A Cochrane Review On Masking

Q: During Covid did masking make a difference?

Many of us asked this same question, and there has not been a definitive answer up till this point. However, a Cochrane Review just came out on this very subject.

(FYI: A Cochrane Review is a systematic review of research in health care and health policy that is published in the Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews. Cochrane Reviews are considered the gold standard of systematic reviews.)

To cut to the chase … from Townhall:

“The analysis, which examined 78 studies featuring more than a million people around the world, found that community masking made “little to no difference” to either Covid death or infection rates.”

From the section on medical or surgical masks:

“Ten studies took place in the community, and two studies in healthcare workers. Compared with wearing no mask in the community studies only, wearing a mask may make little to no difference in how many people caught a flu‐like illness/COVID‐like illness (9 studies; 276,917 people); and probably makes little or no difference in how many people have flu/COVID confirmed by a laboratory test (6 studies; 13,919 people). Unwanted effects were rarely reported; discomfort was mentioned.”

The study’s section on N95/P2 respirators was ‘also devastating,’ according to Dr. Vinay Prasad, a hematologist-oncologist and health researcher who is a professor of Epidemiology and Biostatistics at the University of California, San Francisco. It found that such masks made ‘little to no difference’ when compared with medical or surgical masks.

Writes Prasad: ‘Here is the big summary finding. With 276,000 participants in RCTs or cluster RCTs, masking does nothing. No reduction in influenza like or Covid like illness and no reduction in confirmed flu or COVID. That’s stone cold negative. See those effect sizes and confidence intervals.’”

These findings have not yet come out in the Main Stream Media. But don’t hold your breath, as they probably never will.

Not to be a braggart, but I am glad that Cochrane Review agreed with what I have been saying for a long time about masking in general. I must admit that I was surprised concerning the benefit of N95s … as perhaps N95s are only beneficial if they are individually form fitted.

2/9/23

129 Replies to “A Cochrane Review On Masking”

  1. Sadly, the main stream media will never ” unmask” their biases toward wearing masks. And our leaders , especially Joe Biden will keep wearing them . Finally, when will we ever be able to visit a doctor’s office again without a mask?

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