Even Biden flouts the CDC’s debunked diktats – but bafflingly America’s health elite continue to push it on our kids. Now two esteemed MEDICS make a passionate case that there’s no evidence masks stop COVID

Marty Makary MD, MPH is a professor at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine and an author. Tracy Beth Høeg, MD, PhD is a medical epidemiologist at the University of California, San Francisco.

“Don’t tell them I wasn’t wearing it,” President Joe Biden told a crowd at the White House on Wednesday as he held up a black surgical mask.

Less than 48 hours earlier, First Lady Jill Biden tested positive for COVID-19.

The president’s test came back negative, but his team said he would be “masked” for 10 days, in accordance with CDC recommendations.

Apparently he doesn’t take this advice very seriously.

Biden also removed his mask Tuesday during a Medal of Honor ceremony for fellow octogenarian and Vietnam veteran Larry L. Taylor. Then Biden walked — without a mask — through the audience.

Frankly, the President seems to agree with us on this point.

One of the most important public health interventions of our time – masking – has been systematically studied by doctors and epidemiologists with impeccable credentials in evidence-based medicine, and they have found no evidence that masks reduce rates of COVID infection.

No wonder Biden thinks wearing a mask is unnecessary.

This is also the conclusion of studies carried out by the famous British medical research group, the Cochrane Collaborationwhich recently reviewed 17 high-quality randomized analyzes on the effectiveness of mask wearing.

So why do some in the United States – including America’s public health establishment, the Centers for Disease Control – choose to ignore this?

Biden also removed his mask Tuesday during a Medal of Honor ceremony for fellow octogenarian and Vietnam veteran Larry L. Taylor. Then Biden walked — without a mask — through the audience.

Make no mistake, masking is making a comeback as COVID cases rise across the country.

This week, a Maryland school district reinstated a mask requirement for elementary school students exposed to COVID-positive classmates. Children will be required to cover their faces for 10 days.

A Hollywood studio temporarily reimplemented a mask requirement, as did a college in Atlanta, which also banned large gatherings on campus.

But why? We now know that masking for COVID doesn’t work.

The sad reality is that Americans traumatized by the COVID pandemic are turning to the CDC for thoughtful, heartfelt advice — but all they get in return is counterfactual, confusing gibberish.

On Saturday, Dr. Anthony Fauci was confronted on CNN about the Cochrane review. He responded by saying “yes, but there are other studies.”

Dr. Tom Jefferson of Oxford, who led the Cochrane analysis on masks, responded to Fauci.

“It could be that Fauci is relying on waste studies,” he concluded.

Indeed.

Maybe Fauci was referring to 2020 CDC Study two hairdressers? Hardly a large sample.

Maybe he was referring a CDC study which measured infections for only a few weeks. This research was completely demystified by two researchers, including Dr. Hoeg, when the same study was extended to nine weeks.

Maybe Fauci was referring to the 2020 CDC study of two hairstylists? Hardly a large sample.

The sad reality is that Americans traumatized by the COVID pandemic are turning to the CDC for thoughtful, heartfelt advice — but all they get in return is counterfactual, confusing gibberish.

Perhaps he was thinking of an analysis of Boston schools from the New England Journal of Medicine that claimed mandatory masks reduced COVID cases by a whopping 30 percent.

This was also observed by Dr. Hoeg’s research group, including scientists from UCSF and Stanford, for using inappropriate methods. When the proper routine was followed, the investigators came to the opposite conclusion.

Public health elites who continue to claim that “masks work” are making it clear that they have completely lost their scientific objectivity.

In September 2021, medical research as political propaganda reached an all-time high when the The CDC published a review masking of students.

CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky claimed that schools requiring masks saw a 3.5-fold reduction in COVID outbreaks. But the claim did not last long.

One of the study’s many flaws was that many of the school districts involved weren’t even open during the research period.

For this reason alone, many have called for the paper to retract.

It must also be recognized that the American public health recommendations constitute an exception.

The CDC still recommends masking children as young as two years old during periods of high COVID-19 disease burden (except when they are napping or eating at school). But many European countries, which have almost never recommended the wearing of masks for children under six or even 12 years old, have abandoned masks in schools altogether.

However, this does not mean that masks are completely useless or that they may never be necessary in the future.

In September 2021, medical research as political propaganda reached an all-time high when the CDC released a study on student masking. CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky claimed that schools requiring masks saw a 3.5-fold reduction in COVID outbreaks. But the claim did not last long.

Public health elites who continue to claim that “masks work” are making it clear that they have completely lost their scientific objectivity.

Surgeons wear masks in the operating room to prevent respiratory droplets from entering the operating field. As doctors, if we see a patient with tuberculosis, we wear tight-fitting N95 masks during the brief encounter with the patient.

It is possible that two people wearing well-fitted, high-quality masks can temporarily reduce the risk of transmission, and wearing a mask may have some theoretical utility during times of high viral spread.

But good practices regarding wearing a mask are difficult to enforce. Even healthcare professionals who wear masks for long periods of time often do so inappropriately or loosen them near the end of their shift.

The truth is that America’s public health establishments are ignoring this comprehensive body of research simply because they don’t like the results.

They have abandoned the art of critical evaluation of research methodologies and replaced it with partisan dogma.

This is now how science is supposed to work. And the catastrophic damage already done to trust in public health will only get worse as the intellectual dishonesty and arrogance of these officials persists.

Perhaps now, when even President Biden, who once declared that wearing a mask was a “patriotic duty,” has apparently lost confidence in the CDC’s statements, they will come to their senses.

But we are not holding our breath.