New York Times Buries Abrams’ Mask Hypocrisy, Touts Useless Mask Studies As Proof

As even blue-state governors are doing an about-face on mask mandates, Wednesday’s New York TimesFront page ignored the scandal over Georgia’s perennial gubernatorial hopeful Stacey Abrams. She is a strong advocate of mask mandates and posed maskless among a crowd of children and teachers in an now-famous photo.

The team of reporters Lisa Lerer, Luis Ferré-Sadurní and Astead Herndon, didn’t get to Abrams’ shameless, elitist mask hypocrisy until the last three paragraphs of the story, and then treated her lightly when they did so, avoiding Abrams’ hypocrisy, her pathetic counterattack that cited Black History Month as a defense, and the way in which she endangered, by her own strict masking standards, the health of children and teachers.

On Wednesday, the paper spread misinformation (shall we say false information) about mask effectiveness and mandates. Peer-reviewed studies that prove the masks’ effectiveness are not available.

In “With Mask Restrictions Set to Lift, a Haze of Uncertainty Lingers,” reporter Emily Anthes made the baseless assertion:

Scientists agree that there is growing evidence to support the idea of masking in schools and other settings.

This mask obsession did not end. Polling writer Nate Cohn in Wednesday’s edition lamented “Americans Are Increasingly Frustrated With the Pandemic, Polls Show.” His first suggestion for stopping the spread wasn’t even vaccination, but instead was, you guessed it, masks, followed by social distancing.

Evidently, these societal concerns were not sufficient to encourage people to do something about the pandemic. According to the Kaiser Poll, a majority of adult respondents said that they are not more likely to contract it. Avoid large crowds by wearing a maskOmicron can help you get vaccines or booster shots.

Tracy Tully’s Monday Edition story on blue New Jersey lifting the school mask mandate. Original links are retained for context.

The mask protects both the person wearing it and anyone who is near them from getting infected. People who reported always wearing a mask indoors in public were less likely to test positive for the virus, according to a report released Friday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Two studies published in September by the C.D.C. — which continues to recommend that children 2 and older wear masks at school and in day care — also found evidence that masks help prevent in-school transmission.

Do you think that is the most convincing evidence? Tully didn’t question why the U.S. C.D.C. The U.S. C.D.C., the world’s only public health agency that requires two-year-olds to use masks, is Tully not asking. She failed to report that the California “study,” the newest one and the first one cited and linked to above, was a dubious self-selected phone survey of Californians who got tested for COVID, with no laboratory aspect and too many potentially confounding factors to mention.

And the paper’s own David Leonhardt, a rare voice of Covid moderation at the paper, dismissed that same Arizona school study (Tully’s second link) in Wednesday’s edition as “largely debunked.”

The Mask Fight New York Times!