Masks

Masks articles feature analysis and commentary related to mask mandates, masking policy, research, public health, and social life.

All masks articles at Brownstone Institute are machine translated into multiple languages.

  • All
  • Censorship
  • Economics
  • Education
  • Government
  • History
  • Law
  • Masks
  • Media
  • Pharma
  • Philosophy
  • Policy
  • Psychology
  • Public Health
  • Society
  • Technology
  • Vaccines

The Compliance Conundrum

SHARE | PRINT | EMAIL

As we demarcate our own comfort zones, we could all use an extra dose of compassion for those who make different calibrations. Whichever strategy claims our allegiance—persisting with strict compliance or loosening the reins—it pays to remember that people on the other side want the pandemic to end as much as we do: they simply disagree on how it will happen.

The Compliance Conundrum Read More

masks don't work study

More than 170 Comparative Studies and Articles on Mask Ineffectiveness and Harms

SHARE | PRINT | EMAIL

It is not unreasonable to conclude that surgical and cloth masks, used as they currently are being used (without other forms of PPE protection), have no impact on controlling the transmission of Covid-19 virus. Current evidence implies that face masks can be actually harmful. The body of evidence indicates that face masks are largely ineffective. 

More than 170 Comparative Studies and Articles on Mask Ineffectiveness and Harms Read More

Do masks reduce risk of COVID19 by 53%? How about 80%?

SHARE | PRINT | EMAIL

Scientists have lost any consistent standards for evidence appraisal. Non randomized data with dirty measures of exposure and unrealistic effect sizes should set off warning bells. Or, if you want to just believe in things, then go ahead, just believe in them, but don’t pretend you are following a consistent framework for evaluating evidence.

Do masks reduce risk of COVID19 by 53%? How about 80%? Read More

Why Mask Mandates Should be Repealed Immediately

SHARE | PRINT | EMAIL

It is time to stop mask mandates for healthy people. It is no longer possible to justify a behavioral experiment with such far-reaching harmful consequences. Many scientific studies and analysis all arrive at the same conclusion: the wearing of masks by healthy people cannot stop the spread of a virus. 

Why Mask Mandates Should be Repealed Immediately Read More

Escrava Anastácia

The Mask of Your Enslavement: The Image, History, and Meaning of Escrava Anastácia

SHARE | PRINT | EMAIL

While there are clear specificities between the suffering of Africans under the system of chattel slavery and the deprivation of civil liberties endured by most citizens around the world during the current pandemic panic, Anastácia reminds us of certain transhistorical constants in the process of dehumanization and subjugation of populations through the gagging and muzzling of their bodies to quell their protestations. 

The Mask of Your Enslavement: The Image, History, and Meaning of Escrava Anastácia Read More

The True Meaning of Masking

SHARE | PRINT | EMAIL

If we are people in a society with an authoritarian structure, where our ability to participate and do the things we wish to do every day are conditional on the approval of government, then our way of relating with power structures is no longer one of “We are all in partnership together” but one of “behavioural correction.” In such a system the mask becomes a tool for enacting that behavioural correction.

The True Meaning of Masking Read More

Masks: Before and After They Became Political

SHARE | PRINT | EMAIL

If one actually takes the time to consider the preponderance of evidence regarding universal masking, it becomes extremely difficult to conclude that it has had, or was ever expected to have, a significant effect on the course of the pandemic. The evidence certainly doesn’t come even close to matching the quasi-religious fervor exhibited by the popular media, mask-mandating helicopter politicians, or your judgy virtue-signaling neighbor.

Masks: Before and After They Became Political Read More

How to Account for the CDC’s New Mask Advisory?

SHARE | PRINT | EMAIL

The CDC seems more easily led by op-eds in political newspapers than actual scientific papers on the topic, of which there are many thousands now. The agency wants digestible, clear instructions on what they should be doing. This piece in the Washington Post provided exactly that. Thus did the CDC reverse itself yet again. 

How to Account for the CDC’s New Mask Advisory? Read More

Stay Informed with Brownstone Institute