What The New COVID-19 Mask Study Means For You

Or, more specifically, what it DOESN’T mean

Pictured: Laced with meaning. Source: Pexels

In the year of COVID-19, many things that are really scientific questions have become absurdly politicized. There’s hydroxychloroquine, which as an anti-malarial drug really shouldn’t be the topic of much political conversation, but somehow is. There’s herd immunity, which has gone from a fairly niche epidemiological concept mostly discussed by experts to one of the most political topics in the world.

And, of course, there’s masks, which have somehow become arguably the key political battle in the COVID-19 war.

Pictured: Weirdly political. Source: Pexels

This is very strange, because ultimately wearing a mask is arguably the easiest way to reduce your risk of COVID-19 infection. While the benefits of mask mandates — especially those that only target public, open areas — are perhaps more debatable, at an individual level the idea that a mask should be an extreme political choice is really just bizarre.

And now a new study has dropped into this tumultuous dialogue. Danish researchers have published the first large, randomized trial of mask wearing that apparently shows that masks don’t work for…