Much like the rebels must have felt shortly after Luke blew up the Death Star, you probably thought that the face mask wars were over. After all, pretty much everyone has stopped wearing them, and except for a few misguided college campuses, the mandates have come to an end. And with a “gold standard” study showing that they really didn’t do much of anything to prevent the spread of the virus, that should pretty much be the end of the story, right? Not so fast, partner. The Empire doesn’t give up that easily. We’ve already seen how CNN wants you to panic over the latest round of COVID infections. And rising to support that effort, our cable news overlords are rolling out the Darth Vader of shutdowns, the sainted Dr. Anthony Fauci. Yes, he’s back. And he still wants everyone to mask up, even as he acknowledges that there’s really no data to support the idea that it would help. (NY Post)

Dr. Anthony Fauci flip-flopped once again on masking as a means to tamp down COVID-19 as he admitted that a wide-ranging study found that face masks made no difference in the course of the pandemic.

“I am concerned that people will not abide by recommendations,” Fauci told CNN’s Michael Smerconish Saturday in a segment flagging a rise in COVID cases nationwide.

Federal agencies and state and local governments decreed onerous mask mandates for airplanes, schools, public transit, restaurants, workplaces and more starting in 2020 — thanks largely to Fauci, the public face of the nation’s official COVID response.

I managed to catch the Smerconish interview yesterday, but I really couldn’t believe what I was hearing. You will recall that back in the summer of 2021 at the height of the pandemic, Fauci described facemasks as “unnecessary.” Not long after that, he announced that forcing everyone to wear masks was “the most practical way to go.”

To his credit, Smerconish confronted him with the results of the study I referenced above, as well as another one from February which concluded that there was “no evidence” that they are effective, particularly the cloth masks that most people had been wearing. Saint Fauci responded by talking out of both sides of his mouth. First, he told Smerconish that when speaking of the effect on the epidemic” or the pandemic as a whole, “the data are less strong.” But then he claimed that there have been other studies “that show at an individual level, for individuals, they might be protective.”

Offering my standard reminder that I’m no doctor, I still have to ask what seems like an obvious question. Does that even make any sense? If masks are effective (or “protective”) on an individual level, then how would they not be effective on a societal level? If one person wearing a mask won’t catch or transmit the virus, how did so many people wind up catching it when virtually everyone was wearing freaking masks?

Of course, you may be one of those pesky naysayers who pointed out that people had to regularly lower their masks to eat or drink, so they wouldn’t be much use against an airborne virus to begin with. But that’s only because you didn’t understand that the COVID-19 virus is not only magical, but it’s polite as well. When it sees that someone is following the government mandates and wearing a mask the rest of the time, you are given credit and the virus will generously wait and stay away from you until you finish your meal.

All kidding aside, we need to be done with Fauci just as we need to be done with mask mandates. He’s been wrong about too many things and his inconsistencies bred confusion far more than delivering any useful information to the public. Also, he supposedly retired at the end of last year, right? Well, okay… he didn’t “technically” retire. He “moved on from my other positions.” And yet he’s still being trotted out on cable news outlets as some sort of authority to try to scare everyone and deliver more conflicting, nonsensical guidance. Trade in your cloth mask for a Darth Vader mask and get it over with, Dr. Fauci.