On my daily hike through a large regional park with my dog, I noticed a strange phenomenon of recent times: more people wearing masks while exercising outside in the fresh air.
When I walked in on Saturday, I saw an informal soccer game played by 7-8 year old girls. But then I noticed that their coach is wearing a mask. And when I looked closer at the kids playing, everyone was wearing masks as well. Outside … Play a powerful football game …
Teenagers playing volleyball were also masked.
Hikers, runners, cyclists and families walking around wore masks.
So many of the daily mask wearers I behold look terrified and usually walk in a wide arc past me, afraid I might be a walking infection. Other mask wearers believe that wearing a mask is a symbol of social responsibility.
It reminded me of what I recently read in journalist Alex Berenson
What is important is that Berenson concludes “… the worst reason of all is that mask mandates are apparently an attempt by governments to find out what restrictions on their civil liberties people will accept on the thinnest possible evidence.”
He points out how masks have become mandatory, despite a lot of medical evidence showing that carriers do not appear to get respiratory infections.
“‘Overnight, masks have become a symbol of social responsibility,'” The New York Times wrote on April 10, “Berenson reported in Part 3: Masks. ” If you still want to convince, you now have to wear a mask in public space. ‘Two months later, the Times cheerfully offered’ tips to make your mask work ‘. ‘
Berenson wrote the three-part booklet series, and largely dispelled the misinformation that was dispelled by the public by experts from the public and control-driven politicians. “Unreported Truths Part 1 focused on the way our deaths from COVID-19 count. Part 2 explained connections. “Part 3 deals with an issue that is even more important in our lives every day – the evidence that masks may or may not work to reduce the spread of the coronavirus,” he explained.
Berenson says ‘for months experts in the health of the people have been shouting:’ My mask protects you, while you protect me. ‘Governments around the world now allow people to wear face masks in public. But the evidence that masks do any good is much weaker than almost anyone understands. ”
Berenson investigates many studies and trials with interesting results.
… “even trained medical staff do not like to wear it for more than a few hours. As two doctors wrote in a comment in August: “If worn properly, N95 masks are suffocating, uncomfortable and difficult to wear for a long time.” (https: // jamanetwork.com/journals/jamainternalmedicine/fullarticle/2769441) If civilians are going to wear face masks, it’s a standard cloth or surgical mask. ‘
Berenson noted that the health experts in several studies’ did not say explicitly in their conclusion, perhaps because they were aware that any criticism of masks in the coronavirus period is out of bounds. Instead, they pointed out that their work ‘provides quantitative results … [for] evidence-based decisions. ‘In other words, we’re not going to tell you that surgical masks are not working – you can read. (https: // jamanetwork.com/ article.aspx? doi = 10.1001 / jamainternmed. 2020.4221)
‘What’s true for surgical masks seems to be doubly true for homemade cloth masks, which usually filter even fewer small particles and are even less effective. The general evidence is clear: standard cloth and surgical masks offer almost no protection against virus-sized particles or small aerosols. ”
Berenson concludes:
“The theoretical evidence that cloth and surgical masks do not protect their wearers is overwhelming. But we have even stronger evidence. It comes from clinical trials of people wearing masks. Medical evidence comes in many different forms. The weakest evidence comes from anecdotes based on the experience of one person. Just because I didn ‘t have an accident after driving drunk does not mean it’s safe. On the other hand, the gold standard of evidence comes from what scientists and doctors call randomized controlled trials. ”
“Clinical trials consistently find that masks do not protect people against respiratory viruses.”
Berenson recently found a trial:
‘If only we had a large randomized controlled trial specifically investigating whether masks protect their carriers against the coronavirus. Now we do it. In an article published on November 18, Danish researchers reported on a trial that treated nearly 5,000 people in Denmark in the spring. The trial was carefully designed and conducted, with half of the participants being told to wear high-quality surgical masks and 50 provided free of charge. The other half were not asked to wear masks. Participants were followed for a month to see if they were infected with Sars-Cov-2. Within the month, 53 people in the maskless group were infected, compared to 42 who wore masks. The difference could not be distinguished from the chance, suggesting that masks could really lead from 46 percent to 23 percent infections among their carriers. The reason for the failure was not that people in the masked group did not follow the rules either. When they only looked at participants who always wore masks, the researchers found a smaller difference. Wearing a mask “does not reduce the incidence of Sars-Cov-2 infection at conventional levels of statistical significance”, the authors write in their discussion. ”
There is little spread without symptoms:
‘Forcing everyone to wear masks will matter very little unless people without symptoms spread the coronavirus in large numbers. Everyone agrees that people who are symptomatic of fever or cough should stay home or wear a mask when they go out. If only sick people wear masks, face masks could possibly be a public signal: I do not feel well, stay away. But the point of universal mask commands is to force people who do not feel sick anyway to wear masks, in the theory that people without symptoms can also spread the virus. Like virtually every other part of the “my mask protects you” theory, this aspect is unproven. Worse, like the general lockdown advice, which had never been recommended before March, it has been heavily politicized. ”
Even dr. Anthony Fauci explained that asymptomatic transmission is not a threat.
Maria Van Kerkhove, a scientist from the World Health Organization, said at a press conference last June that people without symptoms almost never transmit the coronavirus. Berenson addressed the failure of her statement:
But the media and other public health experts immediately pushed back Van Kerkhove’s incidental honesty in the June 8 press conference. Why? Because the threat of asymptomatic transmission is critical to the argument for universal mask mandates. If it is very unlikely that people without symptoms will transmit Sars-Cov-2 to others, then why should they wear masks? ”
The evidence is overwhelming that surgical or cloth masks do not protect their wearers, and who exactly protects the masks? ‘Experts who have presented the hospitals agree that’ there is limited evidence on the key point of the usefulness of masks in reducing the risk of transmission. . The experts of the nurses also told Hayes that it wears masks for a long time. Masks were uncomfortable, became damp and could cause skin irritation. (One refers to a ‘grunge factor’.)
The Globe reported months ago on ‘mask mouth’, a new syndrome Dentists report that it is caused by the moisture trapped in face masks, which creates a petri dish of breeding ground for bacteria as it is directly over your mouth. Continuous mask wear leads to all kinds of dental disasters such as rotting teeth, receding gum lines and a severe sour breath. Prolonged mask also carries persistent cough, as well as dermatitis on the skin around the mouth.
“Of course, it’s different to encourage people to take actions that are (supposedly) symbolically valuable, than to force them,” Berenson said. “I may want to wear a pink pin to show that I care about breast cancer, but Governor Cuomo can not find me. At least I did not think he could do it, though I’m not sure anymore. ‘
‘The not-so-good reason is that people wear masks, scare them. Scare us. Masks are warnings that none of us can escape. This virus is different. This virus is dangerous. This virus is not flu. It’s better to scare us off until a vaccine is ready to save us all. But the worst reason for this is that mask mandates are apparently an attempt by governments to determine what restrictions on their civil liberties people will accept on the thinnest possible evidence. This is the non-thin edge of the wedge. Today we have to wear masks. Tomorrow we need negative Covid tests to travel between countries. Or vaccines to go to work. I wish masks work. I wish we did not have to fight over them. But they do not. And we do. ”
– Unreported Truths About Covid-19 and Lockdowns: Part 3: Masks by Alex Berenson
I highly recommend reading Alex Berenson’s three-part booklet series – they are short, well written and full of very important information, facts, studies and researchers that readers can immediately use to allay fears.
