Carefully selected quotes that summarize the full article. Start with a conclusion, and then any "study" you find supporting the conclusion is automatically deemed "the truth".
Ye Editor
"There are a variety of “masks” and they have different characteristics.
As OSHA has stated, neither cloth masks nor surgical masks are designed to protect wearers from airborne pathogens, particularly respiratory viruses.
The confidence intervals for the efficacy of cloth masks and surgical masks to slow the spread of respiratory viruses are poor. N95 masks fare only slightly better.
... “The World Health Organization, for example, does not recommend masks for children under age 6.
The European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control recommends against the use of masks for any children in primary school.”
... Children are not at statistical risk from Covid-19. ... the infection survival rate overall is at least 99.995%).
... “Seen in this context, the CDC has taken an especially aggressive stance, recommending that all kids 2 and older should be masked in school,”
... the Arizona study at the center of the CDC’s back-to-school blitz turns out to have been profoundly misleading.
“You can’t learn anything about the effects of school mask mandates from this study,” Jonathan Ketcham, a public-health economist at Arizona State University, told me.
His view echoed the assessment of eight other experts who reviewed the research, and with whom I spoke for this article.
... Noah Haber, an interdisciplinary scientist and a co-author of a systematic review of COVID-19 mitigation policies, called the research “so unreliable that it probably should not have been entered into the public discourse.”
... not only is the study “misleading,” it is based on outright lies.
The Arizona study, published in the CDC’s Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, looked at school-associated outbreaks in Maricopa and Pima Counties, comparing rates across schools with and without mask mandates for students and staff.
,,, the study’s methodology and data set appear to have significant flaws.
The trouble begins with the opening lines of the paper, where the authors say they evaluated the association between school mask policies and school-associated COVID-19 outbreaks “during July 15–August 31, 2021.”
After reviewing school calendars and speaking with several school administrators in Maricopa and Pima Counties, I found that only a small proportion of the schools in the study were open at any point during July.
Some didn’t begin class until August 10; others were open from July 19 or July 21.
That means students in the latter group of schools had twice as much time—six weeks instead of three weeks—in which to develop a COVID outbreak.
... “If schools with mask mandates had fewer school days during the study,” Ketcham told the author, “that alone could explain the difference in outbreaks.”
... It’s being oversold, but people are desperate to find some pebble somewhere that shows masks work.
... The fact of that matter is that there never was sound science to force little children to wear masks in school for as long as eight hours a day.
The CDC went searching for the science to justify its political decision that was made in response to teacher’s unions."
