The Tony Blair Institute think you should mask up: but what evidence are they basing this on?

As we have seen in the past, careless reviews of the evidence to underpin policy and deliberate attempts to exaggerate the threat will be seen for what they are.

The Tony Blair Institute supports governments and policymakers in responding to today’s challenges. They consider the NHS is on the brink of disaster and that there are only three Months to Save the NHS. But, don’t worry; we’ve been here before with catastrophising headlines that are now the norm. 

To save the NHS, the Blair Institute considers one of 12 actions is to ‘be prepared to re-introduce the mandating of mask-wearing on public transport and in confined spaces.’ 

Healthcare has tried and trusted methods for determining when to intervene. These include using high-quality evidence from systematic reviews and guidance from national organisations such as NICE. And, if we need to save the NHS in the next three months, the evidence to save us had better be damn good. 

So, we asked the question: what evidence did Tony’s institute use to back up the mandating of mask policy action?

‘community mask-wearing has been shown to substantially reduce the transmission of Covid-19’. 

The above stat…