Exactly a year earlier the CDC posted this:
https://wwwnc.cdc.gov/eid/arti...
Based on its analysis of 73 years of published papers the CDC chose the 10 best RCT to represent their conclusions regarding the use of masks:
"In our systematic review, we identified 10 RCTs that reported estimates of the effectiveness of face masks in reducing laboratory-confirmed influenza virus infections in the community from literature published during 1946–July 27, 2018. In pooled analysis, we found no significant reduction in influenza transmission with the use of face masks..."
That's 73 years of research. About the same time Fauci was interviewed on 60 minutes by another MD and said the same thing. He also said that people who are asymptomatic are not super spreaders.
Within two both the CDC and Fauci flipped their positions without the appearance of any peer-reviewed RCT studies that could negate 73 years of research. The reversal was politically motivated.
The CDC also has a data page which shows that in the entire country, between Jan of 2020 and July 21, 2021, the total number of children in the 0-17yrs age bracket who died of covid was 337, probably due to pre-existing medical conditions. During that same period of time 50,488 kids died of all causes.
https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nvss/...
The immune system of children are much more responsive than those of adults, and while the leaders have been hand wringing and imposing economic and freedom restricting mandates, which are personally ignored by many of them, herd immunity has taken place among the children. Yet medical professionals who held to the previous understandings of the effectiveness of masks now are requesting that kids wear masks at school, even if they were "fully vaccinated". A tacit admission that the vaccine doesn't really work.
We aren't the first generation to experience a pandemic. When I was a JR in HS in 1957-58 we had a flu pandemic that killed the equivalent of 232,000 people. We didn't put people out of work by shutting down factories, closing businesses, grounding planes and stopping trains and buses, and restricting people to their homes. If one was sick they went to the doctor or the hospital, otherwise they went to school or work. That pandemic passed, as this one will too, and something will come along later to take its place.
By re-mandating masks it appears that the real objective is to complete the task of destroying the economy begun by the previous mandates, making Americans totally dependent on the government. Cloward-Pevins by the back door.