RandyBrian Loc: Texas

This a direct copy of an article from The Stand, published August 6, 2020

Mask mania has swept the United States, with some surveys admitting that perhaps 95% of Americans are wearing them, under the entirely illusory belief that the masks are doing them some good.

Unfortunately, no scientific study has demonstrated that masks do any good at all in terms of protecting people from C****-**. Some mask wearers may feel a little better, because they may feel like they have some protection even though in reality they have none.

Governors and mayors, caught up in the mindless frenzy, are imposing fines on constituents who go au naturale. Houston’s mayor will issue $250 fines after a single warning for those caught without a face covering. Miami issues $100 citations for a first and second offense followed by an arrest on the third offense. Broward County fines violators $1000 a day, and continued malfeasance can put someone behind bars for 60 days.

There might be some slight justification for these draconian measures if masks worked. But they don’t.

The N95 masks, about which there was so much frenzy a couple of months ago, filter stuff that comes in but filter nothing going out since they are designed for contaminated environments. So if you’re in Walmart and somebody comes cruising in wearing an N95 mask, you have no protection at all from him. He may think he’s protecting you, but he’s not. You may think he’s protecting you, but he’s not.

Surgical masks also filter incoming air, but since they are designed for sterile environments they quickly become clogged in normal outdoor environments. Consequently, they must be changed or thrown out every 20-30 minutes in a non-sterile environment. And if you happen to come in contact with pathogens, the particles just become trapped in the mask, and the mask becomes little more than a portable v***s dispenser. Every time you take one off and put one on you t***sfer wh**ever is on the mask to your face. You are breathing in pathogens from everywhere you’ve been.

The cloth masks, homemade or not, are the worst. Cloth masks do not filter anything, going out or coming in. As you breathe out all you are doing is trapping carbon dioxide in your mask, which is the one thing cloth masks are actually good at. So by wearing one, you are endangering your health more than you are protecting it. The moisture from your breath is caught in these masks and can become mildew ridden overnight. You may wind up with mask-induced dry coughing, allergies, and a sore throat from the micro-mold in your mask.

A review of the scientific literature on C****-** reveals that simply put, “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 t***smitted by droplets and aerosol particles.”

The reason is that none of the available masks have a mesh that’s fine enough to capture the C****-** particles. In fact, the known facts of physics and biology say that masks cannot work. “The main t***smission path is long-residence-time aerosol particles (< 2.5 μm), which are too fine to be blocked, and the minimum-infective dose is smaller than one aerosol particle.” (Emphasis mine.) In other words, it only takes a dose smaller than one aerosol particle to infect someone, and none of the masks can capture even a single particle that small.

Here’s a sample of the medical literature on the subject:

Jacobs, J. L. et al. (2009) “Face mask use in HCW (Health Care Workers) was not demonstrated to provide benefit in terms of cold symptoms or getting colds” (which of course are caused by v***ses). Plus, the health care workers were significantly more likely to experience headaches.

Cowling, B. et al. (2010) “None of the studies reviewed showed a benefit from wearing a mask, in either HCW or community members in households therein.

bin-Reza et al. (2012) “There were 17 eligible studies. … None of the studies established a conclusive relationship between mask/respirator use and protection against influenza infection.”

Smith, J.D. et al. (2016) “We identified six clinical studies … . In the meta-analysis of the clinical studies, we found no significant difference between N95 respirators and surgical masks in associated risk of (a) laboratory-confirmed respiratory infection, (b) influenza-like illness, or (c) reported work-place absenteeism.”

Offeddu, V. et al. (2017) “Evidence of a protective effect of masks or respirators against verified respiratory infection (VRI) was not statistically significant.”

Radonovich, L.J. et al. (2019) “Among outpatient health care personnel, N95 respirators vs medical masks as worn by participants in this trial resulted in no significant difference in the incidence of laboratory-confirmed influenza.”

Long, Y. et al. (2020) “There were no statistically significant differences in preventing laboratory-confirmed influenza, laboratory-confirmed respiratory v***l infections, laboratory-confirmed respiratory infection, and influenza-like illness using N95 respirators and surgical masks.”

Conclusion: “No RCT study with verified outcome shows a benefit for HCW or community members in households to wearing a mask or respirator. There is no such study. There are no exceptions. Likewise, no study exists that shows a benefit from a broad policy to wear masks in public...All of this to say that: if anything gets through (and it always does, irrespective of the mask), then you are going to be infected. Masks cannot possibly work. It is not surprising, therefore, that no bias-free study has ever found a benefit from wearing a mask or respirator in this application.”

It’s long past time for our health officials to start dealing in actual science instead of the pseudo-science they’ve been peddling since the beginning of this self-induced, panic-driven hysteria. They should begin today to broadcast loud and clear that there is no known benefit arising from wearing a mask in a v***l respiratory illness epidemic.

The bottom line is quite simple: Masks do not work, cannot work, and never will work.

The author may be contacted at bfischer@afa.net

bahmer

Amen and Amen

Auntie Dee

OH, they work very well at an attempt to control our behavior! Americans are known for their freedom-loving ways & independence, therefore before the Marxist/C*******t take over our society, they know that have to have ways to counteract these traits, forcing us into wearing a mask is ONLY the 1st step!!!

I, quite frankly NEVER thought I would see so MANY Americans bend over and grab their ankles & bow down to the Government Gods!!!

RandyBrian Loc: Texas

I wear one only when I'm required to do so. I resent it quite a bit.

PeterS

Is this the same science that shows that they do work?

https://www.ucsf.edu/news/2020/06/417906/still-confused-about-masks-heres-science-behind-how-face-masks-prevent

Editor's Note: This story was updated on July 11 to include information on why valved masks do not block exhaled droplets.

As states reopen from stay-at-home orders, many, including California, are now requiring people to wear face coverings in most public spaces to reduce the spread of C****-**.

Both the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the World Health Organization now recommend cloth masks for the general public, but earlier in the p******c, both organizations recommended just the opposite. These shifting guidelines may have sowed confusion among the public about the utility of masks.

But health experts say the evidence is clear that masks can help prevent the spread of C****-** and that the more people wearing masks, the better.

We talked to UC San Francisco epidemiologist George Rutherford, MD, and infectious disease specialist Peter Chin-Hong, MD, about the CDC’s reversal on mask-wearing, the current science on how masks work, and what to consider when choosing a mask.

Why did the CDC change its guidance on wearing masks?
The original CDC guidance partly was based on what was thought to be low disease prevalence earlier in the p******c, said Chin-Hong.

“So, of course, you’re preaching that the juice isn’t really worth the squeeze to have the whole population wear masks in the beginning – but that was really a reflection of not having enough testing, anyway,” he said. “We were getting a false sense of security.”

Rutherford was more blunt. The legitimate concern that the limited supply of surgical masks and N95 respirators should be saved for health care workers should not have prevented more nuanced messaging about the benefits of masking. “We should have told people to wear cloth masks right off the bat,” he said.

Another factor “is that culturally, the U.S. wasn’t really prepared to wear masks,” unlike some countries in Asia where the practice is more common, said Chin-Hong. Even now, some Americans are choosing to ignore CDC guidance and local mandates on masks, a hesitation that Chin-Hong says is “foolhardy.”

What may have finally convinced the CDC to change its guidance in favor of masks were rising disease prevalence and a clearer understanding that both pre-symptomatic and asymptomatic t***smission are possible – even common. Studies have found that v***l load peaks in the days before symptoms begin and that speaking is enough to expel v***s-carrying droplets.

“I think the biggest thing with C***D now that shapes all of this guidance on masks is that we can’t tell who’s infected,” said Chin-Hong. “You can’t look in a crowd and say, oh, that person should wear mask. There’s a lot of asymptomatic infection, so everybody has to wear a mask.”

What evidence do we have that wearing a mask is effective in preventing C****-**?
There are several strands of evidence supporting the efficacy of masks.

One category of evidence comes from laboratory studies of respiratory droplets and the ability of various masks to block them. An experiment using high-speed video found that hundreds of droplets ranging from 20 to 500 micrometers were generated when saying a simple phrase, but that nearly all these droplets were blocked when the mouth was covered by a damp washcloth. Another study of people who had influenza or the common cold found that wearing a surgical mask significantly reduced the amount of these respiratory v***ses emitted in droplets and aerosols.

But the strongest evidence in favor of masks come from studies of real-world scenarios. “The most important thing are the epidemiologic data,” said Rutherford. Because it would be unethical to assign people to not wear a mask during a p******c, the epidemiological evidence has come from so-called “experiments of nature.”

A recent study published in Health Affairs, for example, compared the C****-** growth rate before and after mask mandates in 15 states and the District of Columbia. It found that mask mandates led to a slowdown in daily C****-** growth rate, which became more apparent over time. The first five days after a mandate, the daily growth rate slowed by 0.9 percentage-points compared to the five days prior to the mandate; at three weeks, the daily growth rate had slowed by 2 percentage-points.

Another study looked at c****av***s deaths across 198 countries and found that those with cultural norms or government policies favoring mask-wearing had lower death rates.

Two compelling case reports also suggest that masks can prevent t***smission in high-risk scenarios, said Chin-Hong and Rutherford. In one case, a man flew from China to Toronto and subsequently tested positive for C****-**. He had a dry cough and wore a mask on the flight, and all 25 people closest to him on the flight tested negative for C****-**. In another case, in late May, two hair stylists in Missouri had close contact with 140 clients while sick with C****-**. Everyone wore a mask and none of the clients tested positive.

Do masks protect the people wearing them or the people around them?
“I think there’s enough evidence to say that the best benefit is for people who have C****-** to protect them from giving C****-** to other people, but you’re still going to get a benefit from wearing a mask if you don’t have C****-**,” said Chin-Hong.

Masks may be more effective as a “source control” because they can prevent larger expelled droplets from evaporating into smaller droplets that can travel farther.

Another factor to remember, noted Rutherford, is that you could still catch the v***s through the membranes in your eyes, a risk that masking does not eliminate.

How many people need to wear masks to reduce community t***smission?
“What you want is 100 percent of people to wear masks, but you’ll settle for 80 percent,” said Rutherford. In one simulation, researchers predicted that 80 percent of the population wearing masks would do more to reduce C****-** spread than a strict lockdown.

The latest forecast from the Institute of Health Metrics and Evaluation suggests that 33,000 deaths could be avoided by October 1 if 95 percent of people wore masks in public.

Even if you live in a community where few people wear masks, you would still reduce your own chances of catching the v***s by wearing one, said Chin-Hong and Rutherford.

Does the type of mask matter?
Studies have compared various mask materials, but for the general public, the most important consideration may be comfort. The best mask is one you can wear comfortably and consistently, said Chin-Hong. N95 respirators are only necessary in medical situations such as intubation. Surgical masks are generally more protective than cloth masks, and some people find them lighter and more comfortable to wear.

The bottom line is that any mask that covers the nose and mouth will be of benefit.

“The concept is risk reduction rather than absolute prevention,” said Chin-Hong. “You don’t throw up your hands if you think a mask is not 100 percent effective. That’s silly. Nobody’s taking a cholesterol medicine because they’re going to prevent a heart attack 100 percent of the time, but you’re reducing your risk substantially.”

However, both Rutherford and Chin-Hong cautioned against N95 masks with valves (commonly used in construction to prevent the inhalation of dust) because they do not protect those around you. These one-way valves close when the wearer breathes in, but open when the wearer breathes out, allowing unfiltered air and droplets to escape. Chin-Hong said that anyone wearing a valved mask would need to wear a surgical or cloth mask over it. "Alternatively, just wear a non-valved mask," he said.

San Francisco has specified that masks with valves do not comply with the city's face covering order.

If we’re practicing social distancing, do we still need to wear masks?
A mnemonic that Chin-Hong likes is the “Three W’s to ward off C****-**:” wearing a mask, washing your hands, and watching your distance.

“But of the three, the most important thing is wearing a mask,” he said. Compared to wearing a mask, cleaning your iPhone or wiping down your groceries are “just distractors.” There’s little evidence that fomites (contaminated surfaces) are a major source of t***smission, whereas there is a lot of evidence of t***smission through inhaled droplets, said Chin-Hong.

“You should always wear masks and social distance,” said Rutherford. “I would be hesitant to try to parse it apart.

bahmer

Amen and Amen

Carol Kelly

So far, they’re working for me.

RandyBrian Loc: Texas

The point is that we are being lied to. The CDC, Dr. F***i, WHO, and any number of experts in the field have constantly gotten their facts wrong, or they have been deliberately lying. Lies or mistakes, it is clear they can not be trusted to be accurate. So. Who do we trust to give us accurate guidance? A common attitude is that they can't hurt, and it's only a little inconvenient. But clearly they CAN hurt. So again. Who do we trust?

Carol Kelly

I’m with you.

lpnmajor Loc: Arkansas

Total crap. Try looking at some real science for a change.

Canuckus Deploracus Loc: North of the wall

Nt to mention their success in most other nations

jSmitty45 Loc: Fl born, lived in Texas 30 yrs, now Louisiana

👍👍👍👍👍👍

jSmitty45 Loc: Fl born, lived in Texas 30 yrs, now Louisiana

Me too!

RandyBrian Loc: Texas

I do and I have. I posted this because it references some studies folks might want to look at, instead of just reacting with no information.
There are lots of medical experts calling for the use of masks.
But there are also a lot of medical experts saying they are dangerous and useless.
F***i, the CDC, WHO, and other officials have been wrong far too much to be trustworthy. So again, and this is a serious question, who do we trust?

roy

Well it seems the places that people are wearing mask regularly are doing better with the v***s..My question is if trump would have ordered everybody to wear a mask 4 months ago where would we be today?