Well, look at that. The infamous Obamacare architect, Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel is back with a new “words of wisdom” schtick. Apparently, he has forgotten all about his infamy during Barack Obama’s attempted fleecing of America with government-run health care. No matter — Zeke’s way late to this party.

During a Monday segment on MSNBC’s “Andrea Mitchell Reports” about the new COVID variant, XBB. 1.5, Emanuel told Mitchell that Americans should return to wearing “really high-quality masks.” No, really — but we’ll get to the mask part in a minute.

In reference to the latest COVID variant, now plaguing China, Emanuel said: “It’s spreading very rapidly which means it can evade and outcompete the other subvariants,” adding (emphasis, mine):

It seems to avoid the antibodies but also binds more tightly to cells and that gives it the competitive advantage it needs. And unfortunately the antibodies, therefore, we have from infections or vaccines don’t seem to work. And the monoclonal antibody Evusheld we have, that a lot of immune-compromised patients don’t use doesn’t seem to be working that well.

Hang on a sec, Zeke. So you’re saying vaccines don’t work? Have you alerted Joe “Winter of Severe Illness and Death” Biden to this? Oh, this is gonna be a problem, Zeke.

As to be expected, Emanuel predicted that the U.S. would see a surge in COVID cases going forward. This is never going to end, is it? (No.)

Emanuel also told Mitchell that the coronavirus will continue to mutate, creating more variants:

We do see when the virus spreads to lots more people that you get more variants because the more it reproduces the higher the chance of a mutation or a recombination event, and that’s actually what’s really concerning about China.

I’m not an emerging and infectious diseases expert, but I do know that a virus survives by replicating itself, which leads to so-called “variants.” Does this remind you of anything? Like flu strains? Given that influenza and coronavirus can survive in animal hosts, COVID — like the flu  — is here to stay, shots or no shots.

Anyway, Emanuel also poured cold water on travel bans and negative COVID test results.

A travel ban and negative test results, they’re just delaying tactics. They’re trying to get us information; they’re not gonna help. Individually, for your viewers, Andrea, the best thing they can do at the moment, and I know a lot of them are resistant, is masks. N95, really high-quality masks. You can’t control what’s out there in the airports or what’s on a train, or what’s gonna be in a shopping mall, but you can protect yourself with these very high-quality masks, and that’s what I recommend.

Just one problem, Zeke.

Dr. Zeke Emanuel: Covid vaccines don’t work against new variant, travel bans and testing are ”delaying tactics”; only thing that reliably works are “really high quality masks.” pic.twitter.com/54E5ilcBTH

— Tom Elliott (@tomselliott) January 2, 2023

As I reported in early December, after the CDC took nearly two years to tell America and presumably the world that cloth masks were virtually worthless for mitigating the spread of COVID-19 and that N95 masks provide “the highest” level of protection, a new peer-reviewed, international randomized controlled trial (RCT) found no statistically significant real-world evidence that masks stop aerosolized transmission of the virus. Including N95s.

Zeke?

Here’s more from my report:

Published in the Annals of Internal Medicine (AIM) this week and led by researchers at Canada’s McMaster University, the study found no statistically significant difference in protection between the two kinds of masks in healthcare facilities in Canada, Israel, Pakistan, and Egypt.

Funders included the Canadian government and World Health Organization, which unlike the U.S. opposes masking young children and also found “no evidence” face coverings made a difference against influenza in a 2019 study.

Previous RCTs in the COVID era have found mediocre protection from face coverings at best. A Danish study of 6,000 that had trouble getting published — and eventually landed in AIM — found no statistically significant difference between surgical and no-mask wearers.

A much larger study led by Yale University found that “Based on the 95 percent confidence intervals, we do not even know if surgical mask efficacy is more than 0 percent.”

Zeke?

The Bottom Line

So, what did we learn, here? Zeke Emanuel admitted that “vaccines don’t seem to work” against the latest variant. And according to several large studies, masks haven’t worked, either — including the much-ballyhooed N95 mask.

Where does that leave us? Hopefully with the belief that we and we alone will decide what we put in our bodies and on our bodies, despite the best scare tactics of Joe Biden, the recently departed COVID Gnome, Anthony Fauci, Zeke Emanuel, and all the other “experts.”