Gary Rabine, one of three announced GOP candidates for governor, attacked Gov. J.B Pritzker's mask mandate for schools by falsely contending the results of a Danish study last year dismissed the efficacy of face coverings by concluding there was "no statistical advantage to those who wore masks." The Democratic governor on Wednesday ordered that masks be worn by all school personnel — teachers, staff and students — due to a rapid increase in cases largely attributed to the delta variant of COVID-19. Pritzker said his requirement followed directives from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and affected all school individuals regardless of vaccination status. Republicans in Illinois were largely critical of Pritzker's mask mandate, contending it should be up to local school boards to decide pandemic policies for the fall return to school. Rabine joined in the criticism, saying it was "an unnecessary abuse of power." But Rabine went further, contending a Danish study in 2020 found that people who wore masks "were just as likely to get COVID-19 as those who didn't." Rabine said the study concluded there was "no statistical advantage to those who work masks." Rabine's conclusion conflicts with context provided by authors of the report who said the study of 6,000 people was geared to look at a 50% difference in COVID-19 infections between those who wore masks and those who did not. According to FactCheck.org, the authors emphasized that their results "should not be used to conclude that a recommendation for everyone to wear masks in the community would not be effective in reducing SARS-CoV-2 infections, because the trial did not test the role of masks in source control of SARS-CoV-2 infection." Source control means the spread of mask wearers to others, meaning the study only assessed the personal protective effect of a mask from being infected, not the potential for masks to block the spread to others, FactCheck.org noted. The lead author of the research, Dr. Henning Bundgaard of Rigshospitalet Hospital and Copenhagen University Hospital, was quoted in Forbes saying, "Even a small degree of protection is worth using the face masks because you are protecting yourself against a potentially life-threatening disease." Still, the Danish results have been misreported widely among COVID-19 deniers and those who oppose mitigation measures to contend that masking is ineffective against the virus.