The Centers for Disease Control is not only pushing the mask mandate, it is doubling-down on it. Literally.
The CDC carried out a new study that implores Americans to double their masks. The New York Times summarized the report:
Wearing a mask — any mask — reduces the risk of infection with the coronavirus, but wearing a more tightly fitted surgical mask, or layering a cloth mask atop a surgical mask, can vastly increase protections to the wearer and others, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported on Wednesday.
New research by the agency shows that transmission of the virus can be reduced by up to 96.5 percent if both an infected individual and an uninfected individual wear tightly fitted surgical masks or a cloth-and-surgical-mask combination.
The public is likely to misread the study’s implications. There are a number of health policy issues with mask-wearing among the general public, such as poor rates of compliance and non-compliance, and citizens wearing the wrong kinds of masks.
This is only fueling officials to push back harder on the public to make the compliance rates so high that the science will suddenly ‘work.’ The director of the CDC is one of them.
“With cases hospitalizations and deaths still very high, now is not the time to roll back mask requirements. The bottom line is this: masks work and they work when they have a good fit and are worn correctly,” Dr. Rochelle P. Walensky said about her conclusions.
It really appears that what these officials fear the most is being wrong. There is no strong evidence that such masks or lockdowns even slow the spread, in terms of cross-national or state-level data.
That isn’t stopping bureaucrats from overstating the certainty of their conclusions, raising credibility questions about the underlying motives for their edicts.
The recent “double mask” fad is a case in point. Doctor Fauci played a hand in fueling the “double-mask” trend weeks ago:
It has led some public health experts, including Dr. Anthony Fauci, chief medical adviser to President Joe Biden on COVID-19, to recommend layering up on masks or opting for a more protective N95 mask when going out in public.
Masks cover the mouth and nose to limit respiratory droplets and virus particles from getting in or out, Fauci, who also is the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, explained on NBC’s “Today” show.
“So if you have a physical covering with one layer, you put another layer on, it just makes common sense that it likely would be more effective and that’s the reason why you see people either double masking or doing a version of an N95,” he said.
An article in the Detroit Free Press cited a journal article that said wearing a second mask may help, because it may help the fit if one is wearing a surgical-grade mask underneath. The same study concedes that cloth “masks” are worthless:
“Cloth masks ranged in particle removal efficiency from 28% to 91% when worn as designed.”
Dr. Fauci ultimately wound up then fact-checking… himself.
“There’s no data that indicates that that is going to make a difference,” Dr. Fauci said in an interview with the National Institute of Health.
This isn’t the first time that Dr. Fauci had reversed understanding of the ‘settled science.’ In June 2020, he admitted that his prior lack of endorsement for masks was purportedly to ensure availability for public health workeers.
“Fauci didn’t just fail to promote masks early on, he actively discouraged the use of masks, saying they didn’t work. “
Then it didn’t matter if it was N95 masks, which are medical grade masks, or surgical masks, but even any old cloth mask will do. If that’s not the case now, and we should all “double mask,” then they were wrong about that all along, as well.
Peer-reviewed studies, and surveys of studies, going back decades fail to conclusively show that wearing masks or sweeping mask mandates significantly slow the transmission rates of respiratory virus infection rates.
Furthermore, a scientifically grounded Danish study, which numerous journals refused to publish due for no other seeming reason that the editors didn’t like its implications, showed that a non-mask wearing control group and a masked group had no appreciable difference in outcomes preventing the contraction of COVID-19:
A high-quality, large-scale Danish study finds no evidence that wearing a face mask significantly minimizes people’s risk of contracting COVID-19. The randomized-control trial found no statistically significant difference in coronavirus infection rates between mask-wearers and non-mask-wearers. In fact, according to the data, mask usage may actually increase the likelihood of infection.
“The recommendation to wear surgical masks to supplement other public health measures did not reduce the SARS-CoV-2 infection rate among wearers by more than 50% in a community with modest infection rates, some degree of social distancing, and uncommon general mask use,” the report concluded.
It is people’s right to believe in wearing masks. Americans have freedom of religion in this country.
The CDC and Dr. Fauci cannot even get on the same page from one week to the next. This is not reassuring for Americans who simply just want to “follow the science,” and not the capricious whims of bureaucrats posing as free citizens’ personal caretakers. If we have been following the “science” during the COVID pandemic, the “science” must be changing from one week to the next.
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OPINION: This article contains commentary which reflects the author's opinion.