Mark Williams
I got my title from a 90’s dance music album by a group called Altern-8. Famous for their mask-wearing and hazmat suits at raves I was reminded of them by the mask hysteria we are now currently experiencing.
How did we go from no facemasks to suddenly we all have to use facemasks in such a short amount of time without the media even so much as blinking? I think we all know the answer to the second half of that question as the media are clearly obsessed with locking down the country.
It basically creates a captive audience for them that they can then indoctrinate with their never-ending COVID-19 fear peddling. Clickbait harvesting has never been so good and they have also managed to pressure millions of taxpayers funds out of this government. They even had the cheek to boast about how much profit they made this year while they pocketed their share of the free government handouts.
The media simply switched their climate change, fear-mongering model with COVID-19 and hey presto, junk science on steroids where the media-driven hysteria ensues. So in light of that revelation let’s take a closer look as to why, all across the world, after they had said for months that facemasks did no good, governments suddenly were pushing the mandatory use of them.
The change of heart with facemasks is based mostly off a meta-study from back in June 2020 actioned by the World Health Organization. All is not what it seems with this study published in the Lancet medical journal yet it has been instrumental in shifting facemask policies across the globe.
The BFD. Results of the WHO meta-study in the Lancet journal June 2020
However, the study now faces calls to have major parts of it retracted, rendering it completely meaningless. The study has boldly claimed that there is a risk reduction for COVID-19 in the wearing of facemasks of up to 80% but it is highly flawed and never should have been sold to the public as evidence that the now almost mandatory wearing of masks does any such thing.
Firstly of the 29 studies used in the meta-study, seven studies are unpublished and non-peer-reviewed observational studies that should not be used to guide clinical practice. Only four of the 29 studies are even about COVID-19, the other 25 studies are about SARS-1 or MERS virus, both of which have very different transmission characteristics. SARS-1 and MERS were transmitted almost exclusively by severely ill hospitalized patients and not by community transmission.
Of the four studies that are actually related to COVID-19, two were misinterpreted by the Lancet meta-study authors, one is inconclusive and the other relates only to N95 respirators in a medical setting. In fact, out of all of the 29 face mask studies cited, only three are related to a community transmission environment at all.
It doesn’t end there either: of those three studies claimed to be focused on actual community transmission use, one is misclassified and is medical use, one showed no benefit whatsoever of using face masks and the other study is a poorly designed retrospective study about SARS-1 in Beijing based on telephone interviews. Not one of those three studies listed as being related to use in a community transmission setting refers to COVID-19 either.
So in summary, no study used in this entire meta-study of 29 individual studies focuses on public space use of facemasks related to COVID-19. The authors of the Lancet study themselves even admit that the certainty of evidence regarding face mask use is “low”. All of the studies were also just observational studies, none being a Randomised Controlled Trial (RCT). The WHO also seems to have updated its face mask policy guidelines not based on new evidence but that of “political lobbying” as discovered by BBC Newsnight correspondent Deborah Cohen.
University of Toronto epidemiologist Professor Peter Juni called the meta-study “flawed and essentially useless”. Lots of other mistakes have also been highlighted in this meta-study, like mixing up PCR and serological results that in one study for example ended up exaggerating the effectiveness of the N95 masks. Basic mathematical mistakes are also rife with misinterpreted data ultimately leading again to falsely claiming or exaggerating the benefit of face masks.
This is not the first bit of junk science to make it into the Lancet this year either. They had to retract a bogus hydroxychloroquine study that falsely claimed it harmed COVID-19 patients, causing trials (including one in New Zealand) to be cancelled. The timing of it was directly used as an attempt to discredit President Trump who at the time was stating the benefits of the drug. It turns out it actually makes a big difference to very sick people if they get it early in combination with a few other drugs, and that now retracted study may have cost lives.
Like almost every other institution we have, the woke corruption runs deep and the trust and integrity of these once great bastions of science have been completely eroded away in just a short period of time.
If you want to talk about “Misinformation” start with the cabal of elimination or bust advisors like Michael Baker and Shaun Hendy that Jacinda has currently hitched her political wagon to. Her reliance on these so-called experts and working groups will be her downfall eventually so let’s just hope that happens this October come election time. Otherwise I fear we will all end up in a permanent state of ‘Full On Masked Hysteria’.
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