Five Blind Mice

As a couple of posters have already referenced it, we'll fisk this metric f**kton of bullsh..., er, rose fertilizer, originally posted in the NEJM a couple of months back, and unaccountably burped back up (or more likely, shat out) again this week.

1) That's not a "study". As it's conspicuously labeled "Perspectives", it's sheer OPINION.
And we all know what opinions are like (and in this instance, for exactly the same reasons).
In this case, by an over-educated and under-bright pack of bumbling baboons.

2) The authors are clearly axe-grinding jackholes, their entire thesis is unsupported patent horseshit, and the purpose of wearing cloth/surgical masks (which is what 99.999% of people have on) is always to protect others from you, not to protect you from others, and anyone who doesn't know that is not only a jackhole, they're too stupid to be writing papers anywhere.

At their intended purpose, such masks excel, as they have for 150 years or so since they were pioneered for maintaining asepsis in surgery.

3) For bonus points, the Five Blind Mice who authored that codswallop have about 45 years of post-secondary education between them, and yet none of them noticed they contradicted themselves a couple of paragraphs after that corker:

"...fundamental infection-control measures.

Such measures include vigorous screening of all patients coming to a facility for symptoms of Covid-19 and immediately getting them masked and into a room;"

IOW, fundamental infection control is masking people to curb the spread of cough and sneeze droplets, the exact method of transmitting Kung Flu against which face masks excel.

Some people tell me I can't fix stupid; I say I can, if you'll let me use a big enough hammer.
Those five degreed jackasses should be horsewhipped until the whites of their bones show, and then be dipped to the neck into a vat of rubbing alcohol. Daily. For a month.

4) Don't get fooled by something just because it's posted by NEJM.
We can't help such poly-degreed dimwit fucktards pulling their scrub pants down and spanking their own asses in public. But we can point and laugh when we catch them at it.
Like in this case.

If the NEJM had a comments section, these five @$$clowns would be getting the nationwide shellacking they richly deserve. But apparently, they were all sick the day they covered wearing a surgical mask in surgery, to prevent spreading infectious diseases.

[Hint for the terminally obtuse, who want to post links to even more half-assed "studies": you wear those masks to prevent the spread of virus-laden droplets FROM you, not TO you, which is why everybody out and about is supposed to wear them. One unmasked @$$hole being an individual screws the pooch for anyone within 10m of his sneeze. Any claims that they'll protect you is based on incidental blockage of inhaled particulates, and the gaping holes around the face seal render that a game of something like 50% to 80% efficiency at best, down to 0%, depending on how sloppy you are at wearing it, and how much viral load you're exposed to. If you're among unmasked people coughing and sneezing, you want an N95 or better, not something you got on the 'net for two bucks, or sewed yourself at home. And the viral particles are contained in droplets, which makes them one helluva lot bigger than dry individual virii, so stop with the recockulous claims that "masks won't work against a virus". It's worked empirically for a century and a half already. 10,000 surgical suites aren't wrong. And you're at least a month behind on the conversation. If you cannot grasp these concepts, you're not tall enough for this discussion, this blog, or, probably, the internet itself. Check yourself before you wreck yourself, and stop posting utter bullshit like you found a diamond mine.]

And since I doubt even my brighter readers (at least hose outside the medical field) make a regular practice of perusing the NEJM, I suspect some other MSM sh*thead who flunked eighth grade science posted an excerpt or linked to this story, and fell all over himself getting it to press without any intervening thought occurring, let alone any one of five simple but obvious questions, before inflicting it on humanity to a broader audience, chiefly to stir confusion.

Mission accomplished, @$$wipe.

Now tell us the one about if a woman weighs the same as a duck, she's a witch; and how we know the earth is banana-shaped.