Tag Archives: masks

The Long-Term Hidden Impact Of Covid

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The biggest impact of the Covid epidemic was the loss of trust in our government, the medical community, and the media. So much of what we were told about the virus and the vaccine turned out to be false. However, there are other less obvious consequences of the epidemic and the way it was handled.

The two-week shutdown probably did nothing to ‘flatten the curve.’ It did, however, flatten the economy and end the beginning of an economic boom. It also resulted in one of the largest transfers of wealth in America’s history. That transfer of wealth went from the lower-and-middle-income earners to the wealthy. Unfortunately, I suspect that there may be some people with nefarious intentions that will attempt to repeat that template in the future. However, in my opinion, the economic impact of Covid will not be as lasting as some of its sociological effects.

Before Covid, investing in office space was a relatively safe bet. Workers were in their offices almost every day, and there was a comradery among workers. School children were in their classrooms daily, learning social skills and forming friendships. Kindergarten children and elementary school children especially needed to be in school with their peers. Being out of school for almost a year in some cases impeded their social development and probably their language skills. After Covid, when the children returned to school they were masked, as were their teachers. The masks impeded their ability to read facial expressions and to understand fully what was being said to them. Not only were the preventative properties of the masks questionable, there was also the challenge of keeping a mask clean on a young child for an extended period of time. High School students were denied certain social milestones—class trips, proms, competitive sports, graduation ceremonies, and social interaction. The young adults who were in high school at that time (a generation that was already leaning toward texting rather than actual conversation) grew accustomed to socialization through electronics rather than in person. The comradery in schools and offices was lost.

Can we regain any of our losses? Yes. We have already begun. As office workers return to the office, the team spirit will again emerge. As companies realize the value of having people physically present in the office, socialization will begin again, and commercial real estate will rebound.

Our plans to combat Covid failed on many levels. However, they provide a clear blueprint of what not to do in the case of a future epidemic.

Who Gets To Wear A Mask?

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On Thursday, Legal Insurrection posted an article about the recent practice by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) agents of wearing masks. The are not protecting themselves from Covid–they are protecting themselves from doxing. 

The article reports:

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) and other Democratic figures are calling for the exposure of ICE agents, demanding that their masks be removed so they can be identified. Members of ICE wear masks because they are facing death threats against them and their families. Democrats are putting their lives at risk over this.

Of course, Democrats have never called for members of Antifa or the anti-Israel campus radicals to be unmasked. Curious, isn’t it?

From The Daily Wire:

Jeffries seemed unconcerned with the real reason that ICE agents had opted to cover their faces, and instead claimed that their efforts to enforce federal immigration law were “engaged in … aggressive overreach” and suggested the masks were simply an effort to avoid being held accountable for that.

“Every single ICE agent who’s engaged in this aggressive overreach and are trying to hide their identities from the American people will be unsuccessful in doing that,” Jeffries said. “This is America. This is not the Soviet Union. We’re not behind the Iron Curtain. This is not the 1930s. And every single one of them, no matter what it takes, no matter how long it takes, will, of course, be identified.”

The Democrats in Congress are siding with violent protestors who broke the law and desiring to put the the people who are asked to enforce the law in danger. How does that make any sense?

When did the Democrat party become a party that advocates lawlessness?

My Head Is Spinning!

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The Covid pandemic has brought us a lot of information and a lot of censorship of information. Oddly enough, a lot of the information that was censored is now being reported as true. Currently the difference between a conspiracy theory and a major news story is a few months.

On Tuesday, Issues & Insights reported the following:

This disinformation business sure has gotten complicated lately.

In the past few days, a key federal agency concluded that COVID was likely the result of a Chinese lab leak. A prestigious medical journal reported that natural immunity is better than vaccines against COVID. Another that mask mandates were worthless. And President Joe Biden’s advanced age is now, according to Biden, a legitimate issue.

All of these claims had been labeled as “disinformation” by the mainstream press, by “independent” fact-checkers, by social media platforms. Anyone who espoused them was attacked as a crazy anti-vaxxer, QAnon racist, Russian stooge who deserved to be de-platformed, demonetized, and discredited.

Take the lab-leak story. The Energy Department, “citing new intelligence,” changed its view on the origins of COVID-19 and now thinks it did, in fact, escape from a lab in Wuhan, China.

The article notes how the lab leak theory was treated in the past:

A-list journalist Anne Applebaum once compared Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., to a Soviet propagandist for suggesting that COVID came from a lab. A New York Times reporter said the lab-leak theory had “racist roots.” The editor in chief of Scientific American called it a “conspiracy theory.” CNN said it was “like something out of a comic book.”

Politifact, one of the supposed independent guardians against disinformation, said that any such claim was “inaccurate and ridiculous. We rate it Pants on Fire!” Facebook banned posts mentioning the lab-leak theory.

The article concludes:

One of the articles that Google is right now targeting is our Feb. 23 editorial applauding Congress for investigating COVID vaccines (Congress To Probe COVID Vaccines — And It’s About Time).

Apparently, merely calling for a congressional investigation “promotes harmful health claims or relates to a current, major health crisis and contradicts authoritative scientific consensus,” according to Google’s thought police.

So, let’s review.

The stuff labeled as dangerous disinformation keeps turning out to be true. The supposed guardians of credible information turn out to be some of the biggest peddlers of actual disinformation. And groups that are supposedly targeting disinformation are really just out to defund conservatives.  

In all this confusion, one thing is perfectly clear. If you want to know what will be labeled as disinformation tomorrow, just look at whatever is on the left’s agenda today.

The mainstream media is simply pointing out the need for Americans to find alternative sources for their news.

Do They Get Their Jobs Back Now?

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On Thursday, The Washington Times reported that the Senate voted Wednesday to end the vaccine mandate on health workers at places that receive federal funding. There is serious doubt as to whether the measure will actually get through the House of Representatives (which is controlled by the Democrats), although that may depend on whether or not the Democrats are reading the polls.

The article reports:

The Supreme Court struck down a broader mandate that required large companies to regularly test workers who refuse to get vaccinated. However, the justices upheld the health-worker mandate.

Republicans say the mandate is bad policy because it could lead to staffing shortages at hospitals and punish workers who served on the frontlines of the COVID-19 battle for two years and choose to remain unvaccinated.

The GOP is betting that forcing Democrats to defend COVID-19 mandates will help Republicans retake the House and the Senate in November’s elections.

One of the really sad aspects of the Covid-19 pandemic is that both political parties attempted to use to crisis for political gain. There was a time when both parties totally ignored the science. Now we are beginning to see that lives could have been saved if we had pursued early treatment as hard as we pursued a vaccine. We know now that early treatment works. We can’t say the same about the vaccines.

Americans are done with mask and vaccine mandates. I was recently told by a pulmonary specialist that when the masks come off we can expect an uptick in pneumonia cases–not because the masks were protecting us, but because wearing a mask interferes with your natural immunity system. After mask wearing, your immune system is not as strong as it would be without a mask, so you are more prone to illness. That’s not good news for the elderly who have been told to keep wearing their masks. Consider not wearing a mask to be like sending a child out to play in the dirt. The germs the child comes in contact with in playing in the dirt strengthen the child’s immune system. Walking around bare-faced exposes your immune system to germs and strengthens it. Also, the fibers in the mask are not close enough to each other to block virus germs. The masks were to make us feel better and to control us. Medically they were not helpful.

Our Government Has Lost Its Mind

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On Monday, The Conservative Review posted an article about the latest information put forth by our government to insure our safety during a nuclear attack.

The article reports:

The Ready Campaign, a government program meant to prepare Americans for emergencies, advises Americans to maintain six feet of social distancing and to wear face masks when sheltering indoors to avoid nuclear fallout.

Nuclear fallout is the dangerous aftermath of a nuclear explosion, when the highly toxic radioactive particles expelled into the atmosphere fall back to earth.

According to the Ready Campaign, you should find shelter in the nearest brick or concrete shelter following a nuclear explosion. After removing contaminated clothing and washing areas of unprotected skin, you should protect yourselves from COVID-19.

“Go to the basement or middle of the building. Stay away from the outer walls and roof. Try to maintain a distance of at least six feet between yourself and people who are not part of your household. If possible, wear a mask if you’re sheltering with people who are not a part of your household. Children under two years old, people who have trouble breathing, and those who are unable to remove masks on their own should not wear them,” the recommendations say.

Do they really believe that after a nuclear attack, the most important thing on our minds will be social distancing and wearing a mask?

The article notes:

“Stay inside for 24 hours unless local authorities provide other instructions. Continue to practice social distancing by wearing a mask and by keeping a distance of at least six feet between yourself and people who not part of your household,” they continue.

And in the case that authorities mandate evacuation to an emergency shelter, the government wants you to bring resources to stop the spread of COVID-19.

“If you are told by authorities to evacuate to a public shelter, try to bring items that can help protect yourself and your family from COVID-19, such as hand sanitizer that contains at least 60 percent alcohol, cleaning materials, and two masks per person,” the government says.

The website indicates that it was last updated on Feb. 25, but was updated in November 2020 to include information related to COVID-19.

Sometimes I just don’t know how to respond to government instructions.

Losing Free Speech On Our College Campuses

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The following article is from October 2020. It is from Mark Crispin Miller’s website.

This is the story:

A full professor in NYU’s Department of Media, Culture and Communication (since 1997), and a recipient of fellowships from the Rockefeller, Guggenheim and Ingram Merrill Foundations, Prof. Miller teaches a course on propaganda, focusing not only on the history of modern propaganda, but—necessarily—on propaganda drives ongoing at the time. The aim is to teach students to identify such drives for what they are, think carefully about their claims, seek out whatever data and/or arguments have been blacked out or misreported to protect those claims from contradiction, and look into the interests financing and managing the propaganda, so as to figure out its purpose.

On Sept. 20, after a class discussion of the case for universal masking as defense against transmission of SARS-COV-2 (in which discussion she did not participate), a student took to Twitter to express her fury that Prof. Miller had brought up the randomized, controlled tests—all of those so far conducted on the subject—finding that masks and ventilators are ineffective at preventing such transmission, because the COVID-19 virions are too small for such expedients to block them. Prof. Miller urged the students to read those studies, as well as others that purport to show the opposite, with due attention to the scientific reviews thereof, and possible financial links between the researchers conducting them, and such interests as Big Pharma and the Gates Foundation. Prof. Miller followed up by providing the links to the former studies (not easily found on Google, though they have all appeared in reputable medical journals), and other materials, including a video of a debate on the subject.

The student was so outraged by Prof. Miller even mentioning those studies that she called on NYU to fire him:

The article continues:

Having contacted NYU’s bias response line to report him, and getting no satisfaction there, the student kept on tweeting her demand for Prof. Miller’s termination, due to his “unhealthy amount of skepticism around health professionals,” and a range of other posts that she had seen on News from Underground, Prof. Miller’s website, and found no less insidious, misreporting that their sources were “many far right and conspiracy websites,” and therefore, evidently, not worth reading.

…The student’s call provoked a storm of tweets, many attacking her, and others thanking her—one of which was posted by Prof. Miller’s department chair, promising to act on her demand: “Julia, thank you for reporting this issue. We as a department have made this a priority and are discussing next steps.”

Let’s stop right here for a minute. When did students decide which teachers should be fired? I think it would have been appropriate simply to tell the student to take a different class.

The article notes:

Soon after this pledge of institutional support, the dean of NYU’s Steinhardt School (in which Prof. Miller teaches), together with a doctor who advises them on COVID-19 policy, emailed each of Prof. Miller’s students (without putting him on copy), starting with a ritual nod to “academic freedom,” then hinting that the studies noted in that class were dangerous misinformation. To set them straight, the two advised the students to consult the “authoritative” CDC—specifically, its list of several recent studies finding that masks are effective against COVID-19. (That the CDC itself, as well as Dr. Fauci, had, until April, publicly adhered to the consensus of those “dangerous” studies went unmentioned.) The two concluded with a stern reminder that the students are obliged to mask on campus (although Prof. Miller had made quite clear that he was not suggesting that they break NYU’s rule, which he observes himself.)

Thus that student’s tweets immediately prompted NYU to take her side, and several media outlets to attack Prof. Miller for his dissidence, without interviewing him. The following week, NYU followed up by urging him to cancel his propaganda course next term, and, instead, teach two sections of his course on cinema. Their rationale was that it would be “better for the department,” because enrollment in the latter course is always high; but then so are the enrollments for Prof. Miller’s propaganda course, which has earned the highest praises from its students.

The above information is followed by notes from students praising the professor’s class. There is also a link at the beginning of the article to a petition to sign in support of academic freedom.

What are we doing to our children in the name of education?

Just To Make You Aware…

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There is a website called Budesonide Works. It explains a treatment for the coronavirus that is both effective and reasonably priced. The website includes the protocols for the use of the drug, proof of its effectiveness, and other useful information. I am including this website to make the point that we have all been snookered. The coronavirus would have been a lot less scary if it were known that there was an effective treatment for anyone who contracted it. The money paid to big pharma to develop vaccines might have been considerable less if there had been a reliable treatment. Fear is an excellent vehicle to control a population. Take a look at what has happened within the last year.

First of all, the lockdown was only supposed to last for two weeks (until we flattened the curve). What were the results of that lockdown? The roaring economy took a break, impacting the presidential campaign of President Trump. Small businesses were closed, many permanently, while big business–Amazon, Walmart, Lowes, etc., thrived. I know it is just an incredible coincidence that those business I just named are major contributors to Democrat party campaigns. Scientists will tell you that masks don’t work–the coronavirus particles are small enough to go between the fabric. However, a lot of people made a lot of money selling masks. Also, if this was really about the virus, why are we letting illegal aliens who have tested positive for the coronavirus to travel freely about the country (article here)?

Here are a few quotes from the article at Budesonide Works:

Quotes about Budesonide and Covid …

“…I am heartened that a relatively safe, widely available and well studied medicine such as an inhaled steroid [budesonide] could have an impact on the pressures we are experiencing during the pandemic.”
Professor Mona Bafadhel of Nuffield Department of Medicine, University of Oxford

“It’s enough for me to know that I’m not putting tubes in people’s throats, knowing that they might not ever get them out.”  
Andrea Malcolm, Critical Care Provider, Frio Regional Hospital 

“…but if we keep 60 percent of people out of hospital (using budesonide), then, well, that’s the kind of thing we throw a barbecue over.”
Dr. Dan Nicolau, Covid researcher, University of Oxford

“For days I thought I was going to pass. Within hours of taking the budesonide treatments from home, I knew I was going to pull through. Second day I felt better. Third day I felt much better. On the eighth day I felt fabulous. On the tenth day, I tested negative. And now I have been able to help others.”
Francisco Bejarano, Covid survivor

“If I had not seen the video of Dr. Bartlett‘s success and if I had not had the wherewithal to fight, to advocate, and finally to demand that I be prescribed the budesonide, I believe that I would have been in the hospital on a ventilator and probably would not be writing this letter.”
James Lloyd, Covid survivor

We have been played.

President Biden Needs To Watch His Words

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President Biden, who ran on a promise to re-unite the country has not been doing a very good job of keeping that promise. Some of the remarks he has recently made are totally unacceptable. Townhall posted an article on March 4th about Texas Gov. Greg Abbott’s response to some recent remarks by President Biden.

The article reports:

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) has been taking heat from Democrats and progressives after he announced the state will be completely reopening and the mask mandate will be lifted. His actions have caused such a stir that it prompted criticism from President Joe Biden.

Biden, referring to both Texas and Mississippi, said lifting the COVID-19 lockdowns was “neanderthal thinking” and a “big mistake.”

Abbott was asked to respond to Biden’s comments during his interview on “Fox & Friends” on Thursday.

“Two things, Brian, first, obviously it is not the type of thing that a president should be saying, but second, he kind of said it on the worst day he could have. Because the same day he said that, in Texas, the Biden administration was releasing illegal immigrants into our communities who had COVID,” Abbott said.

“The Biden administration was spreading COVID in south Texas yesterday because of their lack of constraint of testing and quarantining, people come across the border illegally. The Biden administration was exposing Texas to COVID,” Abbott continued. “That is a neanderthal type approach dealing with the COVID situation.”

Americans are required to quarantine, wear masks, social distance, etc., while illegal aliens are allowed to freely roam about the country??!! There is something seriously wrong with that picture.

 

I’d Love To Hear An Explanation Of The ‘Science’ Behind This

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On Friday, MRC TV posted an article about the Covid rules put in place by Ohio Governor Mike DeWine.

The article reports:

In the midst of scratching their heads over Governor Mike DeWine’s (R) Dec. 7 extension of his bizarre, unconstitutional “curfew” to guard against a virus that, evidently, becomes more deadly after 10 pm and before 5 am, Ohio residents might have missed the bizarre “high school sports” edict issued on Dec. 4…

That’s the command that high school wrestlers are “permitted” to wrestle, but before and after the match, participants are… 

…forbidden from shaking hands.

…Thank goodness. Or is it, “thank government?” After all, who knows where those HANDS might have been? Heck, they might have been attached to wrestlers who were breathing, sweating, and drooling on each other in their struggle for dominance on the mat. So… er… Yeah.

Please follow the link above to read the rest of the restrictions. They are ridiculous. If you are allowing the high school kids to wrestle, you may as well admit that masks and social distancing after they have wrestled do not make a lot of sense.

The article concludes:

It’s very important in today’s America that no individual ever be allowed to make his or her own risk assessment and that all decisions be collectivized and homogenized. In fact, let’s just be done with that idea of individuality and individual responsibility altogether. We can change “INdependence Day” to “Dependence Day”, have a central authority take our cash to, in turn, tell us how to live, and never bother thinking about the logical dead-end that achieves.

It’s pretzel logic, but, as we can see in Ohio, logic is just as twisted and bound-up as the wrestlers in the ring.

Just a note–in North Carolina, evidently you can only catch Covid in a bar after 10 pm or before 5 am. That makes a lot of sense somewhere I am sure.

Does Wearing A Mask Matter?

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Yesterday The Federalist posted an article about the effectiveness of masks in curbing the spread of the coronavirus. Because of the previous sentence, I expect the fact-checkers on Facebook to flag this article, but their flags can’t dispute facts. The article at The Federalist includes twelve graphs contrasting the spread of the virus where masks were mandatory with the spread of the virus where masks were not required. Please follow the link to the article to see those graphs.

The article concludes:

Why Don’t Masks Work?

Why don’t masks work on the general public? For one, if you read the fine print on most consumer masks you will see something along the line of “not intended for medical purposes and has not been tested to reduce the transmission of disease.” Masks can work well when they’re fully sealed, properly fitted, changed often, and have a filter designed for virus-sized particles. This represents none of the common masks available on the consumer market, making universal masking much more of a confidence trick than a medical solution.

If we actually wanted effective masks, then manufacturers should be conducting scientific tests evaluating masks specifically for their ability to reduce the spread of coronavirus. The Food and Drug Administration and CDC should be making recommendations on which masks to use and approving masks based on their scientific efficacy rather than promoting the wrapping of any piece of miscellaneous cloth around your face.

Effective masks, if they exist, should then be distributed to highly vulnerable groups for use only in rare and extenuating circumstances. There would be little point for the population at large to wear masks all the time because while focused protection may be possible, it is not possible to eradicate the virus at this point or stop its spread.

Our universal use of unscientific face coverings is therefore closer to medieval superstition than it is to science, but many powerful institutions have too much political capital invested in the mask narrative at this point, so the dogma is perpetuated. The narrative says that if cases go down it’s because masks succeeded. It says that if cases go up it’s because masks succeeded in preventing more cases. The narrative simply assumes rather than proves that masks work, despite overwhelming scientific evidence to the contrary.

The narrative further ignores places like Sweden and Georgia, which never required masks in the first place, and it suppresses new scientific evidence if it doesn’t support desired political results, such as data from the world’s only randomized trial investigating if masks actually protect from COVID-19. Even a Nobel laureate has been canceled because his COVID charts and data were found to be undesirable.

History does not bode well for times that politics meddles with science. Martin Kulldorff, a professor at Harvard Medical School and a leader in disease surveillance methods and infectious disease outbreaks, describes the current COVID scientific environment this way: “After 300 years, the Age of Enlightenment has ended.”

In the end, it will be the loss of credibility in our scientific institutions, and the unnecessary division they have sowed among us, for which masks will be remembered.

Stay tuned. Eventually the truth will prevail.

Some Of Our News Media Is Not Telling Us The News

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Just the News posted an article today about some recent censorship by Twitter. They are getting really good at suppressing news that does not agree with the current liberal narrative. It might be time to examine the protected status they have had that prevents them from being sued for censorship.

The article reports:

Twitter has censored a post from White House adviser Dr. Scott Atlas last week arguing that masks and mask mandates are ineffective in stopping the coronavirus.

Atlas, who joined the White House coronavirus team in August as a science adviser tweeted: “Masks work? NO,” and said the widespread use of masks is not supported.

The tweet apparently violated a Twitter policy that prohibits the sharing of false of misleading information pertaining to the coronavirus pandemic.

In such instances, Twitter disables the account of the individual until the person in question deletes the post.

“I don’t understand why the tweets were deleted,” Atlas told the Associated Press. He told the wire service that his tweet was meant to show that “general population masks and mask mandates do not work,” clarifying that his stance is that masks should be used when social distancing cannot be enforced.

Atlas noted that infection rates soared even in places where masks were mandated, including Los Angeles, Hawaii, Miami, the Philippines and Japan.

It seems to me that Dr. Atlas as a doctor has a basis for his statement. His statements should have as much validity as Dr. Fauci’s statements. The fact that Twitter is censoring Dr. Atlas because he does not agree with the current narrative should be concerning to all Americans.

So Why Is This Required?

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Yesterday The Gateway Pundit posted an article about a statement from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

The article reports:

On Tuesday Tucker Carlson opened his show by questioning the CDC rules and data on mask wearing and the COVID-19.

Earlier this week the CDC confirmed that mask wearing was ineffective and over 50% of US coronavirus cases were patients who were habitual mask wearers.

The article quotes a Breitbart article:

Mass communications are now controlled by a tiny number of people, all of whom have identical agendas. There is no modern Anti-Mask League, there couldn’t be a modern Anti-Mask League. Facebook and Google would shut it down the first day. The governors of Michigan and New Jersey would indict its leaders.

Dissent used to be a defining feature of American life, but no more. Now, we have mandatory consensus. Masks are good. Anyone who questions the utter goodness of masks is bad…

…So what is the science on masks? Well, as it happened, we have the latest for you tonight. And the science comes interestingly from the CDC whose Director has told you that masks were magic, more effective than vaccines.

But the numbers from the CDC suggests otherwise. A new study conducted by 11 medical institutions analyzed a group of people who tested positive for COVID during the month of July. Here’s the interesting part.

Among those who were infected, more than 70% reported they had quote, “always worn a mask” for the preceding 14 days. Another 14.4% said they had quote, “often worn a mask.” In other words, almost everyone, 85% who got the coronavirus in July was wearing a mask and they were infected anyway.

So clearly this doesn’t work the way they tell us it works. Clearly, someone has been lying to us, many people actually. How did this happen? Well, the short answer is we’re not sure how so many people got the coronavirus were wearing masks, but there are clues, clues that our leaders appear to be ignoring.

We are always hearing “Trust the science” from those who want mandatory masks. Well, this is the science. Why are we still wearing masks.

Just for the record, when Tucker Carlson posted the CDC statement that masks were ineffective, Facebook censored his post. At some point you have to wonder why the establishment is so determined to keep us masked.

 

Using A Chain-Link Fence To Keep The Mosquitoes Away

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Just the News posted an article today about the changing positions on mask wearing by the World Health Organization (WHO).

The article reports:

A 2019 World Health Organization review of numerous studies testing the efficacy of face coverings to stop the transmission of influenza found “no evidence that [wearing a mask] is effective in reducing transmission” of the virus. The organization has further discouraged individuals from using cloth masks to cover their faces during pandemics, though at times that advice has appeared to shift.

The 2019 review was part of a larger study examining “non-pharmaceutical public health measures for mitigating the risk and impact of epidemic and pandemic influenza.” That paper effected a “systematic review of the evidence on the effectiveness of [non-pharmaceutical interventions], including personal protective measures, environmental measures, social distancing measures and travel-related measures.” 

…The document reviews 10 separate randomized, controlled trials examining the effectiveness of face masks in stopping flu transmission. There was “no evidence that face masks are effective in reducing transmission of laboratory-confirmed influenza” found in that survey.

The article includes an amazing statement:

Though the organization conceded little evidence for the effectiveness of face masks, in an overview of the paper they nevertheless “conditionally” recommend them for the broader public in the case of “severe epidemics or pandemics.”

“Although there is no evidence that this is effective in reducing transmission, there is mechanistic plausibility for the potential effectiveness of this measure,” the overview reads. 

The article continues:

Yet the World Health Organization itself gives shifting advice on cloth masks. In its 2019 literature review it stated bluntly: “Reusable cloth face masks are not recommended.” In its guidance over the summer, however, it gave detailed technical standards by which individuals might fabricate their own cloth face coverings. Yet in that document it also stated that the “limited available evidence” in favor of cloth masks made them inadvisable for health care workers.

On its website, meanwhile, the WHO states that it “does not recommend [the] widespread use [of cloth face masks] among the public for control of COVID-19.” Yet in the same paragraph it argues that governments should “encourage the general public to use non-medical fabric masks” in “areas of widespread transmission, with limited capacity for implementing control measures and especially in settings where physical distancing of at least 1 metre is not possible.”

I think we can safely conclude that they have no idea what they are talking about. If wearing a mask makes you feel better, wear one. It may ultimately have a negative impact on your health, but go ahead. Just don’t decide to preach to those of us who avoid wearing one.

What Was Said Before It Become Political

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On September 10th, The Blaze posted an article about masks. For whatever reason, mask wearing has become political, so the article went back to see what the scientific opinion was before politics entered the picture.

The article reports:

On April 3, already several weeks into the unprecedented lockdown over coronavirus, but before the big media push for universal masking, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration issued guidance for respiratory protection for workers exposed to people with the virus. It stated clearly what governments had said all along about other forms of airborne contamination, such as smoke inhalation — “Surgical masks and eye protection (e.g., face shields, goggles) were provided as an interim measure to protect against splashes and large droplets (note: surgical masks are not respirators and do not provide protection against aerosol-generating procedures).”

In other words, they knew that because the virions of coronavirus are roughly 100 nanometers, 1/1000 the width of a hair and 1/30 the size of surgical mask filtrations (about 3.0 microns or 3,000 nanometers), surgical masks (not to mention cloth ones) do not help. This would explain why experience has shown that all of the places with universal mask orders in place for months, such as Japan, Hong Kong, Israel, France, Peru, Philippines, Hawaii, California, and Miami, failed to stave off the spread of the infection. Surgical masks could possibly stop large droplets from those coughing with very evident symptoms, but would not stop the flow of aerosolized airborne particles, certainly not from asymptomatic individuals.

Scientific studies do not seem to back up the requirement to wear a mask:

Our own U.S. government has failed to produce new evidence that counters years’ worth of evidence that masks don’t work in stopping respiratory viruses and is still producing evidence to the contrary. In June, HHS’ Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality funded a systemic review of all relevant randomized clinical trials (RCTs) on the effectiveness of mask-wearing in stopping respiratory infections and published the findings in the Annals of Internal Medicine. The conclusion was as clear as it is jarring to the current cult-like devotion to mask-wearing. “Review of RCTs indicates that N95 respirators and surgical masks are probably associated with similar risk for influenza-like illness and laboratory-confirmed viral infections in high- and low-risk settings.” The study noted that only one trial did show “a small decrease in risk” for infection when doctors wore N95s in high-risk settings, but even that evidence was scant.

The study looked at eight trials with 6,510 participants that “evaluated use of surgical masks within households with an influenza or influenza-like illness index case (child or adult). Compared with no masks, surgical masks were not associated with decreased risk for clinical respiratory illness, influenza-like illness, or laboratory-confirmed viral illness in household contacts when masks were worn by household contacts, index cases, or both.” Remember, Dr. Deborah Birx, the Coronavirus Task Force coordinator, is now saying people should wear masks even at home?

It’s time we all asked ourselves, “Why are we wearing masks?”

Symbolism Over Substance

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Yesterday WRKO AM 680 posted an article about a recent directive from the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources.

The article reports:

The Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources is taking seriously Gov. Tony Evers’ order that everybody in the state must wear a mask while indoors. The department sent out an email to employees reminding them of the order, which took effect on August 1.

In addition to wearing masks while working at DNR facilities or in the field, Natural Resources Secretary Preston Cole told employees they should also wear one while on video conference calls, even if they are home alone.

Are they afraid the computers will catch the virus? Seriously, this is an employer attempting to control the actions of employees while the employees are in their own homes. That sets an awful precedent.

The article continues:

“Also, wear your mask, even if you are home, to participate in a virtual meeting that involves being seen — such as on Zoom or another video-conferencing platform — by non-DNR staff,” Cole wrote, according to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. “Set the safety example which shows you as a DNR public service employee care about the safety and health of others.”

The agency said they want their employees to set an example to others and demonstrate how vital it is to wear a mask in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic.

“By wearing a mask while video conferencing with the general public, we visually remind folks that masking is an important part of navigating the business of natural resources during this tumultuous time,” DNR spokeswoman Megan Sheridan told McClatchy News.

She also said that the agency is concerned that screen grabs of high-ranking employees not wearing masks could be misconstrued to insinuate that they are not following the governor’s order.

On August 7th, The Hill reported the following:

An Illinois school district is cracking down on remote learning dress codes, disallowing students from wearing pajamas while attending online classes.

The Springfield Public Schools Board of Education approved the district’s new handbook this week, which applies in-person dress codes to remote learning settings, NBC News reported.

“We don’t need students in pajamas and all those other things while on their Zoom conference,” Director of School Support Jason Wind said during a virtual school board meeting on Monday.

Does anyone else feel that this is a bit intrusive? I really don’t like the idea of any government agency trying to control what I wear or don’t wear in my own home.

Media Bias?

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The Sturgis Motorcycle Rally will be held from August 7th-16th this year. It is interesting to contrast the media’s coverage of this rally with the coverage of the violent protests in various cities across the country.

Townhall posted an article on Saturday about the Sturgis Rally noting:

About a quarter-million motorcycle riders are expected to descend upon the town of Sturgis, South Dakota, taking part in the 10-day annual rally that kicked off on Friday. The rally is not a left-wing protest, so the media is criticizing attendees for not wearing facemasks and participating in a large gathering amid the Wuhan coronavirus pandemic. 

The mainstream media and even medical officials have decided that the best way to avoid contracting the Wuhan coronavirus is to participate in left-wing protests. Crossing back and forth over the border between Mexico and the United States is seemingly another harmless exercise. But when a large gathering doesn’t fit into the media’s list of liberal-approved activities, the press castigates participants for venturing outside during the pandemic. 

As expected, all the usual suspects are running hit pieces about the rally being a superspreader event. The double standard at this point must be apparent to even the most casual of media consumers. 

While many in the town favored postponing the rally this year due to the Wuhan coronavirus, many others in town, including local business owners, were glad to see rallygoers arrive on schedule. 

South Dakota Republican Gov. Kristi Noem was among those supportive of the rally.

“I trusted my people, they trusted me, and South Dakota is in a good spot in our fight against COVID-19. The #Sturgis motorcycle rally starts this weekend, and we’re excited for visitors to see what our great state has to offer!” Gov. Noem tweeted on Thursday.

Appearing on Fox News’ The Ingraham Angle earlier this week, Gov. Noem pointed out how the media wrongly predicted a large surge in coronavirus cases following President Trump’s rally at Mount Rushmore for the Fourth of July holiday.  

The article at Townhall concludes:

The 250,000 expected attendees will be around half the size of last year’s turnout. If it was 250,000 people riding into town on Vespas and calling to defund the police, the media would be praising them for their courage.

The New York Times has a different viewpoint (as expressed in an article August 7):

Save for a few hard-to-spot hand-sanitizer stations, it could have been any other major festival in pre-pandemic times.

“Screw Covid I went to Sturgis,” read a black T-shirt amid a sea of Harley Davidson and Trump 2020 outfits sported by the throng of people walking along Main Street. Their gear did not include face masks, and social distancing guidelines were completely ignored.

South Dakota is among several states that did not put in place a lockdown, and state officials have not required residents to wear masks, giving attendees who rode in from outside the state fewer restrictions than they may have had back home.

…Still, Nelson Horsley, 26, of Rapid City, S.D., said he expects there will be a rise in coronavirus cases in the area once the rally concludes next weekend. But he said he didn’t feel the need to wear a mask while walking around downtown Friday afternoon. He compared the virus to getting the seasonal flu.

“I haven’t seen anyone out here wear a mask so it kind of feels like it defeats the purpose,” he said, to wear a mask himself.

What if there isn’t a rise in coronavirus cases after the rally? What does that tell us about what we have been doing to end the virus?

The article at Townhall notes:

“Not only do we have one of the lowest death rates, we’ve got about 40 people in the hospital today statewide, our infection rates are low, our job losses are low, our economy is doing better than virtually any other state, and I think it’s a real testimony to what could have been possible in other states, but those governors just made the wrong decisions,” Noem told Ingraham.

Experience tells us that if there are even two cases of coronavirus as a result of this rally, they will be shouted about by the mainstream media. We need to pay attention to see what actually happens.

This Doesn’t Seem To Be The Answer

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Just the News reported yesterday that one month after California Governor Newsom unilaterally ordered state residents to wear masks in most public settings, the average daily number of coronavirus cases in the state has increased by over 160%. Wow.

The article reports:

Newsom’s June 18 order “mandate[d] that face coverings be worn state-wide” while in “any indoor public space,” while on public transit, during virtually every form of work in which the public might be involved in some way, while walking through “hallways, stairways, elevators, and parking facilities,” while in “any room or enclosed area where other people (except for members of the person’s own household or residence) are present when unable to physically distance,” and in outdoor settings where six feet of distance between individuals is not possible.

Every state resident older than two years old is bound by the mandate; a small number of exceptions exempt individuals due to medical conditions and other limited circumstances.

…The website of Johns Hopkins University, which offers pandemic tracking tools for every U.S. state, says average daily cases in California have increased from 3,385 on the day of Newsom’s order to 8,889 as of July 16, an increase of 162%.

Though Newsom’s mask mandate appears to have had little effect on the trajectory of the virus in California, the governor nevertheless this week imposed additional mask requirements on the state, ordering that most students who return to school in the fall will be subject to “strong mask requirements,” namely that “all staff and students in 3rd grade and above will be required to wear a mask or face covering” during the school day.

Can you imaging trying to keep a mask on the third grader all day? I don’t know why the masks did not help, but I think we need to look at this carefully. If the coronavirus spread that much with masks, why are we mandating them?

The Other Side Of The Mask Requirement

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Yesterday PJMedia posted an article with the following headline, “Neurosurgeon Says Face Masks Pose Serious Risk to Healthy People.” This is not the first time I have read  that.

The article notes:

As for the scientific support for the use of face mask, a recent careful examination of the literature, in which 17 of the best studies were analyzed, concluded that, “ None of the studies established a conclusive relationship between mask/respirator use and protection against influenza infection.”1   Keep in mind, no studies have been done to demonstrate that either a cloth mask or the N95 mask has any effect on transmission of the COVID-19 virus. Any recommendations, therefore, have to be based on studies of influenza virus transmission. And, as you have seen, there is no conclusive evidence of their efficiency in controlling flu virus transmission.

It is also instructive to know that until recently, the CDC did not recommend wearing a face mask or covering of any kind, unless a person was known to be infected, that is, until recently. Non-infected people need not wear a mask. When a person has TB we have them wear a mask, not the entire community of non-infected. The recommendations by the CDC and the WHO are not based on any studies of this virus and have never been used to contain any other virus pandemic or epidemic in history.

The article continues:

In one such study, researchers surveyed 212 healthcare workers (47 males and 165 females) asking about presence of headaches with N95 mask use, duration of the headaches, type of headaches and if the person had preexisting headaches.2

They found that about a third of the workers developed headaches with use of the mask, most had preexisting headaches that were worsened by the mask wearing, and 60% required pain medications for relief. As to the cause of the headaches, while straps and pressure from the mask could be causative, the bulk of the evidence points toward hypoxia and/or hypercapnia as the cause. That is, a reduction in blood oxygenation (hypoxia) or an elevation in blood C02 (hypercapnia). It is known that the N95 mask, if worn for hours, can reduce blood oxygenation as much as 20%, which can lead to a loss of consciousness, as happened to the hapless fellow driving around alone in his car wearing an N95 mask, causing him to pass out, and to crash his car and sustain injuries. I am sure that we have several cases of elderly individuals or any person with poor lung function passing out, hitting their head. This, of course, can lead to death.

A more recent study involving 159 healthcare workers aged 21 to 35 years of age found that 81% developed headaches from wearing a face mask.3   Some had pre-existing headaches that were precipitated by the masks. All felt like the headaches affected their work performance.

Blaylock (Dr. Russell Blaylock, a neurosurgeon) says studies have also shown that face masks impair oxygen intake dramatically leading to serious problems.

Wear a mask if you choose, but please do not criticize those of us who choose not to.