It’s funny how often “the science” has to catch up with common sense and it would appear that after months of being told that wearing a mask was necessary to save humanity from the ravages of a virus with a 99-plus percent survival rate, they’re finally admitting that the cloth masks we’ve been putting over our faces haven’t exactly been effective in stopping the spread of COVID-19.

According to CBS7 in New York, a recently released study by researchers in a number of universities including Yale found that masks of a certain grade do very little to stop the spread:

A study released in November by researchers at Yale University, Stanford University and others found that villages in Bangladesh where surgical masks were worn had 11% fewer cases of COVID than in villages where no masks were worn. In villages that wore cloth masks, infections were reduced by only 5%.

The Mayo Clinic is now asking all of its patients and visitors to wear a surgical mask or other medical grade mask.

“There is emerging evidence that a surgical mask or a hospital or a medical grade mask does a better job of preventing respiratory droplets carrying the virus to other people around you,” said Dr. Adi Shah with the Mayo Clinic.

Shah said evidence from smaller studies is also suggesting that a surgical mask offers better protection than a cloth mask. Shah reminded people that a mask is not meant to protect the person wearing the mask, but other people.

While the surgical mask may be better, it still has only an 11 percent success rate in terms of stopping the spread, which isn’t really much of a success rate at all. Research showed that the only mask that delivered real results are the N95 masks:

The N95 or KN95 mask has always been and is still considered the gold standard for protection. Those masks are tested and certified by the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health that they can filter up to 95% of particles in the air.

Meaning that a lot of the mask-wearing we’re doing is mostly theater and the only real protection comes in the form of N95 masks which aren’t exactly required to be worn. While it’s true that 11 percent is better than zero, it’s definitely in the “extremely low” range of effectiveness, effectively making it a facial decoration.

That “facial decoration” descriptor was used by CNN’s “medical expert” Leana Wen, one of the left’s loudest COVID alarmists just last month.

(READ: One of the Nation’s Leading COVID Tyrants Makes a Stunning Admission About Masks)

Masks should be a personal choice but up to now, many people have treated masks as some sort of an integral part of stopping the spread of the virus. If they required effective masking such as the N95 mask then perhaps it would make a bit more sense, but these types of masks were very hard to come by from the very beginning of the pandemic. At that point, masking became more of a practice in compliance and safety theater.

Much of the population could see this just through basic observation. It’s nice that “the science” is finally catching up.