Last Wednesday, the Dutch government decided not to impose any “national obligation” on its people to wear masks, reports Reuters.

The reason for opting out of the global masquerade? Minister for Medical Care, Tamara van Ark, asserted that “from a medical perspective there is no proven effectiveness of masks” after a review by the Netherland’s National Institute for Health.

The chief of the institute even went as far as to say that improper use of masks “could increase the risk of transmitting the disease.”

Forbes reports that: “With the exception of required usage of face coverings in public transportation, the Dutch do not have to wear masks in any indoor establishment, including restaurants, bars, stores, supermarkets, cinemas, museums, libraries, schools, and even hairdressers and nail salons.”

I Am Expat went a little deeper with a very long sentence (with some questionable commas): “Andreas Voss, member of the World Health Organization expert team and head of microbiology at a hospital in Nijmegen, said he didn’t personally believe masks should be made mandatory, stating that because in many of the countries where a face mask rule has been implemented, there are several other measures also in place, so it is impossible to determine the impact of masks specifically.”

Voss also told I Am Expat that the WHO advised masking “not because of scientific evidence, but because of political pressure and public opinion.”

In other words, public opinion is masquerading as scientific evidence. As I quoted yesterday: “There were a myriad of problems which conspired to corrupt your reason and rob you of your common sense.” Fortunately, the Dutch have held onto reason and common sense when it comes to mask wearing.

Not only is there little evidence (if any) to support masking; there are at least seven gold-standard randomized controlled trials showing that muzzling yourself won’t stop the spread of infection.