Emily
Editor, Senior Moderator
https://brownstone.org/articles/why-did-masks-stop-working-in-japan-and-south-korea/
Why Did Masks Stop Working in Japan and South Korea?
By Ian Miller February 15, 2022
In some ways Japan and South Korea might be at least partially to blame for the multiyear long obsession with masking in most of the Western world.
Many governments, especially in the United States, appeared to believe that the early “success” of countries on the Asian continent was due to a widespread cultural acceptance of masking.
That misguided assumption helped direct public health agencies, politicians, school boards and media outlets to shred dozens of high quality pre-Covid studies on masking and forcefully enact and enforce measures that were guaranteed to fail.
Once committed, they had no choice but to ignore the obvious global failure of masks and mask mandates and continue their disproven assertions that masks could end the pandemic in a matter of weeks or reduce infections dramatically.
We’ve since witnessed the anti-science crowd endlessly promoting masking and interventions, with the predictably disastrous results in the Western countries being waved off as a function of poor compliance.
“The reason it’s not working is because people aren’t complying with the mandates,” they’d say, contrary to overwhelmingly consistent survey data that measured mask usage in the 90-98% range across most of the United States and Europe.
To excuse their failure, anti-data activists would point to the Asian countries as “proof” that if we all just masked a little harder, we could bring Covid under control immediately...
Why Did Masks Stop Working in Japan and South Korea?
By Ian Miller February 15, 2022
In some ways Japan and South Korea might be at least partially to blame for the multiyear long obsession with masking in most of the Western world.
Many governments, especially in the United States, appeared to believe that the early “success” of countries on the Asian continent was due to a widespread cultural acceptance of masking.
That misguided assumption helped direct public health agencies, politicians, school boards and media outlets to shred dozens of high quality pre-Covid studies on masking and forcefully enact and enforce measures that were guaranteed to fail.
Once committed, they had no choice but to ignore the obvious global failure of masks and mask mandates and continue their disproven assertions that masks could end the pandemic in a matter of weeks or reduce infections dramatically.
We’ve since witnessed the anti-science crowd endlessly promoting masking and interventions, with the predictably disastrous results in the Western countries being waved off as a function of poor compliance.
“The reason it’s not working is because people aren’t complying with the mandates,” they’d say, contrary to overwhelmingly consistent survey data that measured mask usage in the 90-98% range across most of the United States and Europe.
To excuse their failure, anti-data activists would point to the Asian countries as “proof” that if we all just masked a little harder, we could bring Covid under control immediately...
