Here We Go Again - Public Health Officials Recommend More Mask Wearing

It’s back—a tradition unlike any other: public health officials demanding the public wear masks to stop COVID-19.

Every year since 2020, public health officials have demonstrated a lack of awareness, a disregard for science, data and evidence, and a desire to compel behavior. And, perhaps more importantly, they’ve shown no intent to admit they were wrong or to revisit the claims made by Anthony Fauci and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

As a reminder, an overwhelming amount of observational data showed that during the early pandemic period, masks failed to slow or stop the spread of COVID anywhere on earth. As a tacit acknowledgment of that data, health officials moved seamlessly to recommending double cloth masking, then layered masking, then double surgical masks, then N95 masks. They ignored when their predictions of doom, that areas without masking would perform worse than those that listened—were proven spectacularly wrong.

Every single study conducted on masking during the pandemic, including one in Denmark and another in Bangladesh, confirmed there was no benefit to mask-wearing. Then a gold-standard evidence review, compiling all available high-quality studies, showed the same. None of it has mattered, because it’s September 2025 and public health officials are demanding more masking anyway.

Dr. Rochelle Walensky, Director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, testifies during a Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee hearing on Capitol Hill on January 11, 2022 in Washington, D.C. (Photo by Shawn Thew-Pool/Getty Images)

California Health Officials Demand More Masking In Late 2025, Ignoring Science

An article this week from the Los Angeles Times summarized the extremist, inaccurate messaging from public health officials who have dedicated their lives to misinforming the public. 

Dr. Aimee Sisson is one of the clearest examples of this phenomenon, in which top health leaders work tirelessly to shred the last remaining threads of their credibility.

"California is experiencing a summer COVID wave," Sisson, the health officer in Yolo County, near Sacramento, told the Times.

She continued, saying levels of COVID in the area’s wastewater—including Sacramento and West Sacramento—are high. As a result, she’s demanding that "everyone age 2 and up in West Sacramento "wear a mask when they are around others in indoor public spaces."

Sisson, in her everlasting grace, urges fewer residents in other parts of Yolo County outside West Sacramento—where wastewater levels are "medium" instead of "high"—to wear masks. In the areas around UC Davis and Woodland, Sisson says masks should be worn around others in indoor locations "if they are 65 or older, have a weakened immune system, have an underlying medical condition that puts them at a greater risk of severe COVID-19, or spend time around people who fall into these categories."

Why she thinks people who live in cities just 10 miles apart don’t interact remains a mystery. Other than incompetence, of course.

"Wearing a high-quality mask such as an N95, KN95, or KF94 that fits well continues to provide strong protection," she added.

There's a word to describe these claims and recommendations: insanity. 

Insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result. We tried masking. California, specifically, tried masking. Everywhere in California tried masking. Los Angeles County proudly bragged about its high rate of mask compliance in late 2021, then a few weeks later had one of the highest COVID case rates anywhere on earth. No level of masking, no amount of compliance, no mandates and no recommendations made even the slightest impact on COVID outcomes. Why on earth would you try it again?

Because they’ve learned absolutely nothing from their failures. Not because they’re incapable of it, or haven’t noticed, but because they specifically don’t want to. Learning from mistakes means admitting mistakes. It means admitting you were wrong. And changing recommendations and strategies as a result.

What makes it worse is that health officials appear to realize summer in California is a period of increased COVID spread. As the article states, there has been an increase in positive test results throughout the state, every summer—even though testing in September 2025 is very different than it was during the height of the pandemic. But they ignore seasonality in favor of demanding masking anyway.

Still, she's not the only one in California demonstrating their prolific idiocy. Per the article, the San Francisco Department of Public Health is also telling residents to start "wearing a well-fitted mask in crowded indoor spaces, including when traveling, and to stay at home if they feel sick."

It’s only a matter of time before health officials in L.A., San Diego and other left-wing cities follow suit. It’s endless.

Gold Standard Science Contradicts ‘Experts’ On Masks

As another reminder, here’s what the Cochrane Review, the gold standard of evidence-based medicine, said about wearing N95’s to stop COVID.

"We are very uncertain on the effects of N95/P2 respirators compared with medical/surgical masks on the outcome of clinical respiratory illness (RR 0.70, 95% CI 0.45 to 1.10; 3 trials, 7779 participants; very low‐certainty evidence)," their review reads. "The use of a N95/P2 respirators compared to medical/surgical masks probably makes little or no difference for the objective and more precise outcome of laboratory‐confirmed influenza infection (RR 1.10, 95% CI 0.90 to 1.34; 5 trials, 8407 participants; moderate‐certainty evidence). Restricting pooling to healthcare workers made no difference to the overall findings. Harms were poorly measured and reported, but discomfort wearing medical/surgical masks or N95/P2 respirators was mentioned in several studies (very low‐certainty evidence)."

In their "Key Messages" section, they were more succinct: "We are uncertain whether wearing masks or N95/P2 respirators helps to slow the spread of respiratory viruses based on the studies we assessed."

Contrast gold standard science with what California health officials say, "Wearing a high-quality mask such as an N95, KN95, or KF94 that fits well continues to provide strong protection." 

There is no evidence to support this statement. There are no high-quality studies to support this statement. Because it isn’t true. Does that stop them? Of course not.

We can also look at COVID wastewater data in California to see how insane and science-denying these demands and claims actually are.

As the chart demonstrates, the highest period of COVID activity—by a wide margin—came when the state had a mask mandate. After the mandate was lifted, wastewater levels continued dropping dramatically, reaching a low nearly two months later in April 2022. Since then, levels have risen and fallen in predictable summer and winter patterns, generally peaking in September — regardless of mask mandates, policies, recommendations or compliance.

None of it matters, because masks make absolutely no difference whatsoever.

Even if nobody follows health officials’ advice in the coming weeks, those wastewater levels will inevitably decline—because that’s how it works. Then they’ll rise again in the winter, and health officials will recommend masks, ignore science, and the cycle of stupidity will continue forever. This is what happens when arrogant, egomaniacal "experts" are allowed to take control—they never stop.