The gold standard of evidence-based medicine, the Cochrane Collaborative, came under withering assault from the mask-mandaters when they updated their review last year and concluded there was still no evidence that masks mandates are effective at reducing the spread of respiratory viruses including SARS-CoV2, the virus that caused COVID-19.

New York Times columnist and lead mask propagandist Zeynep Tufekci got the editor-in-chief of Cochrane, Karla Soares-Weiser, to issue a bizarre statement saying, in essence, that even though mask mandates didn’t work maybe perfectly worn masks could have some positive effect. This provided an alibi for media and government figures to pretend the Cochrane review had been retracted. Now Soares-Weiser has quietly amended her post to say the original study and its null conclusion will stand:

June 2024 update: Following engagement with the authors, the decision has been made that changes to the plain language summary and abstract would not impact the scientific integrity of the content and so Cochrane is no longer seeking updates to the plain language summary and abstract of this version of the review. Full details are available in a comment from the Editors of the Cochrane Library on the Cochrane review.