602 million people 35 country study reveals the truth...

New Study Shows Face Mask Usage Did Not Correlate With Better Outcomes

A new peer-reviewed study entitled: “Correlation Between Mask Compliance and COVID-19 Outcomes in Europe” has demonstrated that use of face masks, even widespread, did not correlate with better outcomes during the COVID epidemic, based on data from 35 European countries with populations of over one million people each, encompassing a total of 602 million people.

The study noted that the average proportion of mask usage in the period investigated (October 2020 until March 2021) was 60.9% ± 19.9%.

…The study also noted that the public may have gained the impression that masks could be helpful due to the fact that mandates were usually implemented after the first peak of COVID cases had passed. However, it became evident that masks were not in fact helpful later that same year, when widespread mask usage does not appear to have mitigated the severity of the COVID wave of winter 2020.

“Moreover,” the study concludes, “the moderate positive correlation between mask usage and deaths in Western Europe also suggests that the universal use of masks may have had harmful unintended consequences.”

So not only did masks not help on a grand scale (and a 602 million size sample is a pretty good sample size) but they may have had unintended harmful consequences.  Now many will cite small studies from small samples as proof that masks and mask mandates worked. But these are generally small sample studies comparing things like "counties" and pretty much never accounted for differences between age and other factors. Easy for one county (who might have a large senior population) to show more deaths than another county (who might have a much younger population).

So far I have not seen a single study that was state vs state, country wide, or country vs country that showed any significant difference. As any statistician will tell you. The larger the scope, the larger the sample, and the more you can remove other factors, the more consistent and accurate the results will be.  If a study of 602 million people is not large enough, as well as the John Hopkins study of 330 million Americans is not large enough, then not sure how to satisfy anyone else. 

Between the two of them that is nearly a billion person sample. If someone has a larger sample survey that says something different, then I would be happy to review it. If you are going to show me some study between counties or precincts, or other smallish areas, then I will not bother even looking at it.