MASKS DO NOT WORK
The paper is Facemasks in the COVID-19 era: A health hypothesis in Medical Hypothesis, by Baruch Vainshelboim. (I am thrilled to say this beats me to the punch on the mask-reality paper I’ve been working on.)
Let’s begin at the Conclusion:
The data suggest that both medical and non-medical facemasks are ineffective to block human-to-human transmission of viral and infectious disease such SARS-CoV-2 and COVID-19, supporting against the usage of facemasks. Wearing facemasks has been demonstrated to have substantial adverse physiological and psychological effects. These include hypoxia, hypercapnia, shortness of breath, increased acidity and toxicity, activation of fear and stress response, rise in stress hormones, immunosuppression, fatigue, headaches, decline in cognitive performance, predisposition for viral and infectious illnesses, chronic stress, anxiety and depression. Long-term consequences of wearing facemask can cause health deterioration, developing and progression of chronic diseases and premature death. Governments, policy makers and health organizations should utilize prosper and scientific evidence-based approach with respect to wearing facemasks, when the latter is considered as preventive intervention for public health.
Do us all a favor, will you? Send this paper to your ruler if you live in a medical tyranny locale. They won’t acknowledge these results, of course, because rulers are loathe to admit error; the bigger the mistake, the more it is not their fault.
But perhaps it will help forestall or block mask criminalization next time. For there will be a next time. As I’ve told you hundreds of times, we get pandemics every 10-20 years. This is our first global panic, though. Since we’ve proved to our rulers how cowardly we all are, they’ll surely try to grab more power next time. This paper can help lessen that.
The paper proves each of the contentions in the Conclusion. It is a review paper, examining the evidence from dozens of meta-analyses and other papers. Recall that if you can’t “prove” your hypothesis with a wee P-value in a single paper, you can always up the N (which guarantees weer Ps) by doing a meta-analysis. If you can’t get a wee P there, well, what you’re trying to “prove” just can’t be done. Masks just don’t work.
Here are a list of demonstrated ill effects of prolonged masks usage:
“But Briggs, you The Science denier, what about surgeons!”
Surgeons wear, and frequently change, special masks so they don’t snot into patients, and so that they don’t get splattered with blood. Contagious surgeons don’t operate on patients.
This paper is eminently readable. If you can read this blog, you can surely read it. So click on over—don’t trust me!—and prove to yourself that masks don’t work. Meanwhile, here are some key quotes (I’m leaving off references; all emphases mine).
- “Interestingly, 99% of the detected cases with SARS-CoV-2 are asymptomatic or have mild condition, which contradicts with the virus name (severe acute respiratory syndrome-coronavirus-2)”.
- “…’the overall clinical consequences of COVID-19 are similar to those of severe seasonal influenza’ [5], having a [true] case fatality rate of approximately 0.1%.”
- “Due to the difference in sizes between SARS-CoV-2 diameter and facemasks thread diameter (the virus is 1000 times smaller), SARS-CoV-2 can easily pass through any facemask“.
- “among symptomatic individuals (those with fever, cough, sore throat, runny nose ect…) there was no difference between wearing and not wearing facemask for coronavirus droplets transmission of particles of > 5 μm”
- “suggesting that asymptomatic individuals do not transmit or infect other people “
- “A meta-analysis among health care workers found that compared to no masks, surgical mask and N95 respirators were not effective against transmission of viral infections or influenza-like illness based on six RCTs”.
- “Based on four COVID-19 studies, the meta-analysis failed to demonstrate risk reduction of facemasks for COVID-19 transmission”.
- “In early publication the WHO stated that ‘facemasks are not required, as no evidence is available on its usefulness to protect non-sick persons’. In the same publication, the WHO declared that ‘cloth (e.g. cotton or gauze) masks are not recommended under any circumstance‘”.
- “…the WHO repeatedly announced that ‘at present, there is no direct evidence (from studies on COVID-19) on the effectiveness face masking of healthy people in the community to prevent infection of respiratory viruses, including COVID-19.'”
- “In addition to hypoxia and hypercapnia, breathing through facemask residues bacterial and germs components on the inner and outside layer of the facemask. These toxic components are repeatedly rebreathed back into the body, causing self-contamination.”
- “The adverse physiological effects were confirmed in a study of 53 surgeons where surgical facemask were used during a major operation. “
- “…wearing facemasks causing hypoxic and hypercapnic state that constantly challenges the normal homeostasis, and activates ‘fight or flight’ stress response, an important survival mechanism in the human body.”
- “Encountering people who wearing facemasks activates innate stress-fear emotion, which is fundamental to all humans in danger or life threating situations”.
- “global estimates showing that COVID-19 will cause a catastrophe due to collateral psychological damage such as quarantine, lockdowns, unemployment, economic collapse, social isolation, violence and suicides.”
Those are just the juicy ones. I left off tons of other studies. Including the ones, such as the recent Danish mask study, that we did earlier.
Don’t try to post this on YouTube of Facebook. The blue-haired landwhale women’s studies graduates who monitor “hate” speech will at least censor if not ban you.
TAKE OFF YOUR MASK
Most when confronted (again and again and again) with evidence masks don’t work will still not believe it. Just like the person wearing garlic around their throat, they know masks work. After all, they haven’t been bitten.
Since rules are derived by the fears of our most cowardly, rulers won’t let go of mask mandates easily.
Masks are magic to most.
MASK DEBATE
Meanwhile, Dutch police are so convinced of the usefulness of masks, they often give out helpful reminders to citizens.
Dutch courage. pic.twitter.com/YfCkDUoIkM
— Alex Bailey ?????? (@FUNKNA) April 10, 2021
ASTRAZENECA RACKING UP BODIES
Even the New York Times is admitting “In rare cases, the AstraZeneca Covid vaccine has led to severe and sometimes fatal blood clots. Newly published research from Germany and Norway describes a powerful immune reaction that may be the cause”.
Hilariously, they say, “Exactly why the rare reactions to the vaccine occurred is still a mystery.”
Scientific teams from Germany and Norway found that people who developed the clots after vaccination had produced antibodies that activated their platelets, a blood component involved in clotting. The new reports add extensive details to what the researchers have already stated publicly about the blood disorder.
Younger people appear more susceptible than older ones, but researchers say no pre-existing health conditions are known to predispose people to the rare reaction. That is worrisome, they say, because there is no way to tell if an individual is at high risk.
We see below (again!) that young people have a very very small risk of COVID death or disease. Taking the AZ vaccine may even present a higher risk of both. But hey. Vaccines are mandatory in many places.
Interestingly, imagine how bad it really is if this is what the NYT is reporting.
Update This headline just in, missing my post time.
BREAKING: US recommends 'pause' for single-dose Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 vaccine to investigate clotting reports. https://t.co/CHyDEn0evn
— The Associated Press (@AP) April 13, 2021
6%
The CDC is sticking with its 6% COVID-inly deaths: Death Certificate–Based ICD-10 Diagnosis Codes for COVID-19 Mortality Surveillance — United States, January–December 2020
Among 378,048 death certificates from 2020 listing COVID-19, 5.5% listed COVID-19 without codes for any other conditions. Among 357,133 death certificates with at least one other condition, 97% had a co-occurring diagnosis of a plausible chain-of-event condition (e.g., pneumonia or respiratory failure), or a significant contributing condition (e.g., hypertension or diabetes), or both.
BUSTED TRANSMISSIONS
Outdoor transmission accounts for 0.1% of State’s Covid-19 cases
of the 232,164 cases of Covid-19 recorded in the State up to March 24th this year, 262 were as a result of outdoor transmission, representing 0.1 per cent of the total.
There were 42 outbreaks associated with outdoor gatherings, with one community outbreak accounting for seven cases.
This involved an outdoor work activity which took place between two separate families, according to the Health Protection Surveillance Centre (HPSC) which monitors case numbers in the Republic.
There were 21 outbreaks on construction sites with 124 cases, and 20 outbreaks associated with sporting activities and fitness in which there were 131 cases.
Recall, if you don’t have this by heart by now, that “cases” is a false metric. It means positive test of any kind, a weak criterion.
Nothing Experts said to justify medical tyranny turned out to be true. No thing.
TEXAS UNMASKING APOCALYPSE!
I’m not going to bother showing you all the southern and western states, whose attributed deaths keep decreasing. The Texas and Florida apocalypse that EXPERTS and the media assured us would happen, didn’t.
Meanwhile, attributed coronadoom deaths have ticked up slightly in bad-weather high-population northern states, like Michigan and Minnesota. Here’s Michigan, the greatest state, albeit with a tyrannical governor (CDC daily of reported daily deaths).
It’s easy to check twice as many people die on average every day of heart attacks, and at younger ages than then doom.
Why is this happening? Besides the weather, which is still crappy in MI, and that most deaths are in Detroit, which is largely black and obese, we also recall this plot from last week:
As Ontario enters its 3rd province-wide lockdown, I present, without comment, recent history of another common respiratory pathogen: pic.twitter.com/XwJ6tePv8H
— Kelly Brown (@rubiconcapital_) April 1, 2021
Same kind of thing with the doom. The variants give a spring bump to areas which are still deprived of Vitamin D. It’s a reasonable prediction this bump lasts, as it always does, into mid May.
Locking down and masks won’t make it go away.
BOOK
Website of similar name: price of panic.
THE NUMBERS
Sources: daily tests, CDC official toll number one, number two (the old weekly file, now suspect). Deaths by age. Covid & flu. WHO flu tracker. All current as of Monday night.
Daily tests:
Tests fell slightly again—but not enough. The media and blue states are still trying to juice the panic, loathe to relinquish their “emergency” powers, so it’s not falling as fast as we’d like.
Testing generates “cases”. I wonder if testing is rising because vaccinations are also going up. “Come back in a week and let’s do a test” kind of thing. A rapid test could easily throw a false positive. We’ll have to wait and see. I still don’t have data to tell for sure.
Every positive test the media falsely calls a “case”, when it is only an infection with varying degrees of seriousness—and most are not serious.
Positivity rate of the tests.
All things equal, fewer tests mean larger positivities, because it’s more likely only the sickest are being tested. And, depending on the kind of test, those who are vaccinated might show as positive (antibody test, say). That these are dropping, therefore, is good news.
CDC weekly ALL CAUSE death counts, or the Perspective Plot, from late 2009 until now. The late drop off is late counting: it takes up to eight weeks to get all data. We need to look at all cause deaths because we can’t quite trust the attributed COVID numbers.
The black line is deaths of any kind. The red is COVID. The blue line is flu+pneumonia (it’s the pneumonia that kills most flu patients). The blue is estimated starting mid year 2020 because CDC stopped separate reporting on flu. The suspicion is some flu and pneumonia deaths are being attributed to COVID.
Deaths are down from what we’d expect this time of year. Perhaps the most vulnerable died a little early last year. (This sentence will shock those who think death is impossible for themselves.)
Here is the CDC deaths “involving” COVID.
There is in the daily data (not shown) do show a slight uptick, which will be picked up in next week’s totals. But it’s very low numbers. There is no emergency. There is only panic.
Here is another way to look at all deaths, the week-of-the-year all-cause deaths. This is big.
I’m repeating myself—again and again—but look at those deaths plunge! This chart should amaze you. If you aren’t talking about this chart with your enemies and neighbors, I have failed to convince you of its importance.
You can see the black dots on the green line, which indicate the late counts. But before that, even with some late counts coming in, this is still low.
We are, from about Week 8, either where we’d expect all cause deaths to be, or lower. Our rulers and media have convinced themselves there is no death but COVID deaths. They don’t even know how to look at others.
MOST IMPORTANT: the 2020 excess deaths are not all COVID deaths! They include deaths from the “solution” to COVID, too. Plus increased suicides, septicemia and other iatrogenic kills, cancers, heart attacks, and everything else due to lockdowns. This point cannot be over-emphasized.
Flu is still missing. Here is the WHO’s global flu tracker:
Flu is still gone the whole world over. For almost a full year now. Yes. A year without flu. Astonishing.
Here’s another way to look at it, which highlights the very first (Twitter) graph atop this post, by which I mean the spring “mini-bump” after the main flu surge and before summer:
You can see Swine Flu, which started at an odd time, and which caused a minor panic. And you can see where flu vanished into … where exactly? Hello? Hello The Science believers? Where?
Here is the CDC official population mortality rates for the all causes other than COVID, and “involving” COVID (with and of; “involving” is CDC’s word).
POPULATION FATALITY RATES
Age COVID OtherCause
1 Under 1 year 0.0000160 0.00600
2 1–4 years 0.0000020 0.00026
3 5–14 years 0.0000022 0.00016
4 15–24 years 0.0000190 0.00098
5 25–34 years 0.0000770 0.00180
6 35–44 years 0.0002200 0.00280
7 45–54 years 0.0006300 0.00510
8 55–64 years 0.0015000 0.01100
9 65–74 years 0.0038000 0.02300
10 75–84 years 0.0094000 0.05400
11 85 years and over 0.0250000 0.16000
A reminder that these are from totals, and so represent the closest thing to lifetime population fatality rates. Anyway, the risk is so small for the young there is no reason to panic. None.
About masks in more depth, see this article and this one. I am also working on a comprehensive article about masks. Hint: they do not work. Leave the Cult of the Mask.
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Yet the panic continues:
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/coronavirus-vaccine-requirements-volcano-refugees
Hmmm
https://townhall.com/political-cartoons/2021/04/13
One of the reasons why more people will have died from COVID
https://justthenews.com/government/congress/relatives-able-edit-death-certificates-loved-ones-fema-funeral-reimbursement
Pingback: Important New Paper: MASKS DO NOT WORK; CDC Sticking With 6% COVID-Only Deaths; More! — Coronavirus Update LXI — William M. Briggs | The zombie apocalypse survival homestead
The number of people that have tried to tell me that the flu has disappeared just because we are all running around in mask keeps making me laugh. I try to tell them that it is actually because no hospitals are reporting flu deaths but instead are classifying them as “different” things and they always laugh and just repeat themselves and say these mask are saving all of us. I have tried to tell people the obvious fact that you mentioned Mr. Briggs that the difference in sizes between SARS-CoV-2 diameter and facemasks thread diameter (the virus is 1000 times smaller), SARS-CoV-2 can easily pass through any facemask but they just remind me that the CDC says that they protect us.
I am so happy to live in a Communist state run by our mighty dictator Heir Cuomo. NY State is a complete joke. The right got so happy that they were going to get him out of office when all of the sexual misconduct allegations came out but what has happened with them? Nothing at all as I told everyone at the time. I am convinced he could murder someone on camera and get away with it. He is our despotic ruler he cannot be removed and he has all of us gleefully wearing these pointless face coverings I think mostly because he just doesn’t want to look at us anymore. We are just robots to him here to do his bidding. I so want out of here.
Whitmer will probably use this to continue to make it so that I will continue to not be able to visit my mother in the assisted living where she lives, where the warden insists on masks inside the apartment and fogging the entire apartment if I dare to visit. We are looking at moving her.
But Briggs, one might ask, when will such a mask-destroying study be published in a journal of such credibility as JAMA or NEJM…that tyrants the world over may also believe as you do?
Bill Gates promises another pandemic soon. Since he’s likely correct due to inside information, I believe him. Remember, Fauci, who owns/finances part of the Wuhan lab, said Trump would face a pandemic. Idiot Trump should have fired the man at that point, but no……..
Medical masks are TESTED for fit and not touched during surgery or any time other than removal. It’s actual science. And as Briggs notes, the masks don’t stop disease, just spit and drool.
Our virtue-signaling libs in Laramie reportedly don’t care about your health and still demand masks. Shop elsewhere and do not go to college there. Even our Casper Kroger store lifted the mask mandate, evil owners and all.
Lockdowns are MEANT to cause psychological damage, both compliance and violence. If people behave irrationally, there is no dealing with them. That’s the hope. Total insanity and all out war occurs to reduce the population and give the oligarchs their own private planet with YOU DEAD.
Don’t try to post anything on Facebook or YouTube, you traitor. You’re supporting the enemy.
They pulled the AZ vaccine. And personal injury demons thank you for giving them more work and making people anti-vax. The POLIO vaccine would be dead in the water today. I guess polio is better than a vaccine reaction, right???? (And women take birth control pills all the time, WITH THE SAME SIDE EFFECT of blood clots. So if you can still hump whatever moves, blood clots are fine.)
Darren-
The Cuomo harassment stuff was an op to distract from the nursing home deaths.
It worked.
The MSM now have manna from heaven in the form of Matt Gaetz, who is a Repub.
Gaetz will be the only harassment case that will be marketed to the goldfish-brained US public.
”Masks don’t work.”
That’s why they’re mandated — because they don’t work.
If masks worked they would be prohibited.
Bozo rules in upside-down, kooky krazy Klownland.
Bitten in the Mitten
Highest in the nation?
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/us/st-clair-michigan-covid-cases.html
Shared the study in a chat group with members fiercely pro-masks and pro-vaccines. Here are the reactions:
Person A: Didn’t read in detail – not that i can digest everything. scientific papers, anyone can write one by themselves as an individual. most papers i think are written as a team. We don’t know if this person also has political affiliations to GOP/Trump or not as well
Person B: .. And it’s too easy to twist anything to prove your point of view anyway..
Person C: “Baruch Vainshelboim: Conceptualization, Data curation, Writing – original draft.” Sounds like he is putting forth a hypothesis Based on curated data
The Plan to Control the World
https://www.stopworldcontrol.com/full/
This post, along with some comments from my community who are convinced the CDC has stone tablets, prompted me to see what the CDC says. Page 19 of their Science of Masking presentation
https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/downloads/science-of-masking-full.pdf looks suspicious to me. Can you comment on the fitting they have done to the data, in particular the post-April 11 segment?
So, a face mask that accumulates germs, spittle, carbon dioxide, mucus, etc. in a warm vapor pocket directly in front of your mouth and nose, thus interfering with your natural respiration, causes health problems? Imagine my shock.
Hi Briggs,
You keep using the US All Death graph with that fantastic plunging green line, but I see nowhere in the legend on what that green line represents? Please explain?
Russell
The green line is 2021
You can see where it starts from the same datapoint that the red line (2020) left off
Of course the drop to zero is artificial because the last three weeks or so are always under reported
The green line made it’s first appearance 11 updates ago (Update L) with no fanfare nor explanation
When Briggs says this is BIG, he means it!
Even assuming 5 weeks of under reporting, all cause deaths are firmly in the middle of the pack for all of the prior years … THIS CRISIS IS OVER! (for the US)
(Looking at other data, you can see that even Michigan may very well have turned a corner)
Briggs,
An interesting debate going on over at the Andrew Gelman blog regarding reportage of relative Vs absolute risk for the clinical trial data for the Moderna and Pfizer vaccines.
Did Pfizer, Moderna, and the FDA deliberately avoid mentioning the absolute risk calculations for their clinical trials because these calculations generated numbers much less impressive than the magical 95.1% / 94.1 relative risk reduction calculations reported in the media ?
Could be……………….those maverick biostatisticians, y’know, they keep resisting falling into line with the Perceived Wisdom……
https://statmodeling.stat.columbia.edu/2021/04/12/relative-vs-absolute-risk-reduction-500-doctors-want-to-know/
This is the silver bullet from the linked paper:
…445 asymptomatic individuals were exposed to asymptomatic SARS-CoV-2 carrier … using close contact (shared quarantine space) for a median of 4 to 5 days. The study found that none of the 445 individuals was infected with SARS-CoV-2…
There have been several other studies with similar results. In other words, and there aren’t big enough capital letters in the world to emphasize this:
THERE IS NO ASYMPTOMATIC TRANSMISSION OF COVID-19.
Why do we have mask mandates? The risk of asympomatic transmission.
Why are our churches and schools closed? Asymptomatic transmission.
Why are curfews imposed? Asymptomatic transmission.
Why do we have to stand inside taped lines wherever we go?
Why are we fined for having visitors inside our own homes?
Why do people pull their shirts over their faces while passing each other in public?
Why do I have to answer intrusive questions about my personal life before I enter my workplace?
Why are we not allowed to travel for “non-essential” purposes?
Why are people quarantined for up to 14 days at their own expense upon arrival in some countries?
The whole lockdown edifice is premised on the notion that asymptomatic carriers of the doom will transmit the virus to others. If this is incorrect–if the chances of asymptomatic transmission are negligible at best–then none of this has any justification whatsoever, and all such measures should be dropped immediately.
Hammer this point to everyone you meet. Tell your local representatives. If you get the chance, ask your “health experts” how they can possibly justify any restrictions when there is no evidence that apparently healthy people can pass the doom on to others.
It seems to me the mask mandates are like the collection of pots and pans during WWII, not really used as the vast majority was scrapped or abandoned, but useful in making otherwise uninvolved people feel like they are “Doing their bit”. In hindsight I suspect a lot of mask advocates will say “ Yes but it allowed people to feel safe”. Which is a bit rich since they were the ones to make people feel unsafe to begin with.
Briggs, have you been holding out on us?
https://www.thegwpf.org/content/uploads/2021/04/Briggs-Climate-Attribution.pdf?mc_cid=671c603ba9
Briggs wrote…
“Surgeons wear, and frequently change, special masks so they don’t snot into patients, and so that they don’t get splattered with blood. Contagious surgeons don’t operate on patients.”
I’ve become blue in the face pointing this out to people. Wearing a mask protects you from someone sneezing in your face–because they didn’t cover up, How many times has that ever happened to you?
Repurposing surgical masks defies an understanding of the purpose of surgical masks: to shield the wearer from splatter, and to preclude exhale of aerosols into a sterile surgical wound.
awildgoose: I think you just insulted goldfish.
New crisis: Sweden had 625 confirmed cases per MILLION people. Run away, be afraid, panic. This all started with measles and whooping cough “outbreaks” of less than 10 cases. People were conditioned to think ANY case was horrifying. Never mind reality says zero cases is generally impossible. Who needs reality anyway?
Forbes: I always wonder why BOTH people in a room have to have a mask. Are they one-way? I think the CDC says they are not. So one person with a mask should be enough with only two people. The person worried about germs can wear the mask. As far as having someone sneezing in my face, I don’t get that close to people. Social distancing was already my mantra. (Most of the people I know sneeze into their elbo or shoulder. They have manners. A kleenex, if they have one, is also used.)
Sheri: The answer is: Do as you are told! No questioning of authority allowed. Punishment will be meted out for those who dissent. Is that clear?
/snark off.
Best.
I went through a bunch of articles about the flu disappearing from various time periods throughout the last year. Some thoughts:
-In every single article the dramatic drop was attributed to masking and social distancing. Not a single article gave any reason for this other than “experts say” or “it makes sense.” No statistical analysis or experimental study to prove that this is the reason, it’s just something that we all know (apparently). A few articles mentioned the possibility of the flu being outcompeted by COVID-19 . The only mention of the possibility of flu cases being improperly tested for was an anecdote in one article about how many doctors are so convinced that the flu is gone that they don’t even bother to test for it most of the time.
-More recent articles have started openly saying the obvious conclusion: if it really is masks that have stopped this, then maybe we should have masks remain mandatory forever (at least during winter months).
-There is no attempt made to explain why the influenza numbers remain low even in places with no lockdowns or mask mandates.
-Around half the articles warned of the possibility that the flu could “surge at any time” with many talking about the dire nature of a “twindemic” of the flu going to its normal levels or worse at the same time as COVID-19 continues to spread (despite the explanations for the drop in the flu in those articles basically making such a situation impossible).
-Many articles stressed how essential it was for everyone to be vaccinated against the flu, even in the articles that were published at times when it became obvious that the flu season would be nothing. One article even stated that the CDC has no idea what the effectiveness of the vaccine was this year (since the data is so low) but still said that vaccines were essential.
-This AP article aged like milk:
https://apnews.com/article/fact-checking-afs:Content:9639710623
It says that its a lie to say that the flu is down by 98% worldwide (even though it was at the time) because it was too early for the northern hemisphere to have its normal flu season. It explicitly states that the flu season will be a concern unless the US goes the way of New Zealand or Australia. Of course even the harshest lockdowns in the US did not approach what those countries did and yet the flu still had almost no effect.
Personal theory: discard if you wish. ALL the vaccines are experiments on the public and there will be some– perhaps a lot– of side effects for all of them. But since the whole point of this exercise was to use the mRNA version on as many people as possible before the negative effects became obvious to the public… the side effects we’ll be permitted to hear about in the corporate media will be strictly limited to the traditional vaccines. Watch for NYT and other paid-for sources to coyly mention effects of J&J and AZ, but scrupulously avoid any reports on negative effects of Moderna and Pfizer. Remember, ALL vaccines have at least a small number of negative effects– even the regular, fully-tested ones like the TDaP we’ve all had— there’s always a few people who have a nasty reaction. Nothing’s risk-free. So the interesting thing to note is what’s allowed into the media, and what’s not.
What’s the agenda?
And once again, it simply will not matter. All the powers that be (politicians, media, etc.) and assorted other usual suspects (brainwashed masses of useful idiots) will simply ignore the evidence, continue the insane and tyrannical rules, and insist that, “Acksshually, The Science says masks and anti-social distancing etc. work, ” and anyone saying otherwise is a selfish, conspiracy theorist who wants everyone to die, and should be put in jail for wrongthink.
They are right in one sense: “The Science” does say masks work…unfortunately, the science does not support their claim.
Murray: “THERE IS NO ASYMPTOMATIC TRANSMISSION OF COVID-19.”
Maybe not, but asymptomatic transmission is still a great danger.
/Klown
Another great danger is asymptomatic transmission of climate change increasing racist asteroid impacts. Wearing your mask prevents this.
Regarding 445 study of asymptomatic spread (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7219423/)
comes this quote:
“All patients also wore masks except for eating or drinking and were admitted to infectious department for medical isolation.”
In other words, among a study group of 445 subjects -WHO ALWAYS WORE MASKS-, there was no asymptomatic spread from the one asymptomatic patient with a positive PCR test.
I am sad to say it seems the norm these days to find the cited article not only does not back up a statement, it often contradicts it.
BTW I recommend Hope-Simpson’s 1992 “The transmission of Epidemic Influenza” .
Sheri-
You are correct. My sincere apologies to all who identify as members of the goldfish species.
Dennis-
Jail? The Covidian mass psychosis is rapidly evolving to the point where they want us broke and dead to appease their Corona deity, and they think that’s just great.
But what about all of those FEEEEELLLLIINNNGGGSSSS that people have invested into protecting others????
Shouldn’t there be some return on their investments???
Surgeon Destroys Myth: ‘If Masks Don’t Work, Why Do Surgeons Wear Them?’
https://www.cnsnews.com/commentary/dr-jim-meehan/surgeon-destroys-myth-if-masks-dont-work-why-do-surgeons-wear-them
“First, let’s be clear. The premise that surgeons wearing masks serves as evidence that “masks must work to prevent viral transmission” is a logical fallacy that I would classify as an argument of false equivalence, or comparing “apples to oranges.”
Although surgeons do wear masks to prevent their respiratory droplets from contaminating the surgical field and the exposed internal tissues of our surgical patients, that is about as far as the analogy extends. Obviously, surgeons cannot “socially distance” from their surgical patients (unless we use robotic surgical devices, in which case, I would definitely not wear a mask).
The CoVID-19 pandemic is about viral transmission. Surgical and cloth masks do nothing to prevent viral transmission. We should all realize by now that face masks have never been shown to prevent or protect against viral transmission. Which is exactly why they have never been recommended for use during the seasonal flu outbreak, epidemics, or previous pandemics.
The failure of the scientific literature to support medical masks for influenza and all other viruses is also why Fauci, the U.S. Surgeon General, the CDC, WHO, and pretty much every infectious disease expert stated that wearing masks won’t prevent transmission of SARS CoV-2. Although the public health “authorities” flipped, flopped, and later changed their recommendations, the science did not change, nor did new science appear that supported the wearing of masks in public. In fact, the most recent systemic analysis once again confirms that masks are ineffective in preventing the transmission of viruses like CoVID-19.
If a surgeon were sick, especially with a viral infection, they would not perform surgery as they know the virus would NOT be stopped by their surgical mask.
Another area of “false equivalence” has to do with the environment in which the masks are worn. The environments in which surgeons wear masks minimize the adverse effects surgical masks have on their wearers.
Unlike the public wearing masks in the community, surgeons work in sterile surgical suites equipped with heavy duty air exchange systems that maintain positive pressures, exchange and filter the room air at a very high level, and increase the oxygen content of the room air. These conditions limit the negative effects of masks on the surgeon and operating room staff. And yet despite these extreme climate control conditions, clinical studies demonstrate the negative effects (lowering arterial oxygen and carbon dioxide re-breathing) of surgical masks on surgeon physiology and performance.
Surgeons and operating room personnel are well trained, experienced, and meticulous about maintaining sterility. We only wear fresh sterile masks. We don the mask in a sterile fashion. We wear the mask for short periods of time and change it out at the first signs of the excessive moisture build-up that we know degrades mask effectiveness and increases their negative effects. Surgeons NEVER re-use surgical masks, nor do we ever wear cloth masks.
“This crisis is over for the US”
It depends on quite a few things:
Continued uptake of vaccines for most vulnerable and likely to be hospitalised and block beds.
That the virus remains susceptible to vaccines in the short term, long enough for the new adjusted vaccines ready for Autumn.
Presuming the US citizens take them in enough numbers
Right now the US is going back up according WOM.
Critical care numbers are up for several days in the US, and those counted as Current active has also gone up slightly over several days even considering a weekend.
It’s no use nail racing until there’s a good deal of time passed after the epidemic has passed and all cause mortality corrected for age and compared with the SAME country can be properly analysed.
*assuming the virus behaves itself
“snail racing” not “nail racing”
Looking at those three columns at the top;
It seems Mickey mouse, or intended for the lay newspaper rather than for someone working in medicine
The terminology and inclusions on the lists are
1 duplications
2 inaccurately included in the heading
Just looks like a list written by someone trying to stretch a list!
See how anxiety is covered by almost all oft he list
(Anxiety and depression tend to go together in various combinations)
“fight or flight response” is not a medical term, it’s aphrase used to explain anxiety or activity of the sympathetic nervous system.
Strictly speaking that is a physiological effect.
Very Mickey mouse for an “important pice of news” if that’s anything to go by.
The first list is pretty much all related to the same situation of low oxygen, high CO2 levels.
Acidosis and lowering of PH are the same thing…
That will cause inflammation.
Once the electrolyte balance is altered, all sorts of things happen
Adrenaline and stress hormones increasing will alter the experience of anxiety even without a psychological, or conscious cause.
Wrong about the virus particles passing through any mask. The NIOSH-approved masks have a non-woven electrostatic layer that grabs almost all solid matter. They still leak, but not directly through the mask.
No Joy, Anxiety is NOT the same as the others, just as a cough and a runny nose are not the same thing, though the symptoms can be found together. And effects do not directly mean there is a health condition as effects can be temporary and conditional. So there is no ‘duplication.’
To put it succinctly, you were wrong about masks, you continue to be wrong about masks, and your posts here are not actually saying anything other than that you prefer some other undescribed method of categorization and that there are similar sounding words being used which you’re latching yourself on to as a vain Mickey Mouse effort to manufacture something that looks like a criticism.
Johnno,
It’s the Joy experience. It’ll be complete once she insults everybody else’s intelligence then acts offended when people point out that she’s insulting everyone.
Probably everyone who reads this blog also reads the Babylon Bee, but I can’t resist a pointer anyway:
https://babylonbee.com/news/only-two-maskless-shoppers-exchange-knowing-glance-as-though-part-of-some-secret-society
and
https://babylonbee.com/news/experts-always-know-what-theyre-talking-about-and-never-make-mistakes-experts-confirm
There’s a guy I work with who sneezes a lot, and makes no attempt to aim or contain the ejecta. I don’t think his wearing a mask would help much if he sneezed, but it would make a mess inside his mask, and he’d need to walk across the building to get a fresh mask. Anyway, his sneezing is much reduced, so there’s that.
Michael Moon; by NIOSH-approved masks you mean N-95 masks. That means at least 95% efficiency, but in reality manufacturers produce N-95 masks in the 97% to 98% range. Even so I don’t think 2% of small virions getting through a perfectly worn mask is “almost all”.
I agree that “Masks don’t work”, and what I mean by that is “Masks mandates for the general population don’t work”. And as of Jan-01-2020, that was the position of all serious Public Health agencies and all serious scientists. Nothing about the SARS-CoV-2 virus changed the real actual science.
I can prove that Big Government, Public Health, Big Tech, Big Pharma, Big Media, and Academia et al, have known all along that mask mandates are useless against the Wuhan virus by using only one word.
Beards
And if you can’t easily construct the proof from that one word, then no other Truth or mountains of evidence will be able to persuade someone allergic to Logic.
OSHA and beards for Hospitals with a TB isolation room.
https://www.osha.gov/laws-regs/standardinterpretations/1996-10-03
Johnno, you are wrong and showing your ignorance, again
I could break it right down, and might, but I thought it beneath the abilities of almost all of the readers on this site which I have so far encountered.
Who said something about coughing? I did not.
I’m going to go again though as it’s remarkable that you wouldn’t simply blush at the pointing out of that list for what it is, as opposed to defending it
FYI: To whom it may concern;
‘Hypoxemia’ = reduced level of oxygen /O2 in blood gas. Hence, emia” (multiple causes Some of which might be reduced oxygen attached to haemoglobin within Red blood cells, dissolved in blood plasma OR tissue fluid, when tested. In this case, simultaneously with the wearing of a certain type of mask, presumably.
Hypoxia is inadequate O2 in tissue.
Effects may be shortness of breath!
Hypoxia may cause shortness of breath. It may not, though. Not necessarily in all clinical examples, such as with overuse of O2 during respiratory support. So when patients are kept too long or on too high levels of O2 during ventilation, the brain responds and the ‘respiratory drive’ is knocked off, since it works by detecting High CO2 and low O2… One reason for having to ‘ween’ patients off long term ventilation Another for NOT using 100% O2 in most situations.
~~~
2 Hypercapnia or hypercapnoea, or other spellings all used,
3 HyperCarbia
4 Increased levels of CO2 in the blood,
5 Respiratory Acidosis…
6 Reduced PH level in the blood,
2 to 6 are all referring to the same thing. They aren’t separate effects. Yet look how many can be wrung out of one medical sounding word
~~~
“Toxicity” refers to the state where some normally occurring or foreign substance / molecule reaches a level which causes an effect on cells and which ’demands’ a response from the immune system.
It’s the very ‘toxicity” which enables normal pain and immune responses.
~~~
The list then goes on to the races!
One response to “toxicity” even at a very local tissue level is :
Inflammation:
A normally occurring immune response, which proceeds the healing process at a cellular level.
Self contamination is a misnomer in this example since the covid carrier is already a covid carrier and so cannot contaminate himself. Presumably the writer means the development of an adverse environment for the culture of microbes or some other very trivial maschne claim.
~~~
“Increase in stress hormone levels”
Here is where a list is a potential way to present a misleading physiological claim.
Cortisol, adrenalin and noradrenalin are vital parts of human and animal physiology.
Without them you would die, quickly. They are being produced for you all the time, on a daily basis.
Muscle tension: ???
Are you speaking of the severe condition of Tetani?
Spasm?
The list gives lack of clarity to what’s being claimed and the reader is left to infer.
For stress hormones to be at a high enough level to cause osteoporosis or altered calcium levels in the blood, one might suggest that patient has a separate problem outside of their tendency to be attached to wearing a mask! I would suggest that such a patient would have discarded his mask a long time ago!
Yet the list then goes on to psychological effects!
No mechanism or time frame is offered just a list of well known features of several considerations of stress in general.
It would be a fallacy, but not irrational, to disregard a source or an entire side of an argument simply because bad arguments are made. It works both ways
To refer to mask wearing as causing toxicity is a reach, to put it mildly. ) So like breathing! You can have too much or too little of a good thing,.
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Bummer.
The article has been ‘rabbit-holed’.
Cannot access server!
I guess you DO NOT wear a mask?
Above comment addressed to JOY!
If the paper is so ‘mickey-mouse’, why would it be ‘Rabbit-holed”?
Why would the authorities make the paper inaccessible if it was a trolling project?
Awesome counter-arguement IF there was some lit sited, like Bill citing the article you disparage!
A true, effective troll would at least provide a gas-lighting article of to counter…
Earnest Judd, beats me!
@ 12:30 – 1400 the anoxic stress is clearly building
@ 30 minutes the patient takes off his mask
And all was well with the universe for ever!
https://youtu.be/ttpPIRnEFVE
Spud Junior,
They are called N-95 because they LEAK, not because the electrostatic filter material does not work. It does. I was in the respirator business for 17 years.
Is the Vainshelboim paper peer reviewed?
@ Dandelion, I am wondering about this also, the issue of immune thrombocytopenia occuring after people got the Pfizer and/or Moderna shots. I read there’ve been I think 16 confirmed cases of this with those vaccines, but nobody seems to be talking about it anymore. Apparently, they don’t think those cases were actually related to the vaccine? No one seems to be saying, or maybe I missed it. I don’t know if there’s some other agenda.
Not that it was needed, but this post provides further proof that Briggs is an idiot, as is anyone who agrees with him.
The big claim: here’s a real, scientific paper that proves masks don’t work. Ooh, aah! So, click on the link, read the paper Briggs is referring to, and come to this part:
>>> The results of this study showed that among symptomatic individuals (those with fever, cough, sore throat, runny nose ect…) there was no difference between wearing and not wearing facemask for coronavirus droplets transmission of particles of >5 µm.
But if you follow the link, the paper cited actually says the EXACT OPPOSITE, it says that masks made a significant difference in transmission.
Not so much “statistician to the stars” as “smoke and mirrors bullshitter to the morons.”
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I wish Briggs followed up on some of these comments. Especially the one’s that object to the paper given. That would be nice to clarify. Thanks!
I was sent this link. You all may find this of interest: https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/article/how-virus-variants-get-their-confusing-names-and-how-to-make-them-better?cmpid=org=ngp::mc=crm-email::src=ngp::cmp=editorial::add=SpecialEdition_20210423&rid=7D63CA0DADCEE31E0C8AB558985E9B27
It never happens, Rob
There is no ‘argument” there is statement and run. Best to just join in with your own
When in Rome…
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Vainshelboim’s paper has been retracted:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8114149/
Pedro,
Read our critique of the rejection, which is hilariously poor: https://www.wmbriggs.com/post/35915/
Thank you!
Did you link the wrong post?
https://www.wmbriggs.com/post/35906/
Hmm, that is the wrong link, Again.
It looks like circular reasoning due to circular closed chain nature of the information.
It’s not so much proof that the table is Mickey Mouse, which was always self evident. It’s the strange defence of the thing which is curious. Nobody in a clinic anywhere is hanging on this or similar kinds of papers. Only internet activists seem to think this is so.
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Here:
Retraction notice to “Facemasks in the COVID-19 era: A health hypothesis” [Medical Hypotheses 146 (2021) 5]
Baruch Vainshelboim
Author information Copyright and License information Disclaimer
This retracts the article “Facemasks in the COVID-19 era: A health hypothesis” in Med Hypotheses, volume 146 on page 110411.
This article has been cited by other articles in PMC.
This article has been retracted: please see Elsevier Policy on Article Withdrawal (https://www.elsevier.com/about/our-business/policies/article-withdrawal).
This article has been retracted at the request of the Editor-in-Chief.
Medical Hypotheses serves as a forum for innovative and often disruptive ideas in medicine and related biomedical sciences. However, our strict editorial policy is that we do not publish misleading or inaccurate citations to advance any hypotheses.
The Editorial Committee concluded that the author’s hypothesis is misleading on the following basis:
1. A broader review of existing scientific evidence clearly shows that approved masks with correct certification, and worn in compliance with guidelines, are an effective prevention of COVID-19 transmission.
2. The manuscript misquotes and selectively cites published papers. References #16, 17, 25 and 26 are all misquoted.
3. Table 1. Physiological and Psychological Effects of Wearing Facemask and Their Potential Health Consequences, generated by the author. All data in the table is unverified, and there are several speculative statements.
4. The author submitted that he is currently affiliated to Stanford University, and VA Palo Alto Health Care System. However, both institutions have confirmed that Dr Vainshelboim ended his connection with them in 2016.
A subsequent internal investigation by the Editor-in-Chief and the Publisher have determined that this article was externally peer reviewed but not with our customary standards of rigor prior to publication. The journal has re-designed its editorial and review workflow to ensure that this will not happen again in future.
The Editor-in-Chief and the Publisher would like to apologiSe to the readers of The Journal for difficulties this issue has caused.
Points 1 and 3 refer to my own complaints about the paper.
Looking at the timing it seems I spotted it before the “peer review” process was ale to check its validity.
Sorry, but you can tell at a glance, so nobody as much as glanced at it.
Hence the last two paragraphs self checking, “must do better” apology of the journal editors.
What does that say about other journals and parts of the peer review process? Still, it worked here, it took one physio of very little brain, to look at the table and declare it as suspish’
Duplicate comment follows, but appropriately filed here on above WMBriggs post from April 13th 2021. *after having actually read some, not all, of the Vannishing boing’ hypothesis paper in question.
1 The paper itself actually does mention cancer and dementia, the table mentioned is indeed from the paper itself.
2 “Thread diameter”. Is another Strange error of reasoning in the article. It should be reference to diameter of holes in fabric, no?
3 Droplets contain virus, virus is not free in the air, hence diameter of droplet containing particles, Is far larger that that of a single virus.
(Molecules of Co2 and O2 are tinier than the covid viral cell so there is no issue with restriction of gasses.).
4 In addition, what is also not mentioned often nor in this paper, is that airflow is slowed due to turbulence which affects velocity of Particles. They can remain in the air for about an hour.
Everything I said still sands. Without question, this paper is introduced into the arena of discourse to project an impression that there is somehow controversy about the matter of masks themselves. Whereas, the discussions with regards to non pharmaceutical intervention have to do with mass use of masks outside of clinical settings and whether this, despite other modes of transmission, slows the spread at large in any measurable way.
Instead of that we have the straw man argument about “stopping spread”. Or other absolute statements, with use of words like: block, cease, prevent, etc. Spread happens when masks are worn, too, via the hands and the eyes.
The link to the article is here below: (It was posted days before your abusive diatribe claiming I was unable to support the comment about your defence of it.)
The article, on further inspection has not just the obvious Mickey mouse flaw of being written by someone with no experience in a clinical field, at a guess, skip that…was the reason I didn’t bother to read the link itself to the paper! It shows that the author ‘thinks’ that coronavirus travels in the air without water vapour droplets. Also, it stipulates the size of the thread as opposed to the holes in the fabric! As the key diameter measurements. Another schoolboy error?
So, as I said, it is a phoney article, probably a hoax which was defended.
No wonder it was “rabbit holed”.
https://www.wmbriggs.com/post/35227/
The retraction is very generous, to say the least. That really is all there is to say about it.