A leading proponent of face masks as a means of countering the spread of respiratory infections appears to have changed her mind. Professor Trish Greenhalgh, University of Oxford – described as the “high priestess” of the face mask movement, who even appeared on her X feed wearing two face masks during the COVID-19 years – has endorsed a letter to the WHO in which it is claimed, as reported in the Guardian, “There is ‘no rational justification remaining for prioritising or using’ the surgical masks that are ubiquitous in hospitals and clinics globally, given their ‘inadequate protection against airborne pathogens’.”
This is a remarkable volte-face by Professor Greenhalgh whose adherence to the face mask ideology seemed, at times, to defy both logic and the best principles of evidence-based medicine. Once a leading proponent of evidence-based medicine with many entries of her own in the Cochrane Library – the repository of gold standard systematic reviews of clinical evidence including on face masks – she was reported once as saying that “too much weight on evidence-based medicine can be the enemy of good policy”.
In the face of a persistent lack of evidence for the efficacy of face masks in preventing the spread of respiratory infections, up to and including the Cochrane review by Tom Jefferson and colleagues in 2023, Greenhalgh and colleagues decided to ignore this review, criticising its focus on gold standard evidence, and produce their own ‘review’ of the evidence. That review, as reported in the Daily Sceptic, conveniently only included studies that showed face masks in a favourable light. Unsurprisingly, their conclusion was that face masks were effective and should be promoted during respiratory pandemics.
While the above pivot would appear to be good news, sadly it is not all that good. And the bad news is revealed in Global Health Now, the daily newsletter of the Bloomberg School of Public Health at Johns Hopkins University, dated January 12th. The Guardian article, containing a link to the letter, is headlined: ‘Face masks “inadequate” and should be swapped for respirators, WHO is advised’. The letter was addressed to WHO chief Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus and the recommendations apply only to clinical staff in hospital environments.
The letter to the WHO chief is titled ‘A Call for the Universal use of Respirators in Healthcare’. In it, the signatories say that as COVID-19 “continues to circulate globally and to mutate” that the WHO must “support equitable access to certified respirators globally”. Thus, the letter meets the first two criteria of Hudson’s Razor which warns that anything that is:
(1) presented as a global crisis; for which there is
(2) only a global solution.
is probably a con. Especially if it requires:
(3) suppression of dissent.
And there is certainly a hint of dogmatism about the wording of the letter. Urging the WHO “to lead decisively” it says, “inaction is no longer justifiable”. And then the reference to history – as in nobody wants to be ‘on the wrong side’ of it – is brought to bear: “History will remember not only what WHO said during the early pandemic — but how it responded after the evidence for airborne transmission became indisputable.”
The moral certainty expressed in the letter is staggering when the authors of the letter justify their conclusions “in light of the long-settled scientific conclusion that only respirators can provide significant exposure and risk reduction”. It is hard to know where to begin when people who should know better refer to “settled” science.
The letter makes specific reference to N95, FFP2/3 respirators. The authors cite various articles in support of their position, but studiously avoid any reference to the gold standard review of evidence by Jefferson and colleagues. Presumably because, in addition to finding no evidence in favour of cloth face masks, it also found no evidence for the effectiveness of N95, FFP2/3 respirators.
As if to impress, a statement that the letter was “supported by over 2,300 signatories worldwide” is included. Who knew so many ‘experts’ could be wrong?
Roger Watson is a retired academic, editor and writer. He writes regularly for a range of conservative journals including The Salisbury Review and The European Conservative. He has travelled and worked extensively in the Far East and the Middle East. He lives in Kingston upon Hull, UK.
This piece was first published in The Daily Sceptic, and is reproduced by kind permission.
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Wasn’t it though all about gauging the publics’ compliance (stupidity) rather than an actual belief that sub-standard masks had any real medical purpose?
The best comment I as an anti – vakkser heard during Covid was that wearing a mask had about the same affect as putting a chain link fence around a garden to keep out mosquitoes due to the porosity of the masks.