Yet Another Paper Fails to Find that Masks Do Anything

A natural experiment in Catalonia is the latest piece of evidence that masking is a worthless intervention.

As long as we’re talking about masks, let’s have a look at this paper out of Catalonia: Unravelling the Role of the Mandatory Use of Face Covering Masks for the Control of SARS-CoV-2 in Schools: A Quasi-Experimental Study Nested in a Population-Based Cohort in Catalonia.

It turns out that child-care centres and schools in Catalonia have been host to a natural experiment: Children up to five years of age attended preschool facilities where they weren’t required to mask. Children six years and older attended primary school where face-coverings were mandatory. When you compare rates of infection among unmasked five year-olds to masked six year-olds from October 2021 through January 2022, what you find is … entirely predictable and in line with literally every other piece of evidence that has been assembled on this topic to date.

Masks just don’t do anything.