UK Government Evidence for Mask Mandates- Main Points

Have they read beyond the abstract?

The UKHSA review on the effectiveness of face coverings to reduce community transmission of covid, updated to 14 September 2021, included two randomised controlled trials and 23 observational studies, also known as non-randomised studies.

We reviewed the two randomised controlled trials within the Cochrane review A122 (Physical interventions to interrupt or reduce the spread of respiratory viruses) that led to the conclusion that ‘wearing masks in the community probably makes little or no difference to the outcome of influenza‐like illness (ILI)/COVID‐19 like illness compared to not wearing masks.’

Commentators have extolled the “limitations in the primary evidence” of the Cochrane review and instead drawn on non-randomized studies (as the UKHSA did) to support their use.  

So, here we focus on the other 23 non-randomised studies in the UKHSA review. 

All 23 studies make no mention of the existence of a protocol, a detail which has escaped the UKHSA reviewers. A protocol published before …