Masks in everyday use are definitely useless. In a normal everyday setting they get constantly adjusted, put in pockets, dropped accidentally & if you’re doing anything involving physical labour of any sort they get dirty very quickly. Of course before 2020 their use was confined to surgical environments. In surgeries they get changed very regularly, but those on the minimum wage cannot afford to do that.
But their efficacy in surgeries has also been challenged and before they were scrubbed from the internet, as free speech on COVID-19 is not exactly paramount, there were several papers which suggested that masks were also useless in a surgery setting. Here’s one that’s still available (maybe because it suggests doubling down instead of elimination of masks);
But in “Why Face Masks Don’t Work”, now more or less scrubbed from the net, this was the beginning of the author’s (John Hardie, BDS, MSc, PhD, FRCDC) conclusion;
“The primary reason for mandating the wearing of face masks is to protect dental personnel from airborne pathogens. This review has established that face masks are incapable of providing such a level of protection. Unless the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, national and provincial dental associations and regulatory agencies publically admit this fact, they will be guilty of perpetuating a myth which will be a disservice to the dental profession and its patients.”
Last year the above paper was referenced on New Zealand’s Ministory of Health Website under the title “Review of science and policy around face masks and COVID-19”. It was quite extensive in its review. But that page no longer seems to be available, only an OIA request seems to reference it. According to the information in the metadata of the PDF, Dr Deborah Schlichting is the author.
There was also a review of the literature on the efficacy of face masks by Denis G. Rancourt, PhD, a former Professor at the University of Ottawa who seems to have got in strife with his University regarding accusations he made of malfeasance against some of his colleagues at the University. He was fired, appealed, dismissal upheld and according to Wikipedia his appeal is still active. He also holds that manmade emissions are not causing the majority of climate change. On this I disagree with him, but nevertheless I have downloaded one of his papers on the topic to ascertain how he has reached this position.
But all of this is irrelevant to his review of the literature on masks that he did a year ago and for which he has, and continues to, take a lot of flak for. He’s even removed it, or somebody else has, from Research Gate and there seems to be accusations of censorship about. Anyway here it is (a pdf from vixra.org);
Masks Don’t Work; A review of science relevant to COVID-19 social policy
It might be worth going through the references of these papers as well, as gems no doubt there too.
Later I’ll upload Hardie’s paper but I don’t have an online version to hand right now and substack doesn’t seem to like loading pdfs up.
I also spent time in Melbourne last November (yes I’ve done 2 weeks of isolation, I might write on that later) when the mask mandate was in place. Boy they’re annoying.