Illinois reinstituted its statewide mask mandate Monday under the direction of Democrat Gov. J.B. Pritzker, requiring that even those as young as two mask up in public indoor settings.
Pritzker announced the mandate Thursday, requiring individuals to wear masks in certain indoor settings regardless of vaccination status. Indoor areas include public settings such as restaurants, bars, gyms, grocery stores, and residential common areas, as well as public transportation, schools, and healthcare settings.
While the mask mandate does not extend to outdoor areas, the Democrat governor said, “Masks are strongly encouraged in crowded outdoor settings like festivals and concerts as well as for activities that require close contact with people who are not vaccinated”:
Fans social distance during an NFL football game between the Green Bay Packers and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers Sunday, Oct. 18, 2020, in Tampa, Fla (Jeff Haynes/AP Images for Panini).
“Illinois will join several other states that have reinstituted statewide indoor mask requirements, regardless of vaccination status, effective on Monday,” Pritzker said during his announcement. “Masks work. Period.”
Like many of his pro-mask Democrat colleagues, Pritzker failed to mention the studies indicating that cloth and surgical masks are not as effective as they present them to be. A recent University of Waterloo study, for example, found cloth and surgical masks are not very effective in blocking exhaled aerosols, as Breitbart News detailed:
“The results show that a standard surgical and three-ply cloth masks, which see current widespread use, filter at apparent efficiencies of only 12.4% and 9.8%, respectively,” the study concluded, noting that KN95 and N95 masks were far more effective at filtering out aerosols.
“Apparent efficiencies of 46.3% and 60.2% are found for KN95 and R95 masks, respectively, which are still notably lower than the verified 95% rated ideal efficiencies,” researchers continued in the data published last month prior to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reversing course, advising fully vaccinated individuals to wear masks if they are in high-risk areas.
Despite that, other blue-state leaders are reimplementing mask mandates. Oregon Gov. Kate Brown (D) took it a step further, ordering individuals to wear a mask in “public outdoor settings where physical distancing is not possible, regardless of vaccination status.” That order went into effect Friday.
“Masks have proven to be effective at reducing transmission and are a necessary measure right now even in some outdoor settings to help us fight COVID and to protect one another,” she claimed.
Last year, behind the scenes, Dr. Anthony Fauci admitted drugstore masks are “not really effective in keeping out virus, which is small enough to pass through the material.”
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