The LA Times attempts to rebut "mask ineffective" proclamations, only to show its own biases

And the serious issue of reactive science reporting.

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In the past few weeks several people have reported on The New York Times article suggesting that masking doesn’t work.

From The New York Times

In my personal opinion it should have been up to the individual to choose whether they want to mask or not, however no one should be forced to do so.

More importantly, if one were to push for masking policies the policies should inherently be based on sound science and not speculation, and yet it is here where many agencies have faltered in their ability to provide strong evidence.

The article above from Bret Stephens makes note of a meta-analysis from the Cochran Library which looked at prior studies comparing masking and their protection from influenza-like illness (ILI) as well as the handful of studies on COVID that are available. The analysis also looked at studies which included hand washing and the combination of interventions in their ability to reduce infection.

Meta-analyses suffer many problems, with one most notable issue being heterogeneity in datasets which may be overlooked by pooling studies together.

Nonetheless, they provide some directional gauge as to what the literature provides, and usually they are good for noting outlier studies.

But of course, any commentary on the lack of robust masking studies will generally be met with rebuttals that enforce otherwise.