Thread by @charlesbrew

Masks don’t control the spread of respiratory viruses. How do we know?

1. Widely studied and accepted prior to 2020.
2. Studies in favor of masking are shockingly weak.
3. Oceans of data from past 18 months - if masks worked we would see it. But we don’t.

Details follow.

Pre-covid, the fact that masks are not effective for controlling the spread of respiratory viruses had been well-studied for decades and the near-unanimous and completely uncontroversial conclusion was that they don't help.

Here is May a 2020 CDC meta study of RCTs that concludes there is no benefit of face masks for controlling influenza:

wwwnc.cdc.gov/eid/article/26…

Fauci knew masks didn’t work back in early 2020, as did the CDC and WHO.

nypost.com/2021/06/06/was…

Here is a more comprehensive list of studies of mask effectiveness, much but not all of it from the pre-covid period.

swprs.org/face-masks-evi…

On to the second main point of this thread - the studies that mask advocates put forward to show that masks do work are just incredibly weak.

In this tweet I review one that was promoted vigorously last summer as "proof" that masks work. It is such obvious garbage - case rates going up and down in parallel with general population - how does something like this even get printed?

https://twitter.com/charlesbrew/status/1396231339897204741

Then there were the two hairdressers in Missouri who failed to infect their clients. Couldn't possibly be any other reason for that besides the masks, right!? Seriously, this is one of the most cited pieces of "research" in favor of masks.

cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/6…

More examples of studies in favor of face masks here. Again, this is all just shockingly weak. Cherry picking dates. Ignoring background trends and other confounding factors. Weak, weak ... pathetic.

swprs.org/face-masks-evi…

Finally, we have just been through 18+ months of a huge variety of masking behaviour and mandates. There are oceans of data. There is every opportunity for the efficacy of mask wearing to show itself in the data. But it has resoundingly failed to do so.

This, to me, is the most powerful evidence of all that masks make no difference. If they made a difference, WE WOULD BE ABLE TO SEE IT by now.

This has been vividly captured in innumerable graphs by @ianmSC , @OBusybody , @MarkChangizi , @The_OtherET and others. Here are some of my favorites. First, the south:

https://twitter.com/ianmSC/status/1360319669635190787

Next the amazingly consitent pattern through the great plains states despite radically different mask policies:

https://twitter.com/OBusybody/status/1352699709475987456

A study showing no correlation between mask use and covid spread. Correlation does not imply cause, but causation without some correlation is vanishingly unlikely.

https://twitter.com/MarkChangizi/status/1417926700797677568

@ianmSC has a nearly unlimited collection of comparisons like this:

https://twitter.com/ianmSC/status/1417196589249024003

I was reluctant to make a big deal about masks for a long time. They are not as devastating as lockdowns, or closed businesses or closed schools. But mask requirements do have enormous costs. Especially to children.

Masks don't work. It would be nice if they did, but they don't. It sort of seems intuitively like maybe they should ... but they don't. Everyone knew it pre-2020. The evidence is even more conclusive now. It is time to stop pretending.

Addendum: voluminous studies about the masks being of no benefit for children.

rationalground.com/masks-children…