That’s the view of Harvard Medical School epidemiologist and biostatistician Martin Kulldorff. That’s because unwarranted confidence in masks can give wearers a false sense of security and lead them to neglect risk management steps that are actually worthwhile. (Graphs courtesy of Ian Miller, whose Twitter and Substack pages offer many more statistical illustrations that raise questions about the effectiveness of both masks and lockdowns.) Masks May Be CounterproductiveĪs with so many ill-considered government programs-such as the war on terror or the war on drugs-mask mandates may actually serve to amplify the peril they’re meant to minimize. While there are many illustrations of that conclusion, perhaps none is more vivid than a comparison of Sweden-which, as a society, never went all-in on masking-and Germany, whose government in January went beyond merely requiring “face coverings” and mandated the use of medical-grade masks. “All around the world you can look at mask mandates and superimpose on infection rates, you cannot see that mask mandates made any effect whatsoever,” said Axon to The Telegraph.
What really counts is observed results in the real world-and what we’ve observed should sow creeping doubt in even the most fervent masking advocate.
While the comparative virus and mask dimensions give one pause, they merely form the basis of a reasonable hypothesis that masks do little to inhibit the mobility of viral particles. Gaps in typical cloth masks can be 5,000 times the size…to say nothing of all that air that’s merely redirected past masks’ edges when we exhale. How small are they? As little as 20 nanometers.That means the “material gaps in blue surgical masks are up to 1,000 times” as large as a Covid-19 viral particle, according to Colin Axon, who has advised the UK’s Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (SAGE). We now know COVID-19 is spread to a great extent via aerosols-a term that describes particles so small they can easily float along in the air, traveling well beyond six feet.Įven that description fails to convey how unfathomably small COVID-19 viral particles actually are-and why masks are a mismatch. That exclusive-droplet-transmission consensus proved wrong. Indeed, the initial scientific consensus held that COVID-19 was exclusively transmitted by droplets, prompting the emphasis on distancing six feet from each other-room enough for gravity to pull those droplets out of the air. That gut feeling misleads us, though, because we tend to only think of the virus in terms of visible, tangible droplets masks can absorb. After all, if the virus is emitted from our noses and mouths, covering those openings has to make a big difference, right? Intuition tells us covering our faces must be worthwhile. Most public and media discussion of mask policy reflects a foundational assumption that may well be false-namely, that widespread, all-purpose mask-wearing has had any meaningful impact on slowing the spread. The moves, which come in response to surging case counts, seem to demonstrate an impulse that animates many questionable government policies: “We have to do something,” regardless of whether that something can be reasonably expected to have a material impact on the problem at hand. Meanwhile, South Gloucestershire has 931.5 cases per 100,000 and Bristol has 763.7 per 100,000.įor more stories from where you live, visit InYourArea.Just when the forces of rationality had seemingly established a beachhead in the public health domain, they’re back on defense again, as the CDC declares vaccinated and unvaccinated people should wear masks indoors in areas of the country experiencing high transmission, and every schoolchild should be condemned to wear a mask all day long.
This compares with the England-wide average of 482 per 100,000. It comes as cases have soared in south-west England, with Bath and North East Somerset seeing 1,079.7 cases per 100,000 people, according to the latest Government data up to October 19. Instead, he asked the public to give the NHS the best possible present this Christmas by wearing a mask, getting vaccinated and washing their hands. “The last thing I want to see is more death and heartbreak, with patients queuing on trolleys as our precious NHS is brought to its knees.” “Now we face a hugely difficult situation.” He said he feared for the NHS if measures are not taken to stop the spread. “Through no fault of the NHS, local civic leadership, local businesses, or local people, infections continued to spread unchecked within our region,” said Mr Norris.
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