Mask Mandates Are Back In California, As Endless Cycle Continues

The annual cycle of insanity is back yet again in some parts of California. Mask mandates are making their triumphant return in the Bay Area, preemptively, ahead of winter.

The same mask mandates that have already failed repeatedly, every single season, every single winter, in every single circumstance since 2020. They're back. How did we get here?

While the mask mandates will cover mostly healthcare and long-term care facilities, it's an indication of the playbook moving forward in extreme, far-left parts of the country. It's now an ingrained truth, thanks to Dr. Anthony Fauci and the CDC, that masks are effective. The good, smart, intellectual people of "The Science" told terrified administrators that they could virtue signal about "safety" and their ideological purity by forcing people to wear masks. And boy did they take that message to heart.

Local news in San Francisco reported on Thursday that a number of counties in the Bay Area are reinstating mask mandates in several settings through *at least* March 2025. That's at least five months of masking in Alameda, Contra Costa, Santa Clara, San Mateo and Napa counties, starting November 1. Those counties cover a population of over 5.5 million people; roughly the same population as Minnesota and just a few hundred thousand behind Colorado.

Those people who go to hospitals, skilled nursing facilities and any other healthcare-related facility will be forced to mask through the start of spring 2025. 

It'd be unbelievable, if it wasn't so predictable.

A hiker wearing a mask because of the coronavirus walk past the Hollywood sign in Griffith Park in Los Angeles.  (Wally Skalij/Los Angeles Times via Getty Images)

COVID Mask Mandates Will Never Go Away 

This once again demonstrates that the incompetence of public health officials is heavily influenced by groupthink. It's no coincidence that these same counties all move in unison, with the same starting and end dates to their ineffective, disproven policy.

It's also no coincidence that these counties all lean heavily to the far left of the political spectrum. Yes, these locals are getting what they voted for. But the idiocy inherent in the decision to bring masks back into 2025 is rampant everywhere. Even in places that are more politically balanced, pro-mask fanatics run companies, institutions, and local government. And this new shift shows that they will never give up on the feeling of superiority, power and control they got from years of mandates earlier on in the pandemic.

By now, most sane, informed people are aware that the overwhelming evidence shows that masks don't work. High-quality masks don't work. Masks don't work when worn by healthcare providers, or doctors, or nurses, or the general public. There are no high-quality, randomized controlled trials that have shown masks to be effective at preventing the spread of infectious respiratory viruses. Not one.

Even observational studies claiming to show a benefit rely on ignoring confounding data, cherry-picked time periods, misleading criteria or a combination of all three. Simply, there's nothing to suggest that this policy will keep anyone healthy or uninfected. 

So why are these counties doing what we know doesn't work? 

Because they can. Because they know no one will complain and everyone will comply, as they have for years. Those of us who criticized Fauci and his allies warned that this would happen. And sure enough, here we are. Just hope it doesn't happen in your area.