"The Science" on Mask Mandates Didn't Change
Just the Politics
As Democratic politicians and their media allies make their blindingly fast pivot away from mask mandates, I felt it was important to provide a rebuttal to what now appears to be the agreed upon talking point, as articulated by one of CNN's favorite purveyors of "The Science" Dr.Leana Wen:
According to Dr. Wen "The Science has Changed", but what is she talking about nothing has changed? When called out on this point, Wen actually responded and gave a list of three points where she claims the science "HAS" changed:
We didn't have vaccines for children 5-11 until November.
We now know vaccines protect well against Omicron.
1-way masking with N95/KN95 protects the wearer.
Point One is irrelevant. Most European countries have never masked 5 to 11 year olds and the cost benefit of vaccinating this age group is highly questionable to say the least. Many countries are going the completely opposite direction of the US and do not recommend Covid vaccination for under 12’s outside of severely immuno-compromised children.
Point Two is also nonsense, the benefits of the vaccine in preventing hospitalizations in vulnerable adults was never in question with Omicron. The early data out of South Africa indicated both prior infection and vaccination still protected against severe outcomes and nothing has changed since. The only thing Omicron changed was eliminating whatever remained of the vaccine's protection against infection.
That leaves us with Point Three, which appears to be the coup de gras for all masking science. The idea that the potential personal protective benefit of an N95 is some new discovery is just too perfect, the desperation to shift the narrative is palpable. There is no new data here, we've known since before the pandemic that N95 respirators offer the best shot at protection, but it's still not great. If not worn properly, without gaps and disposed of after each use it's as good as useless, and even in studies with trained healthcare workers, N95 respirators barely beat out surgical masks, which studies show, and most now admit, are useless at personal protection.
So what's really going on here? The Democrats aren't willing to just admit they were wrong, so they're desperate for a message that allows them to shift away from the necessity for mandates without having to admit the "Your mask protects Me" narrative was garbage from the start.
Leana is being a good soldier in trying to spin a new "Your mask protects You" narrative which will appease the general public who are done with masks without startling the basement dwelling double maskers who still form a large segment of the Democrat's base.
But I don't think anyone is buying it.
And why would they, Leana has been peddling politically motivated “Science” throughout this entire pandemic. She was a early and strong proponent of vaccine mandates:
Going as far as to advocate to the unvaccinated to be excluded from the public entirely:
And Wen was still pushing the pseudoscience of travel restrictions when the Omicron variants first surfaced:
When you hear Leana Wen, or other curators of “The Science”, say that “The Science has changed”, remember that her policy perceptions have never been based on medical science, but only on how to best manipulate the public.
This clip of Ron DeSantis explains it succinctly:
“The medical science didn't change, the political science did.”
One can see examples of how fast the "political science" has changed by looking at Virginia:
Just days ago Democrats in the state legislature were still fighting against the newly elected Republican Governor's executive order to give parents the right to opt out of local school mask mandates. But yesterday, half the Democrats in the state senate, including the Democrat Senate Majority Leader, helped pass a bipartisan bill codifying parental opt out rights into law!
And across the country more and more states are dropping masks mandates by the day.
I guess you could say "The Science" changes pretty fast, if you don't stop and look around once in a while you could miss it...
Anyway 0 and 2...