The Atlantic, known as a liberal-leaning journal, has published a piece titled, “The CDC’s Flawed Case for Wearing Masks in School.” For details I found extremely interesting, see: https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2021/12/mask-guidelines-cdc-walensky/621035/.
Briefly, the article states that the CDC’s case is based on an extremely flawed research study that CDC says demonstrates a more than triple risk of Covid outbreaks at schools without mask mandates in Arizona, compared to schools there with mask mandates in place. While other, similar studies from around the world do show some such correllation, the increased risks in the other studies are in the 21% to 35% range, not 350% as in the Arizona study. There seem to be MANY major flaws in the study’s methodology, it has not been peer reviewed, and it’s an extreme outlier. Many of the study’s target schools were not actually open during the testing period, for example, and several are not even actual schools, but simply academic programs listed by the Arizona Department of Education. Both the CDC and the study authors refused to provide any of their actual data for the Atlantic’s experts to check.
To be perfectly clear, there is ample evidence that masks, especially surgical masks, can help prevent the spread of disease. That’s why surgeons wear them. But the lack of rigor, transparency, and common sense render this study completely useless as a basis for national policy-making. It does, however, align closely with the Biden administration’s previously announced policies. It seems that Biden, like Trump, is not averse to using junk science to support his agendas. Both administrations have greatly undermined public confidence in the supposedly non-political CDC, and in medical science as well.
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