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by Naveen Athrappully
November 27,
2023
from
TheEpochTimes Website
A discarded mask
lay on a sidewalk in Orange, Calif.,
on June 19, 2020.
(John Fredricks/The Epoch Times)
Some mask
wearers
were found to
have
up to 40 percent
higher
incidence of
infection, contradicting
earlier studies
and opposing
the narrative of
mask mandates...
People who wore protective masks were found to be more likely to
contract COVID-19 infections than those who didn't, according to a
recent Norwegian study.
The peer-reviewed study (Association
between Face Mask Use and Risk of SARS-CoV-2 Infection),
published in the journal Epidemiology and Infection on Nov.
13, analyzed mask use among 3,209 individuals from Norway.
Researchers followed them
for 17 days, and then asked the participants about their use of
masks. The team found that there was a higher incidence of testing
positive for COVID-19 among people who
used masks more frequently.
Among individuals who,
"never or almost
never" wore masks, 8.6 percent tested positive.
That rose,
Adjusting for factors
such as vaccination status, the study determined that individuals
who sometimes or often wore masks had a 33 percent higher incidence
of
COVID-19, compared to those who
never or almost never wore masks.
This jumped,
to 40 percent
among people who almost always or always wore them...
However, adjusting for
"differences in baseline risk over time," the risk of wearing masks
turned out to be "less pronounced," with only a 4 percent higher
incidence of infection among mask-wearers.
"The results
contradict earlier randomized and non-randomized studies of the
effectiveness of mask-wearing on the risk of infection," the
researchers wrote.
"Most of these studies reported that wearing a face mask
'reduces' the risk of COVID-19 infection.
Some observational
studies have reported manyfold reductions while one
community-based randomized trial failed to demonstrate a
statistically significant reduction in infection risk and one
cluster randomized community trial found only a modest
reduction."
The researchers pointed
out a major limitation of their study:
Individuals who used
masks may have done so to protect others from their own
infection.
This could explain the,
"positive association
between risk of infection and mask usage."
Behavioral differences
and the fact that the survey was based on self-reporting could also
contribute to bias, it stated.
There's also a possibility that mask wearers felt safe while wearing
masks and thus didn't follow other regulations such as social
distancing, which raised their risk of contracting COVID-19, the
study said.
"Our findings suggest
that wearing a face mask,
may be associated
with an increased risk of infection...
However, it is
important to note that this association may be due to
unobservable and non-adjustable differences between those
wearing and not wearing a mask," the researchers stated.
"Therefore, caution is imperative when interpreting the results
from this and other observational studies on the relationship
between mask-wearing and infection risk.
Recommendations to
wear face masks in the community are largely informed by low
certainty evidence from observational studies."
Researchers called for more trials and studies to gain a better
understanding of the effectiveness of wearing masks against
transmission of respiratory pathogens.
The study was fully funded by the Norwegian Institute of Public
Health. It reported no conflicts of interest.
Masking
Mandates
The new study comes at a time when some regions in North America
are reinstating mask mandates amid a reported increase in
COVID-19 cases.
At the beginning of November, many regions in the
Bay Area issued masking rules in
health care settings ahead of the respiratory disease season, when
infections such as COVID-19, the flu, and respiratory syncytial
virus are expected to spread.
In the state of,
California, San
Francisco, Alameda, Santa Clara, San Mateo, Marin, Contra Costa,
Napa, Sonoma, and Solano,
...issued masking
mandates, with the rules remaining in effect until next March or
April.
While in some places only staff and workers of a health care
facility are required to wear masks, others require patients and
visitors to wear masks as well.
Rosemary Hills School in Maryland
announced in September that it
distributed KN95 masks to students and teachers while mandating
masking for at least 10 days after three students from a classroom
tested positive for COVID-19.
A month earlier, school officials with the Kinterbish Junior High
School in Cuba, Alabama, asked students, employees, and visitors
to wear masks,
"due to the slow rise
of COVID cases in the area."
Seven hospitals in
Canada
reinstated mask mandates last month
to,
"help prevent
transmission of COVID-19."
In British Columbia,
Provincial Health Officer Bonnie Henry
announced that health care workers,
volunteers, and visitors would be required to wear "medical" masks
in all public health care facilities starting on Oct. 3.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)
recommends wearing masks to counter COVID-19.
"Masking is a
critical public health tool and it is important to remember that
any mask is better than no mask," it
said in an August 2021 update.
Certain states have
already made it clear that
mask mandates wouldn't be allowed.
In August, Texas Gov.
Greg Abbott said in an X post that there would be,
"NO mask mandates in
Texas."
Florida Surgeon General
Joseph Ladapo highlighted the issue of the
ineffectiveness of masking policies...
"What do you call
re-imposing mask policies that have been proven ineffective or
restarting lockdowns that are known to cause harm?
You don't call it
sanity," he said in a post on X.
"These terrible
policies only work with your cooperation. How about refusing to
participate."
Several studies have
questioned the use of masks to prevent viral transmission.
A review published in late January
at the Cochrane Library that analyzed 78 randomized
controlled trials found that they didn't show,
"a clear reduction in
respiratory viral infection with the use of medical/surgical
masks."
In an interview with the
Brownstone Institute in February, Tom Jefferson, a
senior associate tutor at the University of Oxford and lead author
of the study, pointed out that there hasn't been a "proper trial" of
masks whereby a huge, randomized study was done to check their
effectiveness.
Instead, some experts
overnight began to perpetuate a "fear-demic"...
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