Time for Modern Masking Madness to Be Cast into the Dustbin of History

Commentary From William Sullivan on American Thinker.com (May 17):

Since last spring, many people, including dear friends, have been insisting that masks had suddenly become vital talismans that stop respiratory viral spread.

I’ve consistently argued the opposite throughout. (Here, here, here.)  And though I would constantly ask for evidence from anyone suggesting that masks work, rarely was it ever forthcoming.  Most often, I was told that there isn’t a lot of evidence suggesting that masks don’t work and that wearing a mask was better than nothing at all, so we should all just do it.

Early in the pandemic, mask mavens suggested that the lack of real-world evidence showing masks’ efficacy was due to not enough people wearing them.  In the rare event that real-world evidence was offered, it usually took the form of suggestions that places like Japan escaped the ravages of the pandemic because of their stalwart adherence to masking in public.

……………..

There’s still remarkably little or no real-world evidence that masks work, though such evidence has now had ample time to present itself.  As such, there are some impulses urging me to immediately go to all of those people who insisted that masks must repel coronaviruses like crosses repel vampires, and tell them “I told you so.”

But that would be an unjust act of vanity on my part.  I wasn’t right.  Science had been right, for a hundred-plus years.  I was simply able to recognize that the 100 years of scientific consensus (which accounts for much of the lifespan for modern germ theory, it should be noted) was very unlikely to have magically inverted in the months between Dr. Fauci telling us that masks do little or nothing to stop or slow the spread of a virus like COVID-19 and his later telling us that we should probably wear two masks as a matter of “common sense,” even if you’re vaccinated.

Long before Fauci’s ridiculous reversal from consensus toward the limits of absurdity, uncountable numbers of American scientists correctly concluded, having the benefit of decades of data mounting for over a century, that wearing a mask for the benefit of feeling safe from viral spread was useless. [read more]

Another article on mask wearing: Stockholm Syndrome over Mask Wearing