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The Healthy Skeptic: TIME TO END THE MAS(K) DELUSION
Related: ethics in medicine, gears of the machine, health, Kevin Roche / Healthy Skeptic, particulate respirators and masks, SARS-CoV-2 aka COVID-19 aka Coronavirus
re: COVID
re: ethics in medicine
Just yesterday I saw a group of Kindergartners lined up outside, all masked up. It is revolting to see this kind of active child abuse.
I was an early advocate for masks aka particulate respirators, recommending to my readers to get them while you could way back in Jan 2020. I still support masks in the (very few) situations in which there is real risk, and the mask is a properly fitted N95 or N100. Otherwise, it’s COVID theatre that feeds into COVID terrorism.
The Healthy Skeptic: TIME TO END THE MAS(K) DELUSION
2022-01-05, by Kevin Roche. Emphasis added.
The Minneapolis Star Tribune has actually been pretty good about publishing my op-eds. But I apparently went a heresy too far this week. I submitted the piece below and it was declined. Strong the mask religion is. And I am guessing they aren’t that willing to rock the boat with the state. But I mean every word I say here. And if the stupid masks can’t stop Delta, how the hell would anyone think they will stop Omicron. But I see doctors everyday on Twitter claiming masks work and wear N95s, maybe two or three of them. They have no evidence to support that recommendation. This is simply, as I titled the piece, a mas(k) delusion.
TIME TO END THE MAS(K) DELUSION
The policy response to the epidemic has been marked by a series of unprecedented and untested actions. There is generally no evidence to support the intervention at its initiation, other than an “expert’s” belief that it will have the desired effect, which typically is slowing or suppressing spread of CV-19. And once initiated, the process of evaluating evidence of effectiveness becomes highly politicized. So it is with the notion that widespread wearing of masks has any impact on transmission of CV-19 in the community.
When forced masking was first discussed, I read the existing literature and found no evidentiary support for the practice. And despite the best efforts of what can only be described as the mask religionists, there continues to be no credible data or research favoring a positive impact. Other than on my blog I have avoided discussing those views, because you can’t change an emotional belief with reason. But as with many things in the epidemic, events in the passage of time make avoiding a reconsideration of those beliefs very difficult. And the tide has begun to turn in regard to the impact of masking.
In the last few weeks two Democratic Governors have come out strongly against renewed mask mandates, saying there is no evidence that they work, and pointing to neighboring states with longstanding mandates and very high transmission levels. The Atlantic magazine, the epitome of woke progressivism, recently penned an article debunking one of the CDC’s worst mask studies, which was widely used to support forcing children to wear masks for hours and hours, which I view as akin to child abuse. There simply is no well-designed study which shows any impact of mask wearing, much less mask mandates, on the community spread of CV-19.
How do we know masks do nothing to slow transmission? I always encourage people to evaluate any intervention at two levels, the individual one and the population one. At an individual level, in an isolated encounter between a person and the virus, a mask may prevent exposure and infection. But even if a mask were 90% effective, and they aren’t, over large numbers of encounters at some point you will be exposed. And the best mannequin head study, one which tracked particle flow for hours, not a few minutes, found that masks during extended wearing funneled viral aerosols into the respiratory tract and concentrated them on inner and outer mask surfaces where they eventually were pushed or pulled through.
I have jokingly referred to masks as virus collection devices, but that is exactly what they are designed to be. A study done by the UK public health agency found that among all surfaces, CV-19 survived second longest on masks, up to 20 hours. Eventually that virus finds its way into the wearer’s or others’ respiratory system. It isn’t just CV-19 that is collected, and scientists have been remarkably incurious about the total number and type of pathogens collected in a mask over hours of wearing, and the ultimate fate of those pathogens. This lack of research is almost certainly politically motivated.
At a population level, one has only to look at any chart of cases versus population mask-wearing level (I avoid comparisons with mandate presence, since that may or may not correlate with actual wearing behavior, but those comparisons are even worse for masks). These charts constantly show that there is no correlation. Minnesota is a perfect example, in which the level of cases after the mask mandate was promulgated through when it was ended never dipped to the level before the mandate. Anyone who says it would have been worse without masks should take a good luck at the curves, especially pre-vaccine last fall, and explain how that could be true.
As I noted above, it is particularly egregious to force masks on children, who despite ongoing mis-information regarding serious illness and hospitalizations (as Dr. Fauci finally admitted, most have nothing to do with treatment for CV-19, but rather reflect incidental positives on admission) have a miniscule risk from the virus, but whom we are terrorizing and depriving of normal social development and interactions by forced mask wearing which makes no difference in their risk of being infected. Those who claim that children are resilient and fine are ignoring the clear data showing a massive uptick in mental health issues.
The state has evidence in its possession showing that masks have no impact, either in general or in schools, but refuses to release that information and is stonewalling my Data Practices Act requests, which is itself evidence that they know the lack of effect. It is time for everyone to ask themselves what evidence really supports masking as an effective tool against spread and why we continue to encourage, much less force, futile and potentially damaging measures.
WIND: amen. Could it be on balance that masks as actually worn by the public have increased the spread? We cannot rule that out.
I am seeing more people walking or biking wearing COVID masks—all alone outdoors. I consider it an IQ test, but I pity the mental damage it takes to feel the need.
