The top study mentioned in the article was this. This was the number one most cited study on mask effectiveness at the time. A co-author was the director of the CDC at the time.
So what’s in the study? They tested symptomatic health care workers Mass General Brigham. And they found that the percentage of positive test results went up from 0% to 15% from March 1 to 25 before masks were mandated.
Then after masks were mandated for staff and patients, the percentage of positive tests dropped from 18% to 10% between April 11 and 30. This graphic pretty much says it all.
My immediate though upon reading this was to ask what was happening with test results in Massachusetts during the same time periods. Here it is, some early dates omitted from graph at beginning because values all zero. Data from Covid Tracking Project.
The percentage of positive test results for the state as a whole went from 0% about 15% in the first period, just like the hospital workers.
And it went down slightly during the second period, just like the hospital workers. From about 30% to 20%.
There is no evidence here that masks made any difference. None. The test population was getting essentially the same result as the statewide population.
This is so basic an error that I could not believe I was reading it. There is no way the authors of the study could be so clueless as to fail to realize it. It had to be intentional. The authors of the study were trying to create a particular result. It is complete garbage.
How does something like this even get published?
How does it get picked up as the primary evidence for masks “working” in the WSJ and widely in the media in general?
I am hardly the first person to point out what garbage this study is. It has been lampooned. But here it is, still, today, listed on the CDC’s mask evidence page – footnote 42.
Covid Natural Vaccine Immunity vs. Vaccine Immunity
Institutions foolishly seem determined to ignore immunity from natural infection. So I have reviewed the evidence regarding how powerful natural immunity is, and how it compares to immunity from vaccines.
Covid Reinfections to Date
Surely the most obvious question to ask regarding the strength of natural immunity is how many reinfections have there been. Covid has been around for more than 17 months.
There have been more than 163 million cases reported. The risk of reinfection should be quite evident by now. How many reinfections have there been?
Globally there are 72 confirmed re-infections of covid, out of over 163 million cases. 3 confirmed deaths.
According to the data from the Pfizer trial, a 15 year old who takes the vaccine has an extra 0.3% risk of a “serious adverse event” in the seven weeks between first dose and one month after second dose. "Serious adverse event" basically means hospitalization or worse.
The cumulative rate of hospitalization of 5 to 17 year olds with covid over the past 15 months of exposure in the USA is 0.03%.
So the risk of serious adverse events from the vaccine is 8.9 times as big as the risk of hospitalization due to 15 months of covid exposure.