We all know masks don’t work for respiratory viruses as I’ve pointed out in my earlier article which had lots of references. If masks started working all of a sudden against respiratory viruses on command of the CDC, it would be proof that CDC pronouncements can change the laws of physics. That would be big news.

There are no randomized studies for cloth, surgical, or N95 masks showing that they stop COVID. In fact, the two randomized studies for cloth and surgical mask show they do nothing at all (as we’ll explain below). The real world data from N95 and FFP2 masks show they make absolutely no difference; the graphs are stunning: the lines are on top of each other.

If you want a mask that has a chance of working at all to protect you, you have to use a P100 respirator, and even that isn’t 100%. But nobody is ever talking about that apparently because the CDC doesn’t really want to protect you (since that would end the pandemic and their control over you). So it is buried in their mask guidance. Nobody mentions it. Nobody wears it. On Jan 21, 2022, I left SFO on a flight and in the airport, I didn’t find a single person wearing a P100 mask. Zero. In short, it is all political theater where everyone is adopting a useless intervention in order to convince themselves that they are being protected. It’s just like social distancing indoors where an MIT study showed it made no difference: 6 or 60 feet was the same.

Here’s the graph for purple cloth masks in the highly acclaimed Bangladesh mask study (Nature called it a “rigorous study” and Stanford and Yale promoted it as definitive):

Purple cloth mask effectiveness in the Bangladesh mask study

See any difference between the curves? Yeah, we didn’t either. There’s a reason for that. Because masks don’t work. Duh. But don’t tell anyone! We don’t want to discredit the CDC as a bunch of bozos who can’t read the randomized controlled studies. We tried to bring this to the attention of the author of the Nature article but she refused to respond. Apparently, they like having misinformation on their website.

Here’s a wonderful video criticizing the CDC for their mask advice showing that the study they relied on for their masking advice (1,000 schools in Arizona) was full of holes:

My new favorite book on the masking topic is the one written by Dr. Judy Mikovits:

All you have to do is read the free preview to know how it ends: “If that means you are sitting alone in your bedroom and wearing a mask as you read, …, then keep that mask on. I doubt you will be wearing it when you finish this book.”

She did an awesome job. I highly recommend it and the Kindle version was only $4. Well worth it.

If the medical community wants to prove masks work, there needs to be a well-done randomized trial and there isn’t one. The best study to date is the Danish mask study and it showed (prior to manipulation to get it published) that mask had a negative effect. Read the BMJ editorial about this.

If masks actually worked, the NIH would be funding a very well-done randomized trial to prove to everyone that they work. They don’t do that. The reason is simple: they know the masks don’t work. Get it?

The public thinks masks are protecting them when in reality they are making things worse which increases fear which leads to greater compliance with the vaccine objective and masking orders. A death spiral.

Studies indicate wearing a mask 8 hours is like breathing 1.5 days in Shanghai.

So when this new Bangladesh mask study was written about in Nature on September 9, I knew it drew an erroneous conclusion (which happens all the time in medicine) despite it being endorsed by infectious disease experts. The author is a science journalist.

The study itself has to be wrong. In an earlier draft of this post, I asked my readers for the best writeups that takedown the masking study. Here are the winners.

Supporting evidence that the Bangladesh study showed masks don’t work

bangladesh mask study: do not believe the hype
Written by el gato malo. This is part I.
more on the bangladesh mask study
Written by el gato malo. This is part II, after they tried to attack Part I.
Bangladesh Mask Study: ‘Extremely Weak Tea’
An excellent short commentary with commentary by other experts
That Bangladesh Mask Study Shows AT BEST A Population Seroprevalence Reduction Of 0.0026%, And Likely Smaller: Plus Four New Studies Showing Mask Mandates Are Useless
An excellent response by statistician William Briggs on this study and other studies showing they are useless.
Effect size is significantly more important than statistical significance (Sept 13, 2021) Professor Ben Recht points out numerous issues with the Bangladesh mask study (1 of 3 articles)
Revisiting the Bangladesh Mask RCT (Nov 23, 2021)
Agrees with the other analyses. The author (Ben Recht, an associate professor at UC Berkeley) actually got the source data from the authors. There is no measurable effect here. The cloth masks were purple and red. The surgical masks were blue and green. Red (cloth) masks worked well. But purple (cloth) masks didn’t work at all. And surgical masks were in between the two. In short, it’s random noise. Get it? It’s all noise.
The cult of statistical significance and the Bangladesh Mask RCT (Nov 29, 2021)
Professor Ben Recht of UC Berkeley takes a second look at the statistical significance of the Bangladesh study. There was cluster randomization so the results weren’t significant. However, since doctors don’t understand math (nor care to even consult statisticians before they render a verdict), the doctors hail this study as proof that mask works. We have the blind leading the blind. Very few people will read Professor Recht’s excellent remarks on the subject.
What were the effects of the Bangladesh mask intervention? (December 1, 2021)
UC Berkeley Professor Ben Recht says it was the intervention itself that caused the differences and not the effect of the masks themselves.
A note on sampling biases in the Bangladesh mask trial (December 2, 2021)
Ben Recht’s latest work shows physical distancing was significant, but the masks were not.
My team’s independent analysis of Professor Ben Recht’s study (December 15, 2021). The good professor was right on the money. We got the original dataset from the authors and we found exactly the same thing Professor Recht found: masks do not work. They do nothing. Red cloth worked the best, purple cloth masks didn’t work at all, and surgical masks were in between those two. In short, it is all statistical noise. You can see the graphs in our analysis, the graphs they should have shown in the study.

Still not convinced?

If you still aren’t convinced, I encourage you to read through all the comments below. They are all excellent. Thank you all for your comments!

The bottom line

Masks don’t work.
“We have no burden, no burden whatsoever, not even in the least degree, to prove mask mandates don’t work. Mask mandate supporters, however, must show conclusive evidence that their mandates provide value. This they cannot do, and have not done.” [from William Briggs]
The Bangladesh study was junk.
Anyone who claims the Bangladesh study was good is incompetent and is spreading misinformation. Twitter should ban these people (like Monica Gandhi who is quoted in the Nature article).
You don’t want to mess with “the bad cat” (aka el gato malo).

Masks don't work.