The COVID pandemic is in the rear view mirror. We have plenty of data about it, including studies telling us how well our countermeasures worked.
A dozen scientists from around the world conducted a massive metastudy of our efforts to fight COVID, as well as similar efforts to fight the flu, and they published the results in the Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews.
The authors examined 78 different studies on the efficacy of different mitigation efforts such as masking, distancing, screening, quarantining, and hand-washing. How did these interventions affect the spread of the flu, COVID, or similar viruses?
The studies included were diverse. They covered epidemics as well as periods of low transmission. They covered rich countries and poor countries, suburban schools and inner-city neighborhoods, hospitals and villages.
Most important was what they had in common: They were all randomized controlled trials or at least cluster-RCTs. These are the gold standard for studies because they have the greatest chance of avoiding confounding factors. Non-randomized, non-controlled trials — for example, observational studies — can be compromised if, say, people become more likely to wear masks at times or places that already have higher rates of spread, or if people who wore masks were also more fastidious hand-washers.
So, what did the studies find?
For starters, hand-washing was effective in stopping the spread of these illnesses. That's not surprising.
But here's the most eye-opening finding: "Wearing masks in the community probably makes little or no difference to the outcome of influenza‐like illness/COVID‐19-like illness compared to not wearing masks." In other words, masks didn't do much — if anything.
It's possible that a community could drive down spread if everyone wore well-fitted high-quality masks such as N-95s or respirators, but there is no conclusive evidence that it does.
With that in mind, think back to late 2020 to mid-2022, when mayors, governors, school districts, and even the U.S. Department of Transportation and Joe Biden were forcing masks on unwilling people — especially children — even when viral transmission was very low.
Early on, when public-health officials told us to wear masks, they were simply playing it safe. But as time went on, even as the efficacy of masks became more doubtful, the officials switched from asking to mandating.
They went beyond mandating, of course, and attacked everyone who resisted their mandates as selfish grandma-killers. The mayors and county executives who required masks knew they didn't work, obviously, because these same mayors and county executives personally refused to wear these masks in exactly the situations where they were mandating the masks.
What happened in the past happened in the past. The mask mandaters in 2020 had an excuse. The mandaters in 2023 don't. Today, they should all personally and publicly fess up and explain why they made the mistakes they did.
If the mask mandaters don't explain the source of their error, they are immolating whatever authority and credibility they have left.
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