Masks made ‘little to no difference’ to Covid infection or death rates, according to one of the most comprehensive meta-analyses of face coverings.

The research – carried out by the Cochrane Institute, the ‘gold standard’ of evidence-based reviews – looked at 78 global studies involving over a million people.

Results indicated that surgical masks reduced the risk of catching ‘Covid or a flu-like illness’ by just five percent – a figure so low it may not be statistically significant.

The researchers said harms caused by masks – including hampering children’s schooling – were poorly measured in the studies, meaning any small benefit on infection rates may be outweighed.

Professor Francois Balloux, a professor of computational biology at University College London, who was not part of the analysis, said it showed that the benefit of wearing masks is ‘at best small’.