Jessica Chastain was one of the only celebrities to don a mask in the audience of the 2023 Oscars on Sunday, and she garnered a lot of praise for it by social media users. The 45-year-old actress was the solo masker in a crowd of attendees as the camera panned her way when she was asked a question (as part of a comedic segment) by host, Jimmy Kimmel.
Fans quickly took to socials to applaud the Ava star for staying conscious of COVID-19 but according to a recent Cochrane Review, there is no scientific evidence that masking is an effective means to stop the transmission of the virus. Regarding the reality of protecting herself and others by masking, virtue signaling may be as successful in the prevention of COVID-19 as rubbing a lucky COVID rabbit’s foot.
In a published review of 12 trials, including 276,917 participants, Cochrane found that “wearing masks in the community makes little or no difference to the outcome of laboratory confirmed SARS-CoV-2 compared to not wearing masks.”
Some mainstream media has scrambled to hide the findings with statements such as “the Cochrane Review does not show that masks do not work against COVID-19.” To interpret the double-negative, the study could not find evidence that masks work and admittedly, it was not intended to prove masks don’t work. With that said, it appears that lucky charms may be just as effective as masking since they have not been proven to not work against the transmission of COVID-19.
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