No Proof Face Masks Ever Worked Against Covid and They May Have Made Things Worse, Says UKHSA Boss
There is no solid proof masks ever slowed the spread of Covid and they may have made things worse, England’s former Deputy Chief Medical Officer said on Wednesday. The Mail has more.
Professor Dame Jenny Harries, who now heads up the U.K. Health Security Agency, said the evidence that coverings reduced transmission is “uncertain” because it is difficult to separate their effect from other Covid curbs.
She also told the U.K.’s Covid Inquiry that Government advice on how to make a mask using two pieces of cloth was “ineffective”.
Studies showed at least three were needed for even a small effect on the spread of viruses, Dame Jenny said.
Meanwhile, she warned advice for the public to wear masks during the pandemic may even have given people a “false sense of security” that they could reduce their risk of becoming infected if they wore one while mixing with others.
Dame Jenny wrote in her witness statement that the evidence base for using face masks in the community “was, and still is to some degree, uncertain”.
She noted that the evidence for mask wearing varied depending on what materials it was made from. For example, a “one or two layer cloth covering” is “not particularly effective”, she said.
And if someone doesn’t wear it properly – fully covering the mouth and nose – “it won’t work”, Dame Jenny added.
Wait for it – she’ll be referring to the results from the actual randomised controlled trials next.
So will Tom Jefferson, Carl Heneghan and everyone else who has been pilloried for pointing this out all along now get an apology?
Worth reading in full.
Stop Press: Watch Dame Jenny Harries admit that the masking policy was not evidence-based, that masks were “ineffective” as a prophylactic against infection and may have made people more vulnerable to infection by giving them a false sense of security.
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Really authoritarian little low life. In her ideal world the plebs would be permanently masked up with a daily dose of pottage whilst Ms Harries directs them how to till the fields.
Oh dear ——–Lets all look our masks out again and prepare to “make things worse” once more. —–But I thought the hand wringers always say that “lessons were learned”. There is more chance of my cat learning algebra.
My dog learned something new today. Cats are sharp.
He’ll probably learn it again soon.
🤣 That’s dogs for you!
If I send that to Jerome Adams, Lauterbach and other masktards, all they will say is that that’s why they mandated first surgical and then FFP2/N95 masks.
Which didn’t work either and definitely made things worse and people and children even more sick, but that’s besides the point here.
Only a total m*ron would still talk about the embarrassment that advising to wear cloth masks, in particular self=made or doubled up ones, was for the medical profession and human intelligence.
There’s a reason why there are standards for the manufacture of surgical masks:
“Depending on the nominated standard, the expected filtration efficiency is to be greater than 95%. The particle sizes are to be sub-micron in line with the respirator’s intended purpose, for example filtering bacteria, viruses, and aerosol particulates. ”
https://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2002/618/contents/made
Any mask which didn’t meet the standards set out in the Regulations was never going to protect either the individual wearing it, or anyone else.
You might just as well have bought a piece of lace or net and covered your face with it.
It was all theatre.
Are you saying the light blue surgical masks were effective in reducing the spread of covid?
They never were – Surgeons have stated time and again they are to stop body fluids – both ways – as a splash protector.
Whatever next – ? Lab leak -tick; masks useless- tick … could it be “ vaccines unsafe and ineffective -tick” ..
Maybe the Hallett Enquiry does have its uses…..but only by the back door and never intentionally…
As MOH has just pointed out – this charge has been collapsing for a long time – imho . project fear was/ is a criminal enterprise; US Intelligence has been fingered as the driving force with WHO and ZuckUperberg et al as very willing control freaking stormtroopers – Hancock fesses up that his diktat involving Care Homes was wrong – yet he tries to save his ass by endorsing earlier lockdown – in the face of overwhelming evidence of massive ( and latent ) harms… especially but not exclusively to kids ….what a total human sinkhole – What must those families who lost their loved ones, officially deprived from all contact, be thinking now… if Harries, Hancock and all the other liars involved in this ****show get to fear for their own wellbeing for the rest of their worthless professionally and morally bankrupt lives it cannot come soon enough; that they can see fit to tell – now – what everyone knew or at least suspected was “ sphericals” …pure evil imho .
“Studies showed that at least three were needed for even a small effect…”
Anyone remember those particular studies? Would there really be more than one study comparing groups using 1, 2, 3, or 4 masks at once? It’s odd that nobody seems to have referred to them in the past.
Yet there was a controlled Danish study, and a Cochrane meta-analysis she could have cited, but didn’t.
The Swiss study too
What a surprise. No shortage of junk on sale at the time, though. I never used any at all, having done a bit of homework via some official standards etc. However, what it did reveal was how submissive many people were, and demonstrated how bureaucrats and their minions can operate at the drop of a hat.
Indeed John. Masking was all about gauging obedience and exercising control. I too refused to comply.
So true. It was nothing more than obedience training for the masses.
I refused to comply too. I did, however, buy one of these in Spring 2020 and wore it a couple of times when confronted by some ar$3h0le who insisted on one:
https://tinyurl.com/38jpb52e
Shoots the NHS fox stone dead – will these Trust CEIs (sic) now stop trying to force masks on NHS staff ??? Non compliance is slipping, fast I am told – what next – stop the Jab programme for pregnant women …. It’s all crashing around their ears …
I actually bought a couple one from Dick Delingpole which had a nice little rainbow and underneath said “Thank you NHS for ruining the economy”. The second (can’t remember where I purchased it) said “This mask is useless”. Never wore either they languish in my sock drawer as a reminder of those draconian days.
And it shows just how much those bureaucrats and their minions need (legally) reigning in, as they were effectively out of control. That they missed or refused to see that so many expert in the field stated that masks were wholly ineffective is way beyond the pale.
And yet they saw fit to fine us ten thousand pounds – ten thousand pounds!!! – if we didn’t wear one…
She is also inconsistent even in this statement. They probably don’t work, there’s certainly no good evidence they work, they might even make things worse – but unless you wear them over your mouth and nose they won’t work?!
Well they didn’t harm me or my wife as we refused to wear them. When my wife had to see the doctor and they said no, she bought a full face mask and wore that. They complained it was frightening. She said – well, tough
Here, a surgeon explains why they are useless for viruses.
And here’s a meta-analysis of 170 papers saying they don’t work and may be harmful.
https://brownstone.org/articles/studies-and-articles-on-mask-ineffectiveness-and-harms/
what a brilliant idea. made me laugh too. how i wish i had thought of that, you mean like a halloween mask?.if only more people did that!
just brilliant .
I bought a Boris one (and a Donald Trump one). Wore the Boris one round Waitrose for a while until even I got sick of the joke.
One of my favourite moments in the mask-wearing hysteria was watching an elderly gentleman as he approached the supermarket. He fumbled in his pocket for his mask which he sadly dropped onto the damp well-trodden concrete floor. He bent down, picked it up, made an ineffectual wiping motion and then put it on. This mask was obviously well-used, ancient, soft and splayed and must have been harbouring dog knows how many bacteria. It was less a mask than a chemistry set. But the Obergruppenfuhrer at the door was obviously satisfied – less so when he looked at me because I was unmasked. “I’m exempt”, I stated as a strode past him. Exempt from all this bloody madness, I reflected as I trundled round.
My parents in law – supreme hoarders and anti-waste in a way today’s young eco-zealots with the latest mobile phone will never be – kept the same surgical masks throughout the whole affair. During the winter they were hung together on little hooks in the kitchen, in good weather they were laid outside in the sun to get some air.
In July 2021, we went on holiday with a couple of ‘wibbly wobblies’ who were terrified of Covid (unfortunately we had no choice as booked pre covid). We never wore masks out, but they did. Except for one hilarious evening when the wife realised she’d not brought one, just as we were getting in a taxi to dinner. I dug from the bottom of my handbag a grubby cloth thing and I could see the conflict on her face, but she took it and wore it anyway.
Eta, we always pleaded exemptions or wore lanyards, but I had carried one around for a while, just in case.
Exempt and thereby not compliant
They brought in the mask mandate after new evidence. Two studies if I remember correctly, one showed that masks worked on mannequins.
Perhaps Harries read “disease control for dummies”?
I don’t care if they worked or not
There was no emergency and nothing that could justify covering your face
Viruses might exist and use humans to spread and they might kill people. So what?
We don’t need this morally bankrupt Stalinist to tell us that. Dr. Ted Noel did a wonderful job in this video that was constantly censored as ‘false information’ by Facebook and Twitter. No doubt at the behest of Dame Jennie Harries’ pharma cronies and the 77th Brigade.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&v=il-5HVmmMXE&ab_channel=BertE.SpoordeRave
Obvious sales push for high-quality masks aka KN95 masks, Chinese imitation of US N95 masks except that they’re produced without any quality control and thus, must not be used in clinical settings. Egal. Just buy two of them! Preferred mask story out of my head: Early in 2022, after the mask mandate re-introduced in November 2021 had again been abolished but while the London Khant and all the other usual suspects where still strongly recommending them, I was travelling back to Reading late in the evening by train after attending a concert London. As usual for these late-night Saturday trains, the carriage I sat in was packed with people and many of them were hastily eating this or that fastfoodstuff they had bought at Paddingtion before boarding. “Thank God, this doesn’t look like a particularly mask-happy crowd!” I said to myself. Boy, was I wrong! The moment the train started moving, everyone hastily pulled some piece of face covering, many of them looking as if they had been in continuous use since the first mandate in 2020, out of pockets and handbags and put it on. Within less than a minute, mine was the only uncovered face in the whole… Read more »
She [Professor Dame Jenny Harries,] also told the U.K.’s Covid Inquiry that Government advice on how to make a mask using two pieces of cloth was “ineffective”. The WHO issued guidance on mask-wearing – an update issued 5 June 2020 contains the following: Guidance on the use of masks for the general public Available evidence Studies of influenza, influenza-like illness, and human coronaviruses (not including COVID-19) provide evidence that the use of a medical mask can prevent the spread of infectious droplets from a symptomatic infected person (source control) to someone else and potential contamination of the environment by these droplets. There is limited evidence that wearing a medical mask by healthy individuals in households, in particular those who share a house with a sick person, or among attendees of mass gatherings may be beneficial as a measure preventing transmission. A recent meta-analysis of these observational studies, with the intrinsic biases of observational data, showed that either disposable surgical masks or reusable 12–16-layer cotton masks were associated with protection of healthy individuals within households and among contacts of cases. Note the above points. …from a symptomatic infected person… In other words, ‘people who are coughing badly or have a fever’. In which case… Read more »
For non-surgeons, I can confirm that surgical masks (ineffective enough in themselves) are larger and have proper ties. The green elastic loop jobbies were introduced for nurses dressing wounds, especially after Fauci said, falsely, that AIDS spreads by droplets.
One thing I noticed over my career is that any erroneous measures that make procedures look more medical were retained, and trickled down to care homes, shops and (in the case of masks) policemen and everyone else.
So the nursie masks were not removed when Fauci’s publicity stunt on AIDS faded, latex gloves for everything and disposable (expensive) instruments are still in use long after the BSE scare passed, and post COVID even where there aren’t masks you can still see hand-sanitizer stations outside supermarkets and useless perspex partitions inside.
Look for the evidence base that your confectioner wearing blue gloves to serve you ever saved an infection in the history of the world, and I suspect you’ll not find it. Especially since the evidence shows that even sterile surgical masks make no difference to post-op infections.
“they shouldn’t be going out” is exactly the point. The normally accepted behaviour is that when you have flu or similar, you stay at home, because you are ill. Nobody needs to tell us that. To then infer that well, i.e. asymptomatic people can spread the virus when it’s already airborne is well into the absurd.
In other news, study finds that water is wet and the sun rises in the east.
Ha! Some of us knew that way back. We refused to wear them
https://brownstone.org/articles/studies-and-articles-on-mask-ineffectiveness-and-harms/
Tho’ my wife did buy a full face reflective snow board mask when she had to go to the local GPs. Nurse said it frightened her. My wife said – your problem. And of course as her breath was in no way filtered by it, completely useless, apart from fucking with the system. Which was the idea 😁😁