the great covid mitigation climbdown has been underway for some time and of course, finally pivoting to “that which made sense all along” is never a bad thing per se, but the manner in which it’s occurring and being justified and past absurdities explained and excused seems problematic.
above and beyond this approach, there seem to be two general tacks being taken.
some are pretending to have been anti-lockdown and pro-school all along. this is obvious and easy to spot nonsense, we live in a world of receipts, and it’s not fooling anyone, it’s just pissing them off. so i see little need to really say much more there than “good luck selling that pile of hot garbage. you’re gonna need it.”
but more vexing are the “we needed to do it then, but it’s different now” folks. they seem, in many ways, more sincere in their beliefs and more dangerous for the future as they are the ones who will, if frightened, instantly start claiming we need to return to lock down, mask up, and jab, jab, jab.
to head this off (and because some folks have been asking) i’d like to compile some past work in one place so people can see it and refer to it. (esp as much was published back when this audience was quite a lot smaller or back on the bluebird before the great de-catforming of 2021 for the deeply subversive act posting such data)
masks we known not to work pre covid and the evidence since has validated this.
the WHO performed a metastudy in 2019 and laid it plain.
this was known and knowable. deciding to force them had no basis in fact or in history. the early messaging was unambiguous.
then it all changed due to political exigency. i performed a number of analyses on this (and i am probably missing some, please let me know if you find them and i’ll add and perhaps i’ll get access to all the twitter work if i get re-catformed at some point.)
i have embedded links where i can, but this only works with posts and not threads, so those that were published as threads are linked in blue.
this was one of my favorites:
first off, masking. it was known not to work, never worked, and never should have been imposed. it was a literally wubbie, a superstitious talisman sold as a low cost way of looking like officials we “doing something” about the rampant fear they had generated. most potent in this armamentarium was the shockingly well turned phrase “your mask protects me.” this is one of the greatest propagandistic pabulums of all time. if they gave out marketing awards for public health diktat, it would win everything.
it’s so simple and so cunning. it inverts the choice and the ethics. it’s not about you. it’s about protecting others. it’s not your choice. it’s your obligation. potent stuff.
it’s also complete and utter codswallop and always was. read the piece above for reams of detail on the topic including actual RCT’s of masks as source control when worn by trained physicians in controlled settings (like the OR).
they show plainly that mask wear by surgeons is associated with more, not less post op infection in patients. guess how it probably works in restaurant kitchens with untrained wearers…
fake sneeze mannequin studies that fail to measure what happens around the edges of the mask or that fact that sarscov-2 virus takes ~2 weeks to fall 5 feet to the floor are the real game, the rest is just made up science fair stunts masquerading as clinical outcomes data.
here’s some more:
the CDC never had ANY randomized controlled studies (RCT’s) that promoted mask wear. they admitted this under FOIA.
you can read it HERE along with refutations of the outright fraud they pushed in the mass general study (arbitrary, no control group, fails to diverge from societal control when added) and the infamous kansas counties study which was a cherry pick of epic proportions that had already been refuted by the same dataset at the time it was published.
the hilariously bad bangladesh study was worse still.
and no, masks did not work in schools.
the evidence there is sound and compelling as can be readily seen from the data gathered by emily oster of brown university (and analyzed by me.) emily was, alas, cowed into disavowing her own findings by university and peer pressure, but the data themselves are clear as a bell.
and no, N95’s do not work either. that’s just the latest fad in “that wasn’t real masking” to blame people for a failed NPI.
and this was never “costless.”
the harms were always known.
they were simply ignored.
this became the most outlandish of cults.
it was a triumph of “demanded obedience to authority” over “rationality and data.”
this is not a sign of a system on sound footing.
the level of psychological conditioning and outright addiction they created is extreme. they broke significant numbers of people psychologically (a known feature of masking and the reason they have been used for millennia in torture and dehumanization/brainwashing) and this harm will stay with us. these people will be in “recovery” forever no matter if they do 12 steps or 20.
and it’s not “being kind” to accommodate them. you’re doing tequila shooters with an alcoholic.
they got loose because so much fear had been whipped up that people were screaming for “a solution.” masks seem doctory and protective if you don’t know the science or the data. and once in place, they send massive constant signals that “all is not well” and the actual act of wearing and seeing them heightens a sense of crisis, fear, and danger.
bottom line: masks are a performance, and addiction, a wubbie. they became a tribal marker and a virtue signal which is a very potent combination and there is always going to be a group who wants them back. and we need to tell them no.
for those seeking a big data dump, brownstone has collected over 150 studies on the topic HERE.
This is great, thank you! Having small children, masks were especially the battlefield I was on. There are still a lot of people I think should apologize to me for alienating and criticizing and demonizing me for not masking my toddlers. But I did right by my kids, and they never once wore one (and in one of the deepest blue places in the nation!) But I’ve got some scarring from the whole affair.
I luv masks, I can spot a moron a mile away!