Important New Paper: MASKS DO NOT WORK; CDC Sticking With 6% COVID-Only Deaths; More! -- Coronavirus Update LXI
MASKS DO NOT WORK
The paper is Facemasks in the COVID-19 era: A health hypothesis in Medical Hypothesis, by Baruch Vainshelboim. (I am thrilled to say this beats me to the punch on the mask-reality paper I've been working on.)
Let's begin at the Conclusion:
The data suggest that both medical and non-medical facemasks are ineffective to block human-to-human transmission of viral and infectious disease such SARS-CoV-2 and COVID-19, supporting against the usage of facemasks. Wearing facemasks has been demonstrated to have substantial adverse physiological and psychological effects. These include hypoxia, hypercapnia, shortness of breath, increased acidity and toxicity, activation of fear and stress response, rise in stress hormones, immunosuppression, fatigue, headaches, decline in cognitive performance, predisposition for viral and infectious illnesses, chronic stress, anxiety and depression. Long-term consequences of wearing facemask can cause health deterioration, developing and progression of chronic diseases and premature death. Governments, policy makers and health organizations should utilize prosper and scientific evidence-based approach with respect to wearing facemasks, when the latter is considered as preventive intervention for public health.
Do us all a favor, will you? Send this paper to your ruler if you live in a medical tyranny locale. They won't acknowledge these results, of course, because rulers are loathe to admit error; the bigger the mistake, the more it is not their fault.
But perhaps it will help forestall or block mask criminalization next time. For there will be a next time. As I've told you hundreds of times, we get pandemics every 10-20 years. This is our first global panic, though. Since we've proved to our rulers how cowardly we all are, they'll surely try to grab more power next time. This paper can help lessen that.
The paper proves each of the contentions in the Conclusion. It is a review paper, examining the evidence from dozens of meta-analyses and other papers. Recall that if you can't "prove" your hypothesis with a wee P-value in a single paper, you can always up the N (which guarantees weer Ps) by doing a meta-analysis. If you can't get a wee P there, well, what you're trying to "prove" just can't be done. Masks just don't work.
Here are a list of demonstrated ill effects of prolonged masks usage:
"But Briggs, you The Science denier, what about surgeons!"
Surgeons wear, and frequently change, special masks so they don't snot into patients, and so that they don't get splattered with blood. Contagious surgeons don't operate on patients.
This paper is eminently readable. If you can read this blog, you can surely read it. So click on over---don't trust me!---and prove to yourself that masks don't work. Meanwhile, here are some key quotes (I'm leaving off references; all emphases mine).
"Interestingly, 99% of the detected cases with SARS-CoV-2 are asymptomatic or have mild condition, which contradicts with the virus name (severe acute respiratory syndrome-coronavirus-2)".
"...'the overall clinical consequences of COVID-19 are similar to those of severe seasonal influenza' [5], having a [true] case fatality rate of approximately 0.1%."
"Due to the difference in sizes between SARS-CoV-2 diameter and facemasks thread diameter (the virus is 1000 times smaller), SARS-CoV-2 can easily pass through any facemask".
"among symptomatic individuals (those with fever, cough, sore throat, runny nose ect…) there was no difference between wearing and not wearing facemask for coronavirus droplets transmission of particles of > 5 μm"
"suggesting that asymptomatic individuals do not transmit or infect other people "
"A meta-analysis among health care workers found that compared to no masks, surgical mask and N95 respirators were not effective against transmission of viral infections or influenza-like illness based on six RCTs".
"Based on four COVID-19 studies, the meta-analysis failed to demonstrate risk reduction of facemasks for COVID-19 transmission".
"In early publication the WHO stated that 'facemasks are not required, as no evidence is available on its usefulness to protect non-sick persons'. In the same publication, the WHO declared that 'cloth (e.g. cotton or gauze) masks are not recommended under any circumstance'".
"...the WHO repeatedly announced that 'at present, there is no direct evidence (from studies on COVID-19) on the effectiveness face masking of healthy people in the community to prevent infection of respiratory viruses, including COVID-19.'"
"In addition to hypoxia and hypercapnia, breathing through facemask residues bacterial and germs components on the inner and outside layer of the facemask. These toxic components are repeatedly rebreathed back into the body, causing self-contamination."
"The adverse physiological effects were confirmed in a study of 53 surgeons where surgical facemask were used during a major operation. "
"...wearing facemasks causing hypoxic and hypercapnic state that constantly challenges the normal homeostasis, and activates 'fight or flight' stress response, an important survival mechanism in the human body."
"Encountering people who wearing facemasks activates innate stress-fear emotion, which is fundamental to all humans in danger or life threating situations".
"global estimates showing that COVID-19 will cause a catastrophe due to collateral psychological damage such as quarantine, lockdowns, unemployment, economic collapse, social isolation, violence and suicides."
Those are just the juicy ones. I left off tons of other studies. Including the ones, such as the recent Danish mask study, that we did earlier.
Don't try to post this on YouTube of Facebook. The blue-haired landwhale women's studies graduates who monitor "hate" speech will at least censor if not ban you.
TAKE OFF YOUR MASK
Most when confronted (again and again and again) with evidence masks don't work will still not believe it. Just like the person wearing garlic around their throat, they know masks work. After all, they haven't been bitten.
Since rules are derived by the fears of our most cowardly, rulers won't let go of mask mandates easily.
Masks are magic to most.
MASK DEBATE
Meanwhile, Dutch police are so convinced of the usefulness of masks, they often give out helpful reminders to citizens.
https://twitter.com/FUNKNA/status/1380935370683076609
ASTRAZENECA RACKING UP BODIES
Even the New York Times is admitting "In rare cases, the AstraZeneca Covid vaccine has led to severe and sometimes fatal blood clots. Newly published research from Germany and Norway describes a powerful immune reaction that may be the cause".
Hilariously, they say, "Exactly why the rare reactions to the vaccine occurred is still a mystery."
Scientific teams from Germany and Norway found that people who developed the clots after vaccination had produced antibodies that activated their platelets, a blood component involved in clotting. The new reports add extensive details to what the researchers have already stated publicly about the blood disorder.
Younger people appear more susceptible than older ones, but researchers say no pre-existing health conditions are known to predispose people to the rare reaction. That is worrisome, they say, because there is no way to tell if an individual is at high risk.
We see below (again!) that young people have a very very small risk of COVID death or disease. Taking the AZ vaccine may even present a higher risk of both. But hey. Vaccines are mandatory in many places.
Interestingly, imagine how bad it really is if this is what the NYT is reporting.
Update This headline just in, missing my post time.
https://twitter.com/AP/status/1381930449405153284
6%
The CDC is sticking with its 6% COVID-inly deaths: Death Certificate–Based ICD-10 Diagnosis Codes for COVID-19 Mortality Surveillance — United States, January–December 2020
Among 378,048 death certificates from 2020 listing COVID-19, 5.5% listed COVID-19 without codes for any other conditions. Among 357,133 death certificates with at least one other condition, 97% had a co-occurring diagnosis of a plausible chain-of-event condition (e.g., pneumonia or respiratory failure), or a significant contributing condition (e.g., hypertension or diabetes), or both.
BUSTED TRANSMISSIONS
Outdoor transmission accounts for 0.1% of State’s Covid-19 cases
of the 232,164 cases of Covid-19 recorded in the State up to March 24th this year, 262 were as a result of outdoor transmission, representing 0.1 per cent of the total.
There were 42 outbreaks associated with outdoor gatherings, with one community outbreak accounting for seven cases.
This involved an outdoor work activity which took place between two separate families, according to the Health Protection Surveillance Centre (HPSC) which monitors case numbers in the Republic.
There were 21 outbreaks on construction sites with 124 cases, and 20 outbreaks associated with sporting activities and fitness in which there were 131 cases.
Recall, if you don't have this by heart by now, that "cases" is a false metric. It means positive test of any kind, a weak criterion.
Nothing Experts said to justify medical tyranny turned out to be true. No thing.
TEXAS UNMASKING APOCALYPSE!
I'm not going to bother showing you all the southern and western states, whose attributed deaths keep decreasing. The Texas and Florida apocalypse that EXPERTS and the media assured us would happen, didn't.
Meanwhile, attributed coronadoom deaths have ticked up slightly in bad-weather high-population northern states, like Michigan and Minnesota. Here's Michigan, the greatest state, albeit with a tyrannical governor (CDC daily of reported daily deaths).
It's easy to check twice as many people die on average every day of heart attacks, and at younger ages than then doom.
Why is this happening? Besides the weather, which is still crappy in MI, and that most deaths are in Detroit, which is largely black and obese, we also recall this plot from last week:
https://twitter.com/rubiconcapital_/status/1377437484422889475
Same kind of thing with the doom. The variants give a spring bump to areas which are still deprived of Vitamin D. It's a reasonable prediction this bump lasts, as it always does, into mid May.
Locking down and masks won't make it go away.
BOOK
Website of similar name: price of panic.
THE NUMBERS
Sources: daily tests, CDC official toll number one, number two (the old weekly file, now suspect). Deaths by age. Covid & flu. WHO flu tracker. All current as of Monday night.
Daily tests:
Tests fell slightly again---but not enough. The media and blue states are still trying to juice the panic, loathe to relinquish their "emergency" powers, so it's not falling as fast as we'd like.
Testing generates "cases". I wonder if testing is rising because vaccinations are also going up. "Come back in a week and let's do a test" kind of thing. A rapid test could easily throw a false positive. We'll have to wait and see. I still don't have data to tell for sure. Every positive test the media falsely calls a "case", when it is only an infection with varying degrees of seriousness---and most are not serious.
Positivity rate of the tests.
All things equal, fewer tests mean larger positivities, because it's more likely only the sickest are being tested. And, depending on the kind of test, those who are vaccinated might show as positive (antibody test, say). That these are dropping, therefore, is good news.
CDC weekly ALL CAUSE death counts, or the Perspective Plot, from late 2009 until now. The late drop off is late counting: it takes up to eight weeks to get all data. We need to look at all cause deaths because we can't quite trust the attributed COVID numbers.
The black line is deaths of any kind. The red is COVID. The blue line is flu+pneumonia (it's the pneumonia that kills most flu patients). The blue is estimated starting mid year 2020 because CDC stopped separate reporting on flu. The suspicion is some flu and pneumonia deaths are being attributed to COVID.
Deaths are down from what we'd expect this time of year. Perhaps the most vulnerable died a little early last year. (This sentence will shock those who think death is impossible for themselves.)
Here is the CDC deaths "involving" COVID.
There is in the daily data (not shown) do show a slight uptick, which will be picked up in next week's totals. But it's very low numbers. There is no emergency. There is only panic.
Here is another way to look at all deaths, the week-of-the-year all-cause deaths. This is big.
I'm repeating myself---again and again---but look at those deaths plunge! This chart should amaze you. If you aren't talking about this chart with your enemies and neighbors, I have failed to convince you of its importance.
You can see the black dots on the green line, which indicate the late counts. But before that, even with some late counts coming in, this is still low.
We are, from about Week 8, either where we'd expect all cause deaths to be, or lower. Our rulers and media have convinced themselves there is no death but COVID deaths. They don't even know how to look at others.
MOST IMPORTANT: the 2020 excess deaths are not all COVID deaths! They include deaths from the "solution" to COVID, too. Plus increased suicides, septicemia and other iatrogenic kills, cancers, heart attacks, and everything else due to lockdowns. This point cannot be over-emphasized.
Flu is still missing. Here is the WHO's global flu tracker:
Flu is still gone the whole world over. For almost a full year now. Yes. A year without flu. Astonishing.
Here's another way to look at it, which highlights the very first (Twitter) graph atop this post, by which I mean the spring "mini-bump" after the main flu surge and before summer:
You can see Swine Flu, which started at an odd time, and which caused a minor panic. And you can see where flu vanished into ... where exactly? Hello? Hello The Science believers? Where?
Here is the CDC official population mortality rates for the all causes other than COVID, and "involving" COVID (with and of; "involving" is CDC's word).
POPULATION FATALITY RATES
Age COVID OtherCause
1 Under 1 year 0.0000160 0.00600
2 1–4 years 0.0000020 0.00026
3 5–14 years 0.0000022 0.00016
4 15–24 years 0.0000190 0.00098
5 25–34 years 0.0000770 0.00180
6 35–44 years 0.0002200 0.00280
7 45–54 years 0.0006300 0.00510
8 55–64 years 0.0015000 0.01100
9 65–74 years 0.0038000 0.02300
10 75–84 years 0.0094000 0.05400
11 85 years and over 0.0250000 0.16000
A reminder that these are from totals, and so represent the closest thing to lifetime population fatality rates. Anyway, the risk is so small for the young there is no reason to panic. None.
About masks in more depth, see this article and this one. I am also working on a comprehensive article about masks. Hint: they do not work. Leave the Cult of the Mask.
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