Dr. Anthony Fauci fumbled when confronted on a recent study that found masks didn’t work - on CNN of all places.
The study in question was published in the highly regarded Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews, and reviewed 78 randomized, controlled trials, six of which were conducted during the COVID pandemic, to determine if N95 masks reduce the spread of respiratory illnesses. The review found that “Compared with wearing no mask in community studies only, wearing a mask may make little to no difference in how many people caught a flu‐like illness/COVID‐like illness.”
While discussing masking amid rising COVID cases, Fauci told host Michael Smerconish that he was concerned about people not taking the CDC’s health recommendations seriously, leading to Smerconish bringing up the Cochrane review, asking “How do we get beyond that finding of that particular review?”
And in response, Fauci essentially argued that their review didn’t matter because where were at least a few studies that found masks to be effective, telling Smerconish that “there's no doubt that there are many studies that show that there is an advantage” at the level of individual infections - though he did admit that “when you're talking about the effect on the epidemic or the pandemic as a whole, the data are less strong.”
Matt Palumbo is the author of Fact-Checking the Fact-Checkers: How the Left Hijacked and Weaponized the Fact-Checking Industry and The Man Behind the Curtain: Inside the Secret Network of George Soros
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