The Mask Mandates Did Nothing. Will Any Lessons Be Learned?
Wednesday, Feb 22 2023
This is a recent piece published in the New York Times (23 February 2023), keeping in mind an earlier piece in the same paper in late 2021 (We Did The Research, Masks Work), which tells you everything you need to know about "trusting the experts" and "following the science".
The most rigorous and comprehensive analysis of scientific studies conducted on the efficacy of masks for reducing the spread of respiratory illnesses — including Covid-19 — was published late last month. Its conclusions, said Tom Jefferson, the Oxford epidemiologist who is its lead author, were unambiguous. “There is just no evidence that they” — masks — “make any difference,” he told the journalist Maryanne Demasi. “Full stop.” But, wait, hold on. What about N-95 masks, as opposed to lower-quality surgical or cloth masks? “Makes no difference — none of it,” said Jefferson.
But when it comes to the population-level benefits of masking, the verdict is in: Mask mandates were a bust. Those skeptics who were furiously mocked as cranks and occasionally censored as “misinformers” for opposing mandates were right. The mainstream experts and pundits who supported mandates were wrong. In a better world, it would behoove the latter group to acknowledge their error, along with its considerable physical, psychological, pedagogical and political costs.
New York Times — 21 February 2023
See also this excellent video:
It has been known for a hundred years that masking (of sick people) does little to nothing to prevent "viral" contagion, for those who believe in that notion. However, universal masking of the healthy (along with "social distancing") is a medical heresy having no basis in science or reason.
It promotes superstition and omens by making healthy people fear healthy people for no medical, or scientific reason whatsoever.
Muslim scholars past and contemporary have spoken on these issues and made it clear that in this matter of taking precaution, the limits set by the Shari'ah are not to be exceeded, otherwise we risk following the ways of the disbelievers who exaggerate in these affairs.
- Ibn Rajab al-Ḥanbalī (d. 795H) on Sins, Causes of Calamities, Contagion, Legislated Means and Omens. Precaution is within defined Sharīʿah limits, and what exceeds them is from harbouring omens and from the actions of the disbelievers — (see here)
- Shaykh Sulaymān bin Ḥamdān (d. 1397H): Sins, Causes of Calamities, Contagion, Legislated Means and Omens. Precaution is within defined Sharīʿah limits and exceeding them is having an evil opinion about Allāh and such affairs are false imaginations and deceptive delusions — (see here)
- Shaykh Al-Albānī on Exaggeration in the Matter of Contagion and Imitation of the Disbelievers. Precaution is from verifiably sick people and exaggerating in this, as do modern day doctors, is from the ways of Jāhiliyyah and brings harm to society — (see here)
Shaykh Ṣāliḥ al-Luḥaydān (رحمه الله) neither wore masks nor did he maintain social distancing and nor did the students around him in his mosque, as is well known and well-related. This is from the fruits of his position in this subject, which is negation of the superstition of contagion.
Source: New York Times
