By David Seedhouse | TCW Defending Freedom | November 27, 2021

This is an open letter to Andrew Gregory, Health Editor of the Guardian. 

Dear Andrew,

We are a group of citizens dedicated to promoting a more open, democratic society. We have tried to contact you on several occasions without success, so we have published this open letter in the hope you will see it and reply.

On November 18, you published a story with the headline: ‘Mask-wearing cuts Covid incidence by 53%, says global study.’

The sub-heading was: ‘Researchers said results highlight the need to continue with face coverings, social distancing and handwashing alongside vaccine programmes’.

We were struck by this, since it goes against a substantial body of evidence that concludes that mask-wearing offers little if any protection against viruses, for example these studies https://swprs.org/face-masks-evidence/ https://www.professorhinkley.com/blog/sorry-oregon-your-mask-is-useless-according-to-the-science; https://www.city-journal.org/do-masks-work-a-review-of-the-evidence.

You did not reference the paper on which you base your article but an internet search reveals it. (Stella Talic corresponding author). You paraphrase uncritically: ‘Vaccines are safe and effective and saving lives around the world. But … it is not yet known if jabs will prevent future transmission of emerging coronavirus variants …