In February 2023, researchers from known institutions — including the University of Oxford and the University of Calgary called to probe if masks “really do protect people from COVID-19?”
The study recently uncovered that “wearing a mask may make little to no difference in how many people caught a flu-like illness/COVID-like illness…and probably makes little or no difference in how many people have flu/COVID confirmed by a laboratory test.”
The meta-analysis by Cochrane Library conducted in-depth research on N95 and P2s, the European version of N95.
The institution did four studies in healthcare workers and one small study in a community.
The 5 studies conducted, which were participated by 8,407 people, confirmed that “compared with wearing medical or surgical masks, wearing N95/P2 respirators probably makes little to no difference in how many people have contracted the virus.”
Researchers who initiated the meta-analysis in the Cochrane Library looked at 78 randomized control trials that probed the spread of respiratory viruses, including H1N1 and viruses that spread during epidemic influenza season.
The studies took place, said the meta-analysis, “in low‐, middle‐, and high‐income countries worldwide: in hospitals, schools, homes, offices, childcare centers, and communities during non‐epidemic influenza periods, the global H1N1 influenza pandemic in 2009, epidemic influenza seasons up to 2016, and during the COVID‐19 pandemic.”
“There is just no evidence that they make any difference. Full stop,” said Oxford’s Tom Jefferson, who leads the Cochrane review.
He also explained that although it may seem “intutive” that masks must do something, they still allow viruses to move through aerosol even when worn correctly.
Cochrane is the world’s largest and most respected organization for evaluating health interventions. The National Institutes of Health and health institutions across the globe support the review. Medical journals and academic papers acknowledge it as “the best single resource for methodologic research” and is recognized worldwide as “the highest standard in evidence-based healthcare.”
These new findings put the CDC’s wear-a-mask-any-mask campaign into question.
Before this study, CNN’s medical analyst and Milken Institute School of Public Health professor Leana Wen have also been critical of the use of masks. For Wen, cloth masks are useless, and a little more than “facial decorations.”
This meant that the masks used by ordinary folks weren’t protecting anybody. Furthermore, it only represents an element of pandemic hygiene theater: a public health requirement that makes people feel safer without offering them actual protection.
She also added that wearing masks, especially in developing children has caused significant speech delays.
