Face masks turn us into voiceless submissives – and it’s not science forcing us to wear them, it’s politics

PETER HITCHENS: Face masks turn us into voiceless submissives – and it’s not science forcing us to wear them, it’s politics

On July 12, Deborah Cohen, the medical correspondent of BBC2’s Newsnight, revealed an astonishing thing. The World Health Organisation (WHO) had reversed its advice on face masks, from ‘don’t wear them’ to ‘do wear them’.

But the key fact was that it had not done so because of scientific information – the evidence had not backed the wearing of face coverings – but because of political lobbying.