The Cochrane Library – the gold-standard independent research organization – has been reviewing the use of physical interventions to reduce respiratory illnesses like COVID and influenza since 2010. Here’s what their 2023 updated report has to say about N95, medical and surgical masks.
- The Cochrane Library recently updated its 2020 systematic review of physical interventions to reduce respiratory illnesses. The update included an additional 11 randomized controlled trials, bringing the total number of RCTs included to 78
- As in its 2020 review, they found no evidence to support the use of surgical face masks or N95 respirators to prevent influenza or COVID-19 infection
- The relative risk reduction of using surgical masks in the general population (within hospitals and communities at large) to reduce symptoms of flu-like/COVID-like illness (not lab confirmed) was a statistically insignificant 0.95
- The same goes for reducing laboratory-confirmed influenza and COVID. Here, the relative risk reduction was 1.01 with a confidence interval of 0.72 to 1.42. In other words, it’s a wash. On average, it raises your risk of lab-confirmed infection by 1%. Range-wise, it may lower your risk by 28% or raise it by as much as 42%
- The review also found “no clear differences between the use of medical/surgical masks compared with N95/P2 respirators”
The question of whether we should wear face masks or not to prevent the spread of COVID-19 has been a hotly contested issue ever since our so-called health authorities came out with the recommendation in early 2020. Some of us were quick to point out the obvious, namely that masks cannot filter out viruses due to the virus being far smaller than the holes in the fabric.
Surgical masks have only ever been used to prevent droplets of saliva to drip into open wounds during surgery, potentially causing an infection. That’s all they were ever designed to do.
Numerous studies looking at mask-wearing during cold and flu season in years past came up empty, showing masks are not a viable prevention method. Yet the narrative we were fed was that masks will somehow prevent respiratory infection, and not wearing one meant you had no regard for the health and safety of others.
Never mind the fact that a healthy person cannot transmit disease in the first place. The asymptomatic spread fallacy was still used to reinforce the idea that everyone had to wear a mask, regardless of whether they were ill or not. You couldn’t even debate the issue. The propaganda angle was the only viewpoint allowed to circulate.
The recently published Cochrane Collaboration meta-analysis of mask studies looking at 78 studies that made the cut, came to these conclusions:
“Wearing masks in the community probably makes little or no difference to the outcome of influenza-like illness (ILI)/COVID-19 like illness compared to not wearing masks…”
Perhaps the most important metric the public being forced to take a health intervention needs to know is will it cause more harm than good?
“Harms were rarely measured and poorly reported” found the Cochrane Collaboration.
As health officials use the excuse that Covid was a crazy time and they had to do something, instead of just wait around for ‘The Science.’
Cochrane epidemiologist Tom Jefferson, who was an author on the mask reanalysis study, said:
“…it’s a complete subversion of the ‘precautionary principle’ which states that you should do nothing unless you have reasonable evidence that benefits outweigh the harms.”
The Cochrane investigators concluded that, while there’s “uncertainty about the effects of face masks” due to trial bias and low adherence by participants, the pooled results of randomized controlled trials (RTCs) “did not show a clear reduction in respiratory viral infection with the use of medical/surgical masks.” Here’s an excerpt from the review:12
“Medical or surgical masks — Ten studies took place in the community, and two studies in healthcare workers.
Compared with wearing no mask in the community studies only, wearing a mask may make little to no difference in how many people caught a flu‐like illness/COVID‐like illness (9 studies; 276,917 people); and probably makes little or no difference in how many people have flu/COVID confirmed by a laboratory test (6 studies; 13,919 people).”
The relative risk reduction of using surgical masks in the general population (within hospitals and communities at large) to reduce symptoms of flu-like/COVID-like illness (not lab confirmed) was 0.95.
A value below 1 indicates the intervention improved outcomes, whereas a value above 1 shows it made it worse. So, here, surgical masks was associated with a relative risk reduction of 5%.
However, it’s not statistically significant, as the confidence interval ranges from 0.84 to 1.09.13 So, it may lower your risk by as much as 16% or raise it by 9%. As noted by Prasad, the most accurate way to describe this finding is that “we have not proven there is an effect.”
“This is conclusive … This is the reality … You just don’t have credible evidence [for masking], and the science didn’t change … This is what the science has always shown.” ~ Dr. Vinay Prasad (health researcher and professor of epidemiology and biostatistics at the University of California)
The same goes for reducing laboratory-confirmed influenza and COVID. Here, the relative risk reduction was 1.01 with a confidence interval of 0.72 to 1.42. In other words, it’s a complete wash. On average, it raises your risk of lab-confirmed infection by 1%. Range-wise, it may lower your risk by 28% or raise it by as much as 42%.
So, masking really has no effect on confirmed infection rates (which, by the way, is more important than reports of perceived symptoms). As noted by the authors, the analysis “suggests that wearing a medical/surgical mask probably makes little or no difference compared to not wearing a mask for this outcome.”
“This is conclusive,” Prasad says. “This is the reality … You just don’t have credible evidence [for masking], and I want to tell you this: The science didn’t change … This is what the science has always shown.”
Supporting information
Dr. Peter McCullough on the new Cochrane study that there’s no evidence that masks stop VIRAL infections: Drop Public Mask Mandates Without Misgivings (substack.com).
Interview by Dr. Maryanne Demasi with Tom Jefferson, lead author of the Cochrane study EXCLUSIVE: Lead author of new Cochrane review speaks out (substack.com).