MASKS SHOULD HAVE ALWAYS BEEN A CHOICE

The latest groundbreaking science demolishes the mask narrative.

Before I start today’s post, I want you to take a moment to watch this 60 second clip from March 2020.

Today I want to state the obvious for most of you. Masks should have always been a choice. I know most of my readers already know this but I don’t think we’ve ever had as much evidence for this argument as we have today.

If I was to make this argument to you in March of 2020, it wouldn’t even surprise you. The consensus among the medical community was that masks were ineffective during pandemics. As analysed in the recent Cochrane review, all the evidence prior to COVID pointed to masks being essentially useless. Even Mr. Science himself, Dr. Anthony Fauci told 60 Minutes in March that no one should be wearing masks in a pandemic. Dr. Fauci along with Dr. Theresa Tam knew the science behind mask usage. They knew they were ineffective. They didn’t lie to the public because they wanted to save masks for health care workers. They were speaking the truth.

Last week, the most world-renowned organization studying public health interventions came out with their largest analysis on mask usage.

The Cochrane Group is an independent global organisation that aims to provide high-quality evidence to inform decisions about health. The group conducts systematic reviews of health-care interventions and diagnostic tests and publishes them in the Cochrane Library.

The Cochrane Library has been reviewing the use of physical interventions (i.e. masks, hand washing etc.) to interrupt or reduce the spread of respiratory viruses for a very long time. I’m not an expert in medicine but it appears that Cochrane is considered the gold standard in this field. I recommend reading cardiologist, Dr. John Mandrola’s latest summary as to why the Cochrane reviews are so important and regarded as the most trusted source of “science" in the medical community.

So you would think that when this group released their findings on mask usage as an intervention to the spread of COVID-19, every mainstream publication and public health leader would be wanting to discuss it at length. Unfortunately this groundbreaking analysis is either completely being ignored or it is attacked in the most bizarre anti-science ways.

This latest review, led by Dr. Tom Jefferson who is a clinical epidemiologist at the University of Oxford throws a huge wrench in the tires of the story we have been told for the last three years.

The review group looked at evidence from 78 randomised trials with over 610,000 participants. They looked at studies and trials that were conducted during the COVID-19 pandemic and reviewed the ones completed prior to 2020.

They found that wearing masks in the community

“probably makes little or no difference to influenza-like or Covid-19-like illness transmission”.

That line right there from the leading authority on the subject should awaken every single human being who naively believed they were doing “the right thing” over the last two years. It should also awaken everybody who stood by while we allowed public health expert to denigrate anyone who didn’t believe in mandatory masking (especially on two-year old children). We were told that those who questioned mandatory masks were “anti-mask” or “anti-science”.*

*Subscribe for a future analysis of the absurdity of these terms. I for one was against mandatory masking but at no point did I believe anyone should be forced to take theirs off. I don’t understand how the position of optional masks equated “anti-mask”. I prefer bicycling than driving and don’t agree that people should be forced to use cars but I am not “anti-car”.

The latest analysis also found that masks had no effect on laboratory-confirmed influenza or SARS-CoV-2 outcomes and that there were no difference between one type of mask over another.

In an interview over the weekend, Dr. Jefferson (again, one of the world’s leading epidemiologists) spoke out about his findings.

Governments completely failed to do the right thing and demand better evidence. At the beginning of the pandemic, there were some voices who said masks did not work and then suddenly the narrative changed. 

What happened in 2020?

There’s no reason to be walking around in a mask.

Anthony Fauci, March 2020

Just a few months after Dr. Fauci’s National interview speaking the truth and sharing the actual concessus on masks, it would become the law to cover up your face at all times.

Public health experts knew that the evidence for masks stopping transmission was weak. But what the evidence did tell them was that masks could be very effective at keeping the public in fear. Masks were also a great way to get society to comply in masses. Even if the masks didn’t work, getting everybody in line on a social issue paid enormous benefits when it came time to get everyone “on the same page”. On perpetual lockdowns and eventually vaccine passports.

I know it’s hard for many to accept this idea but it is very likely that we were sold the idea of masks simply for psychological reasons.

Our governments spent millions on advertising and social media to condition society into thinking that wearing a mask was virtuous or “the right thing”. Our leaders also spent just as much effort convincing everyone to hate those who simply wanted the choice to not wear one.

In Canada, when governments started imposing mask mandates in 2020, they stressed that we should be cognisant of those who couldn’t for medical reasons. But just like we eventually did with those who couldn’t take the shot for medical reasons, we quickly fell in line as a society to condemn ANYONE who didn’t comply. Regardless of their reasons.

In my own small town, police were frequently called when grocery shoppers attempted to do so without a mask on.

I distinctly remember when one particular individual in my community frequently attempted to run his errands without a mask (while having a medical exemption). The overwhelming consensus on social media and within my own family was that this person was an extremist. Our conditioned society was certain that this man was selfish and should be treated as less than human. The majority of our quickly warped town cheered the police when they would arrest these people.

I use the word condition purposely. I don’t know how else to describe what happened to people I thought I knew. Why were people so opposed to choice?

Respect for Choice

A word we should have never ignored or discounted throughout this pandemic is CHOICE. Choice should always be the default. Especially in the absence of evidence.

When mask mandates in public started to recede in 2022, all of sudden “personal choice’ became fashionable again. My local library quickly came out with posters on every door reminding patrons to be respectful of those who “choose to mask”.

Most mainstream media outlets were running stories highlighting that we need to be cognisant of those who still feel safer with masks on. Everyone was so concerned that we should not judge those who made different choices… Ontario’s Minister of Education even had to publicly state that ALL parents choices regarding mask in schools should be respected. What had happened? I completely agreed with this position. Most people I know who refused to comply with mask usage would never want to forbid others from wearing a mask…

Overnight we went from hating any desire for individual risk assessment to demanding it. That would not be the first or the last time my head would explode in confusion over public health policy. The supposed “science” has just so often not sounded scientific.

Now, we are in 2023 and almost every health care setting in Ontario is still holding firmly onto their unscientific rules regarding masking choice. Still today, seniors are not even allowed to see their children or grandchildren’s faces. These people are in the last years of their life and we are forcing them to have indefinite masked visits despite their personal choices. All while science refutes the utility of such rules.

Dr. Jefferson stated in his most recent interview that although mask rules make no sense, he still follows the the law. “If the law says I need to wear one, then I wear one because I have to.  I do not break the law. I obey the law of the country.”

I agreed with this position for most of the pandemic. But I turned a corner in early 2022 (around the time the Convoy woke me up). At that point, I started going into almost every public place without a mask despite their usage being mandatory. It was very freeing and psychologically helpful. To my surprise for the last 3 months of mandatory masks in my province, I never once was stopped in a store and asked to put on a mask. Storeowners and society at large knew they were useless. Subconsciously, everyone knew that personal choices should be respected. We just hadn’t been given the official permission to accept that concept yet.

Today many are pushing the boundary on this issue in healthcare settings.* Not because they are anti-mask, anti-science or selfish in anyway. They are just the opposite. They are trying to liberate us all of these psychological rules that make no sense. We need more people pushing back.

*Check out this encouraging account by Liz Churchill on Twitter.

Too many times throughout this pandemic I have heard the argument of “well it can’t do no harm so why not just comply”. I’m sick of that argument. That argument is the whole reason we closed down schools for two years and likely created generational learning deficiencies. That argument is what robbed Canada of it’s humanity. It’s what turned us into the type of people who call the cops on our neighbours when we see that they are having friends over. The type of people who cheer on the cops who arrest those who opt to to do their groceries without a mask on.

Masks may make you feel better. You may truly believe in their utility for yourself. But THE SCIENCE is clear. Forcing them on others has not accomplished anything. Forcing them on others was a mistake that should never have happened. The least we can do is stop the charade today. Give people back the power to make basic personal choices. The norm should not be masking. The norm should be the norm. And until we get any evidence showing that forcing a mask on people makes a difference, then how can we force them in any setting.

Dr. Jefferson tries to exaplainm