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Coronavirus: why many of the English are angry about masks — and scientific mask findings from recent history

Tags: masks mask july

On Friday, July 24, 2020, face coverings became mandatory in English shops — and Anglican churches (even with social distancing):

On Sunday, July 26, #CoverYourFace trended on Twitter.

This subject is splitting English public opinion as much as Brexit did four years ago.

This is what it amounts to:

Some of us still remember the early days of lockdown and parts of the NHS which were void of patients. According to the media, the NHS still has few patients:

I love the concept behind the NHS and, in general, the staff, so I don’t want to see it disappear, but over the past decade, something has gone woefully wrong somewhere.

This is where we are today with coronavirus:

Let’s look closer at what Chris Whitty told a Parliamentary select committee at the end of July. Former Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt (equally useless) was interviewing him. Let’s also review what the current Health Secretary Matt Hancock said about Masks (Sir Patrick Vallance, the UK’s chief scientific adviser, is shown at the beginning of the video):

Mmmkay.

I’ve watched all of the coronavirus briefings, the House of Commons debates this year and have read government documents. This is how events unfolded five months ago:

This was the state of play just before July 24:

With regard to masks, I saw the following tweet:

For a helpful compendium on pre-COVID19 mask science, Watt’s Up With ThatWUWT — has a guest post dated July 25: ‘Does Universal Mask Wearing Decrease or Increase the Spread of COVID-19?’

The contents of the post, WUWT‘s author says, is presented ‘for information only’.

The preface reads as follows:

The use and requirements of masks have become incredibly political and partisan. Unfortunately, far too much of science, knowledge, journalism, and even epistemology are becoming political.

Agreed.

The abstract reads as follows. Five months on, past research might come as a surprise to some (emphases mine):

A survey of peer-reviewed studies shows that universal mask wearing (as opposed to wearing masks in specific settings) does not decrease the transmission of respiratory viruses from people wearing masks to people who are not wearing masks.

Further, indirect evidence and common sense suggest that universal mask wearing is likely to increase the spread of COVID-19.

This paper agrees that wearing masks in specific settings (such as healthcare facilities) achieves protective effects, although the masks should not be home-made, must be worn correctly, replaced frequently, and not overestimated.

The WUWT post references 24 papers and arranges them in three scenarios of mask wearing: A (medical/care facilities, including visitors), B (voluntary wearing by members of the public) and C (widespread/mandated wearing among the general public).

You may read the detail at your leisure.

Key points from the article follow.

First, there is a difference in behaviour when wearing masks in a clinical situation versus a generalised one:

When people are told to wear masks in specific situations to protect vulnerable individuals—for example, in pharmacies, nursing homes, and medical buildings—most people are careful to follow rules and recommendations. However, when people are ordered to wear masks everywhere and all the time, proper mask use and handling become significantly less probable. It is possible to enforce mask wearing, but it is impossible to enforce proper mask handling.

Secondly, no mask prevents aerosol flow completely:

Neither surgical nor cloth mask restrains aerosols from escaping at the sides, top, and bottom of the mask.

Masks redirect aerosol flow to all sides. Though we take protective measures, none of these measures protect against viral-loaded aerosols—especially when they can settle downward from above. For example, we know not to sneeze or cough in other people’s direction. And recently, we have also become accustomed to keeping six feet of distance away from others in a frontal arc. Moreover, clerks, cashiers, and other service providers are usually protected by plexiglass barriers. But because these measures fail to protect against viral-loaded aerosols, even ideally worn and cared-for masks might cause more harm than benefits.

Finally, breathing becomes more difficult with the real possibility, if not probability, that masks might retain — and transmit — coronavirus droplets now that many of us are required to wear masks:

All masks make breathing more difficult, requiring more effort to inhale and exhale and potentially causing more viral load to be expelled into the air. Moreover, when a non-contagious person wears a cloth mask, his or her mask accumulates the coronavirus and other germs from the environment. If a contagious person wears a cloth mask, the mask also accumulates some viral load with each breath, and soon, it might discharge more viral load with each exhalation than the contagious person would otherwise exhale—and in more directions

As of now, hundreds of thousands of people are breathing similarly forcefully through masks in public spaces, and other people are inhaling what mask wearers expel.

I then found two articles on Technocracy News.

One, from July 14, is ‘Masks Are Neither Effective Nor Safe: A Summary Of The Science’, a review of 42 papers about various types of masks.

The article begins with this preface from the editor:

Print this article and hand it to frightened mask wearers who have believed the alarmist media, politicians and Technocrats in white coats. Masks are proven ineffective against coronavirus and potentially harmful to healthy people and those with pre-existing conditions.

My wife and I dined out last night in a very empty restaurant and the young waitress was required to wear a cloth mask. I asked her how she was doing with the mask and if there were any side effects. She related that was consistently short of breath (when away from the table, she lowered the mask below her nose) and that she had actually passed out because of it a few days earlier, taking her straight to the floor. Fortunately, she was not hurt. ⁃ TN Editor

The article includes an excellent video in which a doctor explains COVID-19 in a professional way, yet in layman’s terms. Kelly Victory is the doctor’s real name, by the way:

Ultimately, regarding masks, the conclusion is that they can damage our health under a widespread mandate. Dyspnea, mentioned below, is shortness of breath because of inadequate ventilation or lack of oxygen:

In the summer of 2020 the United States is experiencing a surge of popular mask use, which is frequently promoted by the media, political leaders and celebrities.  Homemade and store-bought cloth masks and surgical masks or N95 masks are being used by the public especially when entering stores and other publicly accessible buildings.  Sometimes bandanas or scarves are used.  The use of face masks, whether cloth, surgical or N95, creates a poor obstacle to aerosolized pathogens as we can see from the meta-analyses and other studies in this paper, allowing both transmission of aerosolized pathogens to others in various directions, as well as self-contamination.

It must also be considered that masks impede the necessary volume of air intake required for adequate oxygen exchange, which results in observed physiological effects that may be undesirableEven 6-minute walks, let alone more strenuous activity, resulted in dyspnea.  The volume of unobstructed oxygen in a typical breath is about 100 ml, used for normal physiological processes.  100 ml O2 greatly exceeds the volume of a pathogen required for transmission.

The foregoing data show that masks serve more as instruments of obstruction of normal breathing, rather than as effective barriers to pathogens. Therefore, masks should not be used by the general public, either by adults or children, and their limitations as prophylaxis against pathogens should also be considered in medical settings.

The second Technocracy News article is from June 30: ‘Censored: A Review Of Science Relevant To COVID-19 Social Policy And Why Face Masks Don’t Work’. It is an article written by Dr Denis G Rancourt, a researcher at the Ontario Civil Liberties Association (OCLA.ca) and is formerly a tenured professor at the University of Ottawa, Canada. The original version in PDF has more charts, which have not been posted widely online.

Dr Rancourt researched several papers on masks written before the coronavirus outbreak. Unfortunately, he was censored. The Technocracy News editor wrote this preface to Rancourt’s article:

Denis Rancourt, PhD, has published over 100 peer-reviewed studies in his career, but ResearchGate choose to censor and remove this paper because it didn’t fit the narrative of the Great Panic of 2020 over COVID-19. Such censorship proves the existence of an alternative agenda.

Again, this underscores the Technocrat methodology of shaming, ridiculing and censoring anybody that comes forth with real science that refutes their pseudo-science.

Rancourt begins with this introduction:

Masks and respirators do not work.

There have been extensive randomized controlled trial (RCT) studies, and meta-analysis reviews of RCT studies, which all show that masks and respirators do not work to prevent respiratory influenza-like illnesses, or respiratory illnesses believed to be transmitted by droplets and aerosol particles.

Furthermore, the relevant known physics and biology, which I review, are such that masks and respirators should not work. It would be a paradox if masks and respirators worked, given what we know about viral respiratory diseases: The main transmission path is long-residence-time aerosol particles (.

The present paper about masks illustrates the degree to which governments, the mainstream media, and institutional propagandists can decide to operate in a science vacuum, or select only incomplete science that serves their interests. Such recklessness is also certainly the case with the current global lockdown of over 1 billion people, an unprecedented experiment in medical and political history.

You may read his detailed analysis in more detail.

His conclusion is as follows. He repeats the sentence above about lockdown, which I have excluded:

By making mask-wearing recommendations and policies for the general public, or by expressly condoning the practice, governments have both ignored the scientific evidence and done the opposite of following the precautionary principle.

In an absence of knowledge, governments should not make policies that have a hypothetical potential to cause harm. The government has an onus barrier before it instigates a broad social-engineering intervention, or allows corporations to exploit fear-based sentiments.

Furthermore, individuals should know that there is no known benefit arising from wearing a mask in a viral respiratory illness epidemic, and that scientific studies have shown that any benefit must be residually small, compared to other and determinative factors.

So, there you have it.

Masks and face coverings do not help in the fight against coronavirus. In fact, they may do more personal harm than good.

In closing, I found this comment to WUWT‘s article worthwhile, as it concerns our natural immune systems:

There are basic false questions in play with this current Covid 19 crisis.

Who actually cares if face masks are better at stopping the spread or not? We have among us a virus, it is not so different to other virus, that have come and lodged with us in everyday life. The corona virus is called the common cold, the clue is in the name. We are well set up to fight off virus infections, we have T cells for that; they work very well, particularly if you are young healthy and fit.

That brings us into the core of the face mask question.

There is a false hope being progressed that wearing a face cover will in some way isolate the wearer from infection; clearly that is not possible. Consequently, the authorities have realised the only way to sell the idea a face cover is a good thing, is to make people who do not wear them feel guilty. The argument goes, if you wear a face mask you are protecting others and you are showing how considerate you are.

How sweet is that? Be kind to others wear a mask, virtue signalling taken to a whole new level.

We have survived and thrived without resorting to wearing face masks. I fail to see any reason to change the healthy lifestyles of humanity, simply to pacify the bizarre anxieties of the gullible.

Yes, face masks will reduce some transmission of exhaled contaminated breath. Unfortunately, the unknown consequences of blocking natural development of immunity to a virus infection, could be far far worse. Real world experience tells us, when the European trailblazers ventured into New World lands, they “met” the natives infecting them with everyday European infections, which the natives didn’t have any immunity to, sadly they largely passed away.

We do not want to reinvent that scenario, in a generation or two’s time.

Those who want to wear a face mask are free to do so, those who prefer not to wear one, should also be free not to.

That’s where I stand. Wear one if you feel better, but please don’t look down upon those who prefer to breathe the way nature intended.

For anyone who finds this upsetting, ask yourself if you have worn a mask every winter during flu season.

If you live in the West, you haven’t, so please don’t start now.



This post first appeared on Churchmouse Campanologist | Ringing The Bells For, please read the originial post: here

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Coronavirus: why many of the English are angry about masks — and scientific mask findings from recent history

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