexualized virtually from birth, and injected with an experimental “vaccine” proven to be both ineffective and dangerous, then as toddlers transported to events glorifying mentally ill, demonically possessed men dressed as women?
Why are America’s children systematically sexualized at school, and by transgender recruiters on social media platforms like TikTok, seducing many into “identifying” as the opposite gender, or a brand-new imaginary gender, then encouraged to take powerful drugs and hormones and have their healthy breasts amputated or undergo chemical or surgical castration?
Why are our children simultaneously indoctrinated with toxic Marxist ideologies like “critical race theory” intended to condition them to hate and reject their own country, parents, faith, race, gender and themselves? Why are they simultaneously being frightened of the future by being fed lurid, terrifying – and groundless – apocalyptic tales of the imminent destruction of the world due to global warming?
No wonder youth suicides have skyrocketed, as have depression, anxiety, addiction and drug overdoses. Indeed, fentanyl, the No. 1 cause of death of younger Americans 18 to 45, destroys multitudes of children annually.
Make no mistake: The harm being done to America’s children in this multi-front war is not accidental: Children are the primary target.
WHY? How can all this be happening in the greatest nation on earth? Who and what is behind it? And HOW CAN IT BE STOPPED?
Find out in the explosive January issue of WND’s critically acclaimed monthly Whistleblower magazine, “WINNING THE WAR AGAINST AMERICA’S CHILDREN,” available in both print and state-of-the-art digital editions.
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This article was originally published by the WND News Center.
Related:
- Awkward: Biden’s COVID Czar Admits No Study Shows That Masks Work As Press Pushes ‘Forever Masking’ (Video)
- Bombshell: N.Y. Times Admits Masks Do NOT Stop Spread Of COVID
- Not Satire: FEMA Updates Nuclear Explosion Info To Include Masks, Social Distancing
- AZ Gov. Fights Mask Mandates With Federal COVID Funds: Students Need Math, Not Masks
- Research Says Children Forced To Distance, Wear Masks All Day Long Suffer Brain Damage, Drastic Declines In IQ
- 150 Studies Show Masks Ineffective, Harmful
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