Amid calls to double-down on mask requirements with “100 days of masking”, the real news is the latest research confirming the ineffectiveness and dangers of masking against viruses.
On Nov. 18 was unveiled the first-and-only real-world, randomized, controlled trial “to assess whether recommending surgical mask use outside the home reduces wearers’ risk for SARS-CoV-2 infection”, concluding “the difference observed was not statistically significant” between the masked and control groups.
This Danish study is the lead evidence cited by the World Health Organization in its new Dec. 1 guidance on “Mask Use in the Context of COVID-19” section “Evidence on the protective effect of mask use in community settings,” stating “a large randomized community-based trial in which 4862 healthy participants were divided into a group wearing medical/surgical masks and a control group found no difference in infection.”
WHO then cited a review of nine other trials finding that “wearing a mask may make little or no difference to the prevention of influenza-like illness”, along with a few studies that “could be considered to be indirect evidence for the use of masks.” WHO concludes “at present time there is only limited and inconsistent scientific evidence to support the effectiveness of masking of healthy people in the community to prevent infection with respiratory viruses, including SARS-CoV-2.”
According to the BBC’s 2019 British Journalism Award-winning medical correspondent Deborah Cohen, “we had been told by various sources WHO committee reviewing the evidence had not backed masks but they recommended them due to political lobbying. This point was put to WHO [which] did not deny.”
Regarding “the efficacy of community-based use of face masks” to protect others, two systematic reviews by the World Health Organization in 2019 and Centers for Disease Control in February, 2020 found “no significant reduction in influenza transmission with the use of face masks.” See also CDC Emerging Infectious Disease Journal, May 2020 (limited efficacy of nonpharmaceutical measures, such as masking, in preventing virus transmission).
But why are masks so ineffective against viruses? Electron micrographs show the size of the SARS-CoV-2 virus is between 0.06 and 0.14 microns. By contrast, standard cloth face coverings and masks have 2.5 micron pore size, with area 625 times bigger than a virus, which is like trying to stop mosquitos using wide-mesh wire fences. Only true surgical masks have near-viral filter pore sizes, but tests show even they let through 12% to 45% of viral-size particles.
More critical than pore size are two other issues impacting mask effectiveness. The first is that surgical masks may be good at stopping bacterial droplets, but viral droplets quickly “evaporate into ‘droplet nuclei’, remain suspended in air for significant periods of time and could be inhaled.” Bar-On, et. al, National Institutes of Health, NCBI Resources, April 2, 2020.
OSHA’s Fact Sheet on Respiratory Infection Control makes clear that “Surgical masks are not designed or certified to prevent the inhalation of small airborne contaminants. … Surgical masks are not designed to seal tightly against the user’s face. During inhalation, much of the potentially contaminated air can pass through gaps between the face and the surgical mask and not be pulled through the filter material of the mask.”
Anyone wearing glasses knows the truth of this, since fogged glasses prove exhalation is flowing up around the nose past the eyes into the air stream… meanwhile coating contact lenses or glasses with germs so they become point sources of infection. Face shields get a bad rap for allowing air to flow around edges, but vape cloud videos show aerosols likewise follow the path of least resistance through the sides and top of surgical masks.
The other critical problem with mask use outside controlled clinical settings is that even when a mask succeeds in catching viruses these do not disappear from existence but instead turn the mask into an active point source of infection. Viruses collected on the mask get regularly dislodged into the air or pushed through the mask by future inhalations and exhalations or touched by hands, potentially infecting the wearer and others. The net effect may be worse than wearing no mask at all.
WHO lists a wide range of other “disadvantages of mask use by healthy people” including “headache and/or breathing difficulties”, “development of facial skin lesions, irritant dermatitis”, “difficulty with communicating clearly”, “discomfort”, “a false sense of security”, “improper mask disposal”, “environmental hazards”, along with special difficulties for “children, developmentally challenged persons”, “those with asthma or chronic respiratory or breathing problems”, etc.. See also, “Full Time Mask Wearing Brings Its Own Problems,” The Crimson White, University of Alabama, August 20, 2020.
Neurosurgeon researcher Dr. Russell Blaylock warns that reduction in blood oxygenation from prolonged mask wearing is “associated with an impairment in immunity” with “an increased risk of infections … including COVID-19 and making the consequences of that infection much graver”, as well as promoting “spread of cancers”, “cardiovascular (heart attacks) and cerebrovascular (strokes) diseases.” Continually rebreathing moist respiratory wastes beneath a mask raises the concentration of any viruses in the lungs and nasal passages causing worse reactions. “Newer evidence suggests…by wearing a mask, the exhaled viruses will not be able to escape and will concentrate in the nasal passages, enter the olfactory nerves and travel into the brain.”
In conclusion, the best current science does NOT support mask mandates nor claims that increased mask wearing would reduce virus transmission or save lives. The reality is quite the opposite.
[Editor’s note: Mr. Schumacher provided many additional sources beyond those quoted or linked in this article. We link those additional sources below.]
[From Mr. Schumacher: “My thanks to Dr. Roger Koops for his generous correspondence helping sort out evidence relating to mask pore size and surgical mask effectiveness, and especially for his original insights about how masks can become dangerous point sources of infection.”]
Additional source material (partial citations):
“Environmental Role in Influenza Outbreaks”
“Coronavirus: Mask Wearing Risks Isolating Deaf People”
“Surgical Mask Induced Deoxygenation During Surgery”
“Hypoxia Inducible Factor-1 Negatively Regulates Th1 Function”
“Hypoxia Enhances Immunosuppression”
“Hypoxia-driven Immunosuppression”
“Immunoexcitatory mechanisms in glioma proliferation” (relating to cancer)
“Nuclear factor-kB” (relating to cancer)
“Chronic Intermittent Hypoxia Induces Artherosclerosis”
Chemical neuroscience of COVID-19 transmission
Nervous system involvement after COVID-19 infection
“Masks for all not based on sound data,” University of Minnesota
“Universal Masking in Hospitals in the COVID Era,” N.E. Journal of Medicine
“Masks are Neither Effective Nor Safe,” Colleen Huber, NMD
“Masks Likely Do Not Inhibit Viral Spread,” Mercola
“Should Everyone Wear a Mask in Public? Maybe–But It’s Complicated,” Forbes
“Mask May Protect Others, But Not You” Forbes
Stephen Schumacher graduated with honors in Mathematics from Harvard College and programmed funds transfer systems between Wall Street banks and the Federal Reserve before moving to Port Townsend in 1983. He has served as an officer for various community organizations such as the Food Co-op, Jefferson Land Trust, and the Northwest Nutritional Foods Association. He co-created The Port Townsend Leader’s original online newspaper and programs ship stability software used by naval architects.
I will also submit that double masking, which some are saying can be a fashion statement (the inner mask a surgical mask and the outer mask a fashion mask) as well as being being urged by health officials as “double protection”, is intimating what Mr. Schumacher is saying about masks in general. If the powers that be are mandating one mask and claim they work, why are they now advocating two masks? What do two masks do to our blood levels of oxygen, and are they becoming the equivalent of wearing a petri dish? Should folks with flu symptoms wear a mask and isolate? Yes. Should folks who are healthy and have no symptoms be mandated to wear a mask when they never have before during flu season? In my opinion, that should be an individual choice. Please remember that folks under 60 have over a 99% rate of survival as it relates to Covid. Also, many states are now grouping influenza and pneumonia deaths as Covid deaths which blurs the actuality of Covid deaths.
Remember when the authorities started recommending cloth masks to prevent viral transmission in the spring of 2020? How did I know that there were no credible scientific studies on using cloth masks for this purpose? If the studies existed, there would have been specs for the cloth masks used including a specific fabric and mask design. You don’t do real scientific research on any old piece of cloth because the the study could never be replicated.
At that time, I also searched for research papers on the subject as did many other people around the world. There was one study done in Vietnam which found that surgical masks worked better than cloth masks in a hospital environment. The study authors admitted that the cloth masks were a local product – no specs were available.
Good article. One thing that wasn’t mentioned was that masks have turned what was once one of the friendliest towns imaginable into a place full of grouches that are too pained or scared to return a friendly greeting. For what?
Excellent overview of the false, dangerous narrative we have been fed about masking. Thank you, Stephen.
Well-documented video: “MASK FACTS: The Science and History of Masks in Medicine.”
https://themodelhealthshow.com/maskfacts/ (53 minutes)
Covers:
– mask use from the 1600s, to modern surgical mask use in medicine, to the effectiveness of cloth and medical masks worn by the general public;
– studies of oxygen loss, rebreathing of expelled CO2, and immunosuppressive impacts; and
– mental health effects, especially on children’s development.
I’m 77, only wear a mask under 2 conditiios, when I go into a store and when I’m around people who are masked when inside a building for a meeting. I also haven’t had and don’t intend to get a shot. I’m not going to be their test subject. Wake up people, it’s all about money. Go on the net and you will find a whole new industry. Do you really think politicians are going to stop it?
Great write up. It would seem that the “Super Spreaders” are the mask wearers themselves. Note the Mask Charts by country at the link seem to infer that cases grew exponentially when mask ‘Mandates’ went into effect. The dirty little secret perhaps being the dirty germ warfare mask? https://rationalground.com/mask-charts/
As a follow up. This article on bacteria growth could be directly aimed at mask wearers for the conditions make for a perfect storm to spread Covid or other respiratory illnesses.
Four Conditions for Bacterial Growth https://healthfully.com/four-conditions-for-bacterial-growth-4774869.html
Warm Temperature, Moisture, Environmental pH, Environmental Oxygen