New York Officials are Lying to Justify The Mask Mandate
As expected, the Governor lied to rationalize her own incompetence
The lying and misinformation from state officials to justify their completely ineffective policy decisions just keeps getting worse.
Just a few days ago, I wrote about how California’s health officers purposefully lied to justify the return of the mask mandate:
But today, I noticed that the state of New York pulled the exact same trick.
It’s remarkable how this keeps happening, isn’t it?
The dedicated coronavirus webpage for the state of New York has a helpful FAQ section to address questions or concerns residents might have, and provide a one-stop reference for those seeking inaccurate propaganda.
Here’s how their latest update begins:
On December 10, 2021, Governor Kathy Hochul announced masks will be required to be worn in all indoor public places unless businesses or venues implement a vaccine requirement. This major action to address the winter surge comes as COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations rise statewide and is in alignment with the CDC's recommendations for communities with substantial and high transmission. The State Health Commissioner issued a determination solidifying the requirement.
The good old appeal to authority!
Sure, the CDC has gotten countless things wrong since the pandemic started. Their initial testing rollout, previously thought to be only contaminated, was recently confirmed to contain a design flaw as well:
COVID-19 testing kits the CDC developed in the pandemic's early weeks contained a design flaw that caused false positives, the agency concluded in a Dec. 15 analysis published in PLOS One.
The CDC previously disclosed that the polymerase chain reaction tests developed in January 2020 were contaminated but had not acknowledged the basic design flaw, according to The New York Times.
The faulty test kits were distributed to laboratories in early February 2020, with many reporting that the tests produced inconclusive results. Experts say the faulty tests hurt national efforts to detect and track COVID-19 cases.
"It delayed the availability of more widespread testing," Benjamin Pinsky, MD, PhD, director of clinical virology at Palo Alto, Calif.-based Stanford Health Care, told the Times. "I think it's important that they got to the bottom of what went wrong."
Nailed it guys!
Then there was the evidence-free flip flop on masks, poorly designed “studies” out of Arizona and Kansas, the former director saying masks could provide better protection than a vaccine, and the unbelievably hilarious double masking recommendation:
Adding more layers of material to a mask (layering) is a good way to reduce the number of respiratory droplets containing the virus that come through the mask. One layering strategy is to use a cloth mask that has multiple layers of fabric. Another strategy is to wear two masks.
One way to do this is to wear a medical procedure mask underneath a cloth mask. A recent study conducted in a laboratory found that this combination provided much better protection to the wearer and to others as compared with a cloth mask by itself or a medical procedure mask by itself.
And if you’re still doubting their competence, this is a real thing that the world’s leading public health agency published on their official website:
Incredible.
And just today, David Zweig published a blistering piece covering in great detail just how hopelessly inept the CDC’s school masking “study” turned out to be:
Appealing to the CDC’s recommendations to justify the mask mandate is dangerously incompetent.
The CDC recommends masking if case rates exceed 50 new cases per 100,000 over seven days. What is that based on? Why 50? There’s no justification or explanation for why they chose that number. Why would anyone follow their recommendations when there’s no evidence given for why they exist in the first place?
Not to mention the incomprehensibly large amount of evidence that mask mandates do not matter, such as a comprehensive preprint study that found the below:
Results Earlier mask mandates were not associated with lower total cases or lower maximum growth rates. Earlier mandates were weakly associated with lower minimum COVID-19 growth rates. Mask use predicted lower minimum but not lower maximum growth rates. Growth rates and total growth were comparable between US states in the first and last mask use quintiles during the Fall-Winter wave. These observations persisted for both natural logarithmic and fold growth models and when adjusting for differences in US state population density.
Conclusions We did not observe association between mask mandates or use and reduced COVID-19 spread in US states. COVID-19 mitigation requires further research and use of existing efficacious strategies, most notably vaccination.
Yet this is what the CDC says about masking (emphasis added):
Wearing a mask is one of the most important ways to reduce the risk of getting and spreading COVID-19. This document describes the types of masks available and strategies that can be used to better protect the wearer and the people they interact with. Wearing any type of mask correctly is better than not wearing a mask at all.
This guidance should be used to help inform people’s choice of mask and level of protection. CDC recommends that people consistently and correctly wear masks in all public settings
Unbelievable.
Every single day I hear from people that masking was never meant to be that effective, that it’s only a small part of necessary public health measures, yet here is the CDC saying that “wearing a mask is one of the most important ways to reduce the risk of getting and spreading COVID-19.”
This is despite overwhelming amounts of data showing this to be completely inaccurate. The authority of this demonstrably incompetent organization is what the state of New York is appealing to.
The state’s website then answers the question, does this mean the vaccines aren’t working?
No! The State Department of Health has produced nation-leading studies, published in the CDC's MMWR and the New England Journal of Medicine, which demonstrate the COVID-19 vaccines' effectiveness - particularly in preventing severe disease. The Department continues to urge eligible New Yorkers of all ages to get fully vaccinated and boosted as soon as possible.
So…uh, why bring back masks?
Well, they’ve “answered” that too! And this is where the lies really take off:
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