Another Study Confirms What We Already Knew: Masks Don’t Work Against COVID

"Follow the science."

That has to be one of the most infuriating, disastrous, repeated phrases of the pandemic, used to justify any number of inexcusable policies, mandates and authoritarian actions.

The Science™ supposedly supported universal masking, school closures, mandates and random business closures or capacity limits based on entirely arbitrary criteria. One by one, all of these policies have been debunked through data, evidence and actual science.

Study after study has confirmed what observational data has demonstrated: these policies don’t work.

Randomized controlled trials have shown masks don’t work, the gold standard of evidence reviews used the best available data to create a comprehensive case against masking, and thorough observational studies have also shown masks don’t work.

And now there’s another one — that is unsurprisingly not being presented by the traditional media or in social media discussions.

WILMINGTON, DE - AUGUST 13: Presumptive Democratic presidential nominee former Vice President Joe Biden puts his mask back on after delivering remarks following a coronavirus briefing with health experts at the Hotel DuPont in 2020 in Wilmington, Delaware. (Photo by Drew Angerer/Getty Images)

New Study Demonstrates Masks Don’t Work

By now the randomized controlled trials on masking are well known. There was the DANMASK study from Denmark, which showed no effect. Also the study conducted in Bangladesh was purported to show an effect, but only for those over 65. That effect, however, vanished when analyzed with conventional methodology. And there was also the Guinea-Bissau study, which once again showed no effect from masking in the real world.

Now, a new study from Norway has been published, demonstrating much the same…though in a different way.

The study was designed to test the impact of being assigned to wear surgical face masks relative to those who did not wear masks. 4647 adults aged ≥18 years: 2371 were assigned to the intervention (mask) arm and 2276 to the control arm. Essentially, they instructed one group of people to wear surgical face masks when in public, and told another group of people not to mask when in public.

Sounds straightforward enough. But the way that they determined whether or not the intervention (masks) was effective though, is where the problem starts.

They didn’t require everyone to be tested prior to, during and after the intervention, but merely asked them to self-report, with only some of the subjects registering a COVID infection.

"MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES The primary outcome was self-reported respiratory symptoms consistent with a respiratory infection. Secondary outcomes included self-reported and registered covid-19 infection."

This was done to "evaluate the personal protective effects of wearing versus not wearing surgical face masks in public spaces on self-reported respiratory symptoms over a 14 day period."

But as we’ve seen before, in the California study that notoriously used a phone survey to measure mask efficacy, self-reporting is not a reliable source of data. Especially in a situation like this; people that are involved in a trial regarding respiratory virus symptoms are going to be more predisposed to looking for them.

Still, the results of the trial showed yet again, that wearing a mask or not wearing a mask made virtually no difference in COVID infections.

"Between 10 February 2023 and 27 April 2023, 4647 participants were randomised of whom 4575 (2788 women (60.9%); mean age 51.0 (standard deviation 15.0) years) were included in the intention-to-treat analysis: 2313 (50.6%) in the intervention arm and 2262 (49.4%) in the control arm. 163 events (8.9%) of self-reported symptoms consistent with respiratory infection were reported in the intervention arm and 239 (12.2%) in the control arm. The marginal odds ratio was 0.71 (95% confidence interval (CI) 0.58 to 0.87; P=0.001) favouring the face mask intervention. The absolute risk difference was −3.2% (95% CI −5.2% to −1.3%; P<0.001). No statistically significant effect was found on self- reported (marginal odds ratio 1.07, 95% CI 0.58 to 1.98; P=0.82) or registered covid-19 infection (effect estimate and 95% CI not estimable owing to lack of events in the intervention arm)."

ven using the unreliable self-reporting criteria, there was an insignificant 3% risk reduction in respiratory virus symptoms based on wearing a mask. More importantly though, there was no effect whatsoever on either self-reported or registered COVID.

Remember all those headlines about how we could end COVID if we all wore masks? That the virus would be eliminated, that we could protect ourselves with masking? Those messages are still being disseminated; recently Los Angeles told residents to wear masks, with San Francisco not too far behind.

Their public health department’s post quite literally says to wear a mask to protect yourself from getting COVID.

"Make this summer a healthy one for yourself and others. With COVID-19 circulating, please consider wearing a well-fitted mask in crowded indoor spaces. #COVID #CovidVaccination"

Now we have a fourth large study to confirm that there is no difference whatsoever in COVID infections regardless of masking.

But it does reduce respiratory virus symptoms, by 3%, the pro-maskers might say. Even that effect though, might be statistical noise.

Buried in the explanation is the fact that data was missing for 20.7% of the intervention arm and 13.7% of the control arm. Over 20% of those who were assigned to wear masks did not complete the survey. Of those that did fill out the survey, self-reported COVID symptoms were identical. The missing data is a sizable portion of the survey population, which could have changed the results substantially. Especially considering roughly 80% of the participants believed masks worked. If you think masks work, but you experience respiratory virus symptoms anyway, would you be more or less likely to report the results?

I think we all know the answer to that.

Not to mention, of course, that a 3% risk reduction, even if it were legitimate, is statistically insignificant in the long run, especially against an endemic virus. And it pales in comparison to the 80-90% reduction in infections championed by the CDC, Fauci and other public health authorities.

Given the extremely small difference in respiratory virus symptoms vanishes when considering COVID, it’s also possible, if not likely, that this was a placebo effect or simply self-misdiagnosis.

For example, let’s say you have a ceiling fan running over night and wake up with a dry throat. How easy would it be, when in a self-reported study, to attribute that to a respiratory virus? Or if you get a headache during the day because of dehydration. Or have a runny nose thanks to allergies.

It’s impossible to disentangle normal daily activities from respiratory virus symptoms. But COVID, being more specific, is a bit more obvious. And even in this study, virtually everyone who reported COVID symptoms did not register a COVID case.

Given the marginal differences between the two arms, you could easily run this experiment again with one group wearing a hat and the other not, and get the same results.

Once again, this is a study that shows masks don’t work. It confirms all the other studies that show masks don’t work. And it backs up the observational data showing masks don’t work. There is overwhelming evidence that masks don’t work…so why do public health departments keep recommending them?