Masks: What the science really shows
The proof is in: “Masks don’t work!” That, said Zeynep Tufekci in The New York Times, is what anti-maskers recently proclaimed after the release of a meta-analysis by the esteemed Cochrane organization. But that’s not what Cochrane’s analysis found at all. Cochrane assessed 78 studies about viral transmission, but most of them were about hand washing and disinfection during prior flu outbreaks; just two of the studies were about mask use during the Covid era, in Indonesia and Bangladesh. “Both found that masks helped.” Observational studies like these have a basic flaw: Most people wear their masks improperly or only some of the time. But aerosol studies show that well-fitted N95s and KN95s block more than 90 percent of airborne viral particles. Real-world proof of that comes from Japan, “which emphasized wearing masks” and had one-sixth the Covid death rate of the U.S. “The science is clear that masks work.”
Masks might work, but “mask mandates don’t,” said Matthew Yglesias in Bloomberg. “The truth about mask policy in the U.S. is that it was always a complete shambles.” Remember the days of restaurants requiring patrons to mask when walking to their table, then allowing them to unmask while eating and talking? Former President Trump further eroded compliance by defying mask mandates before and after he nearly died of Covid, making mask wearing a sign of political identity. Three years after the pandemic launched this debate, said Gabrielle Bauer in The Wall Street Journal, the unmasked have “won the war.” Maskless people are traveling, partying in big groups, going to the theater and movies and restaurants. Yes, people still get Covid, but “most of us want more from life than avoidance of illness.”
So what conclusion should we all draw? asked Derek Thompson in The Atlantic. “Masks work,” but asking people to wear masks often “doesn’t work at all.” In Japan or Germany, where a 2020 study found that a mask mandate reduced the spread of infections by 50 percent, masking can be effective. But in states like Alabama or South Dakota, where masks are widely viewed as stupid, nanny-state face diapers, a mask mandate achieves nothing. It’s not unlike advising Americans to eat broccoli instead of Twinkies. If most people stick with the junk food, it is possible, though simplistic, to conclude: “Vegetables don’t work!”