Oh, really?

completely debunked, even before this was promulgated by our lying “experts”

A terrible, but still influential paper edges closer to admitting it’s been printing garbage.

Daniel Payne:

It was pretty early in the pandemic that a small but vocal group of commentators and dissenters started pointing out what seemed pretty obvious: That face masks — flimsy, crummy paper things, or loose ill-fitting surgical covers, or moist, damp, filthy cotton masks — were obviously going to be ineffective at stopping the spread of COVID-19.

Well, of course we were shouted down, and vilified, and censored, and cast out of polite society. Nearly all of the mainstream media, meanwhile, were against us too. Here's a great representative article from late 2020 at The New York Times:

And this week, the rag was forced to run the truth, albeit as an opinion piece (which the first post was, only it was presented as factual reporting).

The most rigorous and comprehensive analysis of scientific studies conducted on the efficacy of masks for reducing the spread of respiratory illnesses — including Covid-19 — was published late last month. Its conclusions, said Tom Jefferson, the Oxford epidemiologist who is its lead author, were unambiguous.

"There is just no evidence that they" — masks — "make any difference," he told the journalist Maryanne Demasi. "Full stop."

But, wait, hold on. What about N-95 masks, as opposed to lower-quality surgical or cloth masks?

"Makes no difference — none of it," said Jefferson

Another once reputable institution, the University of Pennsylvania printed this preening, self-congratulatory article back in 2020

People who relied on conservative or social media in the early days of the COVID-19 outbreak were more likely to be misinformed about how to prevent the virus and believe conspiracy theories about it, a study of media use and public knowledge has found. 

Conservative media usage (such as Fox News and Rush Limbaugh) correlated with higher levels of misinformation and belief in conspiracies about the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic, including the belief that the Chinese government created the virus as a bioweapon and the belief that some in the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) were exaggerating the danger posed by the coronavirus in order to damage Donald Trump’s presidency. 

Social media and web aggregator usage was associated with lower levels of information and higher levels of misinformation about COVID-19, while mainstream broadcast and print media usage correlated with higher levels of correct information and lower levels of misinformation.

I wouldn’t hate these people if their erroneous opinions hadn’t been presented as indisputable facts and accompanied by a smug, false sense of superiority and disdainful contempt for people who disagreed. As it is, they were, so I do.

ivy league graduate, NYT moron