During WWII, people left at home while their husbands and sons went off to war wanted desperately to contribute to the war effort. Knowing this, the government began huge drives to collect used rubber, newspaper, and even aluminum pots and pans. True, there was a rubber shortage, but no method for recycling used rubber existed, and so the collected rubber was thrown onto trash heaps. Newspapers had no use either, except occasionally as packing material, and although the aluminum was to provide recycled metal for new airplanes for the British, recycled aluminum was not strong enough for use in new planes. The drives were largely useless and the government was well aware of that fact. But it made Americans feel better, made them feel they were doing something to help us win the war.
Today, the feel good strategy is to wear masks. Wearing masks during the COVID-19 pandemic actually accomplishes several things: it makes Americans frightened of the virus; it makes Americans feel they are doing something to keep themselves and others safe; it allows some governmental authorities to see exactly how far a little fear will go in convincing us to give up our Constitutional freedoms. What it does not do is protect from the virus.
If a governor cannot demand that all men wear hats or all women wear dresses, how does he have the authority to demand that all citizens wear masks? He does not. Only by declaring Marshal Law, could he make the mask mandate into law without the approval of his state legislature. As John Adams said, “We are a nation of laws, not of men,” thus reducing the power of a governor. Yet, because we’ve all been told we might die if we catch the virus, we meekly put on the masks.
But I called the masks today’s “feel good strategy.” That implies, given the example of WWII, that wearing masks is actually not useful, not really a protection against catching the virus! How can that be, when Dr. Fauci and the CDC tell us we must wear them to protect ourselves and others? Dr. Fauci and the CDC are operating from a political standpoint and not from a scientific one. In fact, what scientific studies and anecdotal evidence we have, confirm that masks, except for N95 respirators, are largely useless in protecting us from the virus, and Dr. Fauci and the CDC know this is true!
First of all, a single virion of COVID-19 is the size of 60 to 140 nanometers, or 0.1 microns. A micron is 1/1000th of a millimeter. The smallest object people can see is 0.1 millimeters or 100 microns in size. The “droplets” that scientists talk about are exhaled particles more than 5 microns in size, 1/5000th of an inch and far too small for anyone to see without a microscope. Aerosols are even smaller, but not as small as a single virion of the COVID virus which is often carried inside the aerosols or droplets. The problem with masks is that only N95 masks are engineered to stop the passage of most aerosols or droplets. They are called N95 masks because they are thought to stop 95% of aerosols and droplets from passing through them; however, in laboratory testing, many of them have stopped 99% of all but the smallest particles.
Unfortunately, the general public does not have N95 masks to wear. Most individuals wear cloth masks or surgical masks. These are not fitted to the wearer and allow the passage of air which could be carrying virus particles to pass behind the mask through gaps around the nose or at the cheeks as they are fastened around the ears by pre-attached elastic loops. As early as 2009, researchers examined the efficiency of surgical masks in filtering out tiny particles. The masks, often light blue, consist of three layers. The inside and outside are non-woven fabric and the middle layer is a thin melted plastic layer. The researchers used silicone to seal the surgical masks to the faces of mannikins, noting in their report that their results would be better than real life results since it is impossible to actually seal these masks to human faces. Still of the five brands they tested, three allowed 15% or more of virus-sized particles through. The other two brands allowed more than half of the particles through (qtd. by Alex Berenson, Unreported Truths about COVID-19 and Lockdowns, Part 3: Masks. https:www.ncbi.nim.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMCc7357397/).
In 2015, a trial concluded in Vietnam on both cloth and surgical masks used by healthcare workers, warned healthcare workers not to use cloth masks because they only stopped about 3% of viral particles. The physical properties of the cloth masks (generally made of woven fabric with tiny microscopic holes between the weave), the fact that they were reused, the frequency and effectiveness of cleaning them, and the increased moisture retention actually increased the infection risk for the wearer (qtd. by Berenson. https://www.ncbi.nim.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4420971/).
In February, 2020, seven researchers in Hong Kong reviewed all the clinical trials they could find that tested whether masks protected wearers against the flu (a virus). They published their conclusion in Emerging Infectious Diseases, a Centers for Disease Control journal. This was their conclusion:
“We did not find evidence that surgical-type face masks are effective in reducing laboratory-confirmed influenza transmission, either when worn by infected persons (source control) or by persons in the general community to reduce their susceptibility” (qtd.by Berenson. https://wwwnc.cdc.gov/eid/article/26/5/19-0994_article).
In August of this year, another paper was published about the efficacy of both N95 masks which were beyond their expiration date (they were found to still be effective) and surgical masks. The researchers concluded that surgical masks with ear loops blocked less than 40% of virus particles and often had “visible gaps between the face mask and the wearer.” (qtd. by Berenson. https://jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?doi=10.1001/jamainternmed.2020.4221).
On November 18, 2020, Danish researchers published the first paper on a clinical trial that tested the efficacy of masks as protection specifically against COVID-19. The trial consisted of 5,000 Danes, half of whom wore high-quality surgical masks and half of whom were asked not to wear masks. They concluded that wearing masks “did not reduce, at conventional levels of statistical significance, the incidence of Sars-Cov-2 (COVID-19) infection” (qtd. by Berenson).
A recent study in the United States looked at the incidence of COVID-19 in places where masks had been mandated and in places where they had not been. Justin Hart and his team at Rational Ground started by looking at Florida. A total of 22 out of Florida’s 67 counties have ordered a mask mandate at some point between May 1 and December 15. The 22 counties included most of Florida’s large metropolitan areas. They found little difference between the number of COVID cases in them.
“When counties DID have a mandate in effect, there were 667,239 cases over 3,137 days with an average of 23 cases per 100,000 per day. When counties DID NOT have a countywide order, there were 438,687 cases over 12,139 days with an average of 22 cases per 100,000 per day” (qtd. in Scott Morefield, New Study Shows Mask Mandates had Zero Effect, or Nationwide, But the Lie Continues. 21 Dec 2020. Townhall.com.).
In fact, of the 12 most populated counties, when 8 of them did have a mask mandate, there were 64 cases per 1,000 people. When 11 of the 12 had no mask mandate, there were only 40 cases per 1,000. Thus, the mask mandates actually increased the spread of the disease!
So Rational Ground expanded their study to look at other states, those who had had a mask mandate in place and those who had not. Their findings are astounding.
“When states DID have a mandate in effect, there were 9,605,256 cases over 5,907 total days and averaged 27 cases per 100,000 per day. When states DID NOT have a statewide order there were 5,781,716 cases over 5,772 total days averaging 17 cases per 100,000 people per day” (Rational Ground).
Again, the mandated wearing of masks increased the number of COVID-19 cases rather than decreasing it. If wearing mask was really the answer to protect people from passing the virus to others or from catching the virus from others, you would expect the numbers to go down once mask mandates went into effect, but they did not. They either showed little difference from areas with no mask mandate, or, more often, they showed an increase in the number of COVID cases. This harks back to the study done in Vietnam which cautioned against the wearing especially of cloth masks which could increase the chance of catching a virus as well as all the studies summarized by Hong Kong researchers that determined there was no evidence that surgical masks (which at 60% efficiency, are considerably better than the cloth masks or handkerchiefs most Americans wear at 3% efficiency) are sufficient to protect either the wearer against transmitting or catching the disease.
Here is the really bad news. Maintaining social distancing of 6 feet is nice, and may protect you from the germs emitted by someone talking to you, with or without a mask, since those germs travel only 3 to 6 feet. But if a COVID-infected person coughs or sneezes, the mircrons bearing the virus can travel up to 160 feet at about 50 miles per hour and remain suspended in the air. A Pennsylvania State study on Tuberculosis found that over an 8 hour period, Tuberculosis microbes had traveled from the 1st floor of a 10 story building to the 10th floor through the air-conditioning system (Air Quality in the Headlines. https:// surgicallycleanair.com/how-far-do-airborne-pathogens-travel/).
So, masks don’t work. Sneezing or coughing if you are infected could infect others even on another floor of the building you are in or as far as 160 feet away from you. What then is the answer? It is actually pretty simple. If you don’t feel good, stay home! You don’t have to have a cough or a raging temperature. You know if you are feeling sick. Find someone else to get the groceries or take the kids to daycare. Stay away from others. You may not infect them, even if you have COVID, but you might. While some people don’t seem to spread the disease, others are super-spreaders. You don’t know which you might be, so don’t take a chance with other people’s lives. Don’t put your mask on and think you are protecting them. You are not. Just stay home. It is really the only way!