California is back in the headlines with reports of another COVID wave. Hospitals are seeing more patients test positive, officials are urging indoor masking, and media outlets are sounding the alarm. But beneath the recycled panic is a reality California leaders refuse to acknowledge: masking didn’t work the first time, and it won’t work now.
The Masking Myth
During the pandemic, California leaned harder than almost any other state on mask mandates. Schools, businesses, and entire cities operated under strict masking rules for months at a time. Yet the virus still surged repeatedly. A 2023 Cochrane Collaboration review, often called the gold standard in medical research, concluded that community masking made little to no difference in reducing respiratory virus transmission. Even the CDC’s own data showed California’s infection curves looked nearly identical to those in states with far looser rules.
Despite this, health officials continue to fall back on the same advice. Asking people to mask indoors again may sound like action, but years of evidence show it does not change outcomes.
Hospital Numbers Without Perspective
Reports about rising hospitalizations also lack critical context. Many of the people counted as “COVID patients” are admitted for something else and test positive only after arriving. That distinction has been clear since the early months of the pandemic, but it often gets blurred in coverage that implies hospitals are being swamped by COVID itself.
Newsom’s Presidential Problem
All of this matters politically. Governor Gavin Newsom has been positioning himself as a national leader and possible presidential candidate. His allies describe him as a steady hand who guided California through COVID. But the California model does not look so strong outside of blue-state politics. Prolonged school closures, strict mandates, and lockdowns did not stop repeated waves. States like Florida and Texas, which opened schools sooner and relied less on mandates, had similar or better overall outcomes in both health and economic recovery.
Newsom can claim success in California, but swing-state voters may not buy it. Voters in the Midwest or South experienced the pandemic without the same heavy restrictions and did not see worse results. For them, California’s approach looks less like leadership and more like overreach.
Familiar Lies
The pattern is easy to recognize. Cases rise, officials warn, masks are recommended, and the public grows more skeptical. Americans lived through this cycle for years, and most people know that masks are not going to stop a seasonal virus. What keeps returning is not an effective solution but the same tired playbook of fear and control.