WILL NV GOV. LOMBARDO MANDATE VAX & MASKS?

August 24, 2023

Dems are starting to push masks and vaccines again. News articles are starting to pop up citing a new strain of CV. CNN dug up a professor from the George Washington University School of Medicine and Health Sciences calling for masking again.

CNN reported just yesterday:

The Biden CDC urges people to “wear a mask with the best fit, protection, and comfort for you,” and it notes that some people are at higher risk for severe illness from COVID-19. But the agency doesn’t make a broad recommendation for everyone to adopt masks. That could change if hospitalizations reach critical levels. The CDC recommends universal masking in jurisdictions that have 20 or more people with COVID per 100,000 in local hospitals and masking for high-risk individuals when 10 to 19.9 people per 100,000 are hospitalized from the virus.

We all know that masks do nothing. It’s been scientifically proven now. A new meta-analysis published by the Cochrane Library and led by 12 researchers found that the difference between wearing a regular surgical mask or not wearing one at all “may make little to no difference in how many people catch a flu-like illness or COVID-like illness. It also “probably makes little or no difference in how many people have flu/COVID confirmed by a laboratory test.”

From the Study

Main results

We included 11 new RCTs and cluster‐RCTs (610,872 participants) in this update, bringing the total number of RCTs to 78. Six of the new trials were conducted during the COVID-19 pandemic: two from Mexico and one each from Denmark, Bangladesh, England, and Norway. We identified four ongoing studies, of which one is completed but unreported, evaluating masks concurrent with the COVID-19 pandemic.

Many studies were conducted during non-epidemic influenza periods. Several were conducted during the 2009 H1N1 influenza pandemic, and others in epidemic influenza seasons up to 2016. Therefore, many studies were conducted in the context of lower respiratory viral circulation and transmission compared to COVID-19. The included studies were conducted in heterogeneous settings, ranging from suburban schools to hospital wards in high-income countries; crowded inner-city settings in low-income countries; and an immigrant neighborhood in a high-income country. Adherence to interventions was low in many studies.

The risk of bias for the RCTs and cluster‐RCTs was mostly high or unclear.

Medical/surgical masks compared to no masks

We included 12 trials (10 cluster‐RCTs) comparing medical/surgical masks versus no masks to prevent the spread of viral respiratory illness (two trials with healthcare workers and 10 in the community). 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 (risk ratio (RR) 0.95, 95% confidence interval (CI) 0.84 to 1.09; 9 trials, 276,917 participants; moderate‐certainty evidence. Wearing masks in the community probably makes little or no difference to the outcome of laboratory‐confirmed influenza/SARS‐CoV‐2 compared to not wearing masks (RR 1.01, 95% CI 0.72 to 1.42; 6 trials, 13,919 participants; moderate‐certainty evidence). Harms were rarely measured and poorly reported (very low‐certainty evidence).

But Republican Gov. Lombardo is having none of that. In a letter from Gov. Lombardo’s office issued this week:

“In Nevada, we cherish our freedom, and Governor Lombardo will fiercely fight to protect it. As Governor, he has said previously, he vehemently disagrees with the way the State of Nevada handled COVID under the previous administration. Governor Lombardo does not support mask and vaccine mandates, and he will not re-institute any of those measures.”

But that doesn’t stop Clark County and cities from issuing their own mandates.