From ... in Psychology — Dec 6, 2022

Landmark Study Finds Masks Are Ineffective

STORY AT-A-GLANCE The first randomized controlled trial to assess the effectiveness of surgical face masks against SARS-CoV-2 infection specifically — which journals initially refused to publish — finally saw seeing the light of day in November 2020. The so-called “Danmask-19 Trial,” published November 18, 2020, in the Annals of Internal Medicine, included 3,030 individuals assigned to wear a surgical face mask and 2,994 unmasked controls. Of them, 80.7% completed the study.

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To qualify, participants had to spend at least three hours per day outside the home and not be required to wear a mask during their daily work. At the end of the study, participants reported having spent a median of 4.5 hours per day outside the home. For one month, participants in the mask group were instructed to wear a mask whenever they were outside their home. Surgical face masks with a filtration rate of 98% were supplied. In accordance with recommendations from the World Health Organization, participants were instructed to change their mask after eight hours. Antibody testing was performed before the outset and at the end of the study period. At the end of the month, they also submitted a nasal swab sample for PCR testing.

What the Danmask-19 Trial Found

The primary outcome was a positive PCR test, a positive antibody test result (IgM or IgG) during the study period, or a hospital-based diagnosis of COVID-19. Secondary end points included PCR evidence of infection with other respiratory viruses. Based on the adherence scores reported, 46% of participants always wore the mask as recommended, 47% predominantly as recommended and 7% failed to follow recommendations. So, what did they find? As you might expect, there's a reason why the researchers had such a hard time getting this study published: Among mask wearers, 1.8% (42 participants) ended up testing positive for SARS- CoV-2, compared to 2.1% (53) among controls. When they removed the people who reported not adhering to the recommendations for use, the results remained the same — 1.8% (40 people), which suggests adherence makes no significant difference. 1.4% (33 participants) tested positive for antibodies compared to 1.8% (44) of controls. Among those who reported wearing their face mask “exactly as instructed,” 2% (22 participants) tested positive for SARS-CoV-2 compared to 2.1% (53) of the controls. 52 participants in the mask group and 39 in the control group reported COVID-19 in their household. Of these, two participants in the mask group and one in the control group developed SARS-CoV-2 infection — a finding that suggests “the source of most observed infections was outside the home.” 0.5% (nine participants) in the mask group and 0.6% (11 individuals) tested positive for one or more respiratory viruses other than SARS-CoV-2 (secondary outcome).

Masks May Lower, or Raise, Infection Risk

All in all, this landmark COVID-19-specific study failed to deliver good news to those who insist face masks are a crucial component of the pandemic response. Masks may reduce your risk of SARS-CoV-2 infection by as much as 46%, or it may increase your risk by 23%. In other words, the preponderance of evidence still shows that masks have virtually no impact on viral transmission. Another take-home point that you get from this study, which Del Bigtree points out in The Highwire video report above, is that the vast majority — 97.9% of those who didn't wear masks, and 98.2% of those who did — remained infection free. So, we are destroying economies and lives around the world, for what, exactly? To protect a small minority from getting a positive PCR test result which, as detailed in “Asymptomatic ‘Casedemic' Is a Perpetuation of Needless Fear,” means little to nothing. As reported by the authors:

“Although no statistically significant difference in SARS-CoV-2 incidence wasobserved, the 95% CIs are compatible with a possible 46% reduction to 23%increase in infection among mask wearers.These findings do offer evidence about the degree of protection mask wearerscan anticipate in a setting where others are not wearing masks and where otherpublic health measures, including social distancing, are in effect ...

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Transmission of SARS-CoV-2 may take place through multiple routes. It hasbeen argued that for the primary route of SARS-CoV-2 spread — that is, viadroplets — face masks would be considered effective, whereas masks wouldnot be effective against spread via aerosols, which might penetrate orcircumnavigate a face mask. Thus, spread of SARS-CoV-2 via aerosols would atleast partially explain the present findings ...The present findings are compatible with the findings of a review of randomizedcontrolled trials of the eficacy of face masks for prevention (as personalprotective equipment) against infiuenza virus ...Our results suggest that the recommendation to wear a surgical mask whenoutside the home among others did not reduce, at conventional levels ofstatistical significance, the incidence of SARS-CoV-2 infection in mask wearersin a setting where social distancing and other public health measures were ineffect, mask recommendations were not among those measures, andcommunity use of masks was uncommon.”

Government Tyrants Double Down on Mask Mandates

The researchers point out that results could potentially turn out differently if everyone were wearing a mask. At the time of the study, Danish authorities did not recommend universal mask use and most Danes did not wear them. Hence “participants' exposure was overwhelmingly to persons not wearing masks.” That possibility, however, was a big “if,” and not suficient to mandate universal mask wearing. Any claim to such effect was nothing but a wholly unscientific guess. Despite that, many local leaders are now doubling down on mask mandates, some even requiring them to be worn inside your own home when anyone outside the family is present and even if physical distancing can be maintained. As an example of extremes, a June 2020 Harvard University paper even suggested couples should wear face masks during sex. Others are tripling down on masks,

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recommending you wear two or even three at the same time. Former Food and Drug Administration commissioner Dr. Scott Gottlieb also urged Americans to wear N95 surgical masks whenever possible — a strategy that a 2022 study just proved useless. In that study researchers looked at the medical records of more than 1,000 health care workers interacting directly with patients and concluded that N95 masks and regular medical masks were nearly equal in protection. Specifically, researchers said:

“The primary outcome in the intention-to-treat analysis, RT-PCR–confirmedCOVID-19, occurred in 52 of 497 (10.46%) in the medial mask group versus 47of 507 (9.27%) in the N95 respirator group (HR, 1.14 [95% CI, 0.77 to 1.69]).”

Epidemic of Spineless Leadership

Missing entirely from most recommendations is common-sense health guidance known to improve your immune function and lower your infection risk naturally, such as supplementing with vitamin D , NAC , melatonin , quercetin and zinc. As noted by Angela Rasmussen, a virologist and afiliate of the Georgetown Center for Global Health Science and Security, in a November 15, 2020, op-ed in The Guardian, our immune systems know how to handle the virus; it's our politicians who have failed to cope with it. She writes:

“Most of the evidence in both COVID-19 patients and animal models shows thatthe immune response to this is quite typical for an acute viral infection. Initially,the body ramps up high levels of IgG antibodies, but after the infection iscleared, those antibodies drop to a baseline level, which may be below the limitof detection of some serological tests.Antibodies are produced by B-cells, a specialized type of immune cell thatrecognizes a specific antigen, or viral target. When an infection is cleared, B-cells producing antibodies convert from being plasma cells, which arespecialized to pump out massive quantities of SARS-CoV-2-specific antibodies,to being memory B-cells.

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These cells produce lower levels of IgG antibody; but, importantly they persist inthe body for years. If they are re-exposed to SARS-CoV-2, they rapidly convert toplasma cells and begin producing high levels of antibody again.There is no indication that most COVID-19 patients are not developing immunememory, and animals experimentally infected with SARS-CoV-2 are protectedagainst rechallenge with high doses of virus ...Furthermore, antibodies are not the only important part of the immune system.T-cells are also a key component to the immune response. They come in twofiavors: helper T-cells, which coordinate immune responses and facilitateimmunological memory, and killer T-cells, which kill infected cells. Previousstudies have shown that SARS-CoV-2 infection induces robust T-cellresponses.”

As noted by Rasmussen, the data collected on the responses of T-cells to SARS-CoV-2 infection “underscore that SARS-CoV-2 is not an anomalous virus capable of miraculous feats of immune evasion.”

No matter how strictly mask laws are enforced northe level of mask compliance the population follows,cases all fall and rise around the same time. ~ YinonWeiss

In other words, provided your immune function is normal, the virus is as vulnerable as any other virus and you're not destined to die just because you develop symptoms. So, the reason we're in the situation we're now in, Rasmussen says, is not because SARS- CoV-2 is somehow different or more lethal than anything that has come before. We're in this situation due to political failures.

Mask Mandates Have Had No Impact on Infection Trends

Other data analyses that add support to the Danish study's results include Yinon Weiss' work presented in his article “These 12 Graphs Show Mask Mandates Do Nothing to Stop COVID.” In it, he shows that states' mask rules appear to have had nothing to do with infection rates, which is what you'd expect if masks don't work. Weiss points out that “No matter how strictly mask laws are enforced nor the level of mask compliance the population follows, cases all fall and rise around the same time.” To see all of the graphs, check out Weiss' article or Twitter thread. Here are just a select few to bring home the point:

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Masks Delay Inevitable Acceptance of COVID-19 Reality

What everyone needs to come to terms with is that we have a new respiratory virus in town — one that may stay with us indefinitely. The question then becomes, just how long do we lock ourselves in our homes and shun all social relationships? How long do we neglect our children's education and social development by keeping schools closed — or reclosing them now that they've opened again? How long do we leave our elderly family members to languish in isolation? A better part of the global population has essentially stopped living altogether, and for what? For fear of an illness that 99.7% of people recover from — an illness that is as likely to kill you as the seasonal infiuenza if you're under 60. Data clearly show that COVID-19 has not resulted in excess mortality from the infection itself, meaning the same number of people who die in any given year, on average, have died in this year of the pandemic. Several studies also suggest immunity against SARS-CoV-2 infection is far more widespread than anyone imagined. In an October 28, 2020, Wall Street Journal opinion piece, Joseph Ladapo, an associate professor at UCLA's David Geffen School of Medicine, points out that we really must accept reality and move on with life, unpredictable as it may be. He writes:

“By paying outsize and scientifically unjustified attention to masking, maskmandates have the unintended consequence of delaying public acceptance ofthe unavoidable truth.In countries with active community transmission and no herd immunity, nothingshort of inhumane lockdowns can stop the spread of COVID-19, so the mostsensible and sustainable path forward is to learn to live with the virus.Shifting focus away from mask mandates and toward the reality of respiratoryviral spread will free up time and resources to protect the most vulnerableAmericans ...

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Until the reality of viral spread in the U.S. ... is accepted, political leaders willcontinue to feel justified in keeping schools and businesses closed, robbingyoung people of the opportunity to invest in their futures, and restrictingactivities that make life worthwhile.”

There's Nothing to Fear but Fear Itself

Hopefully, if you've been reading this newsletter, you're no longer incapacitated with fear and are capable of making more level-headed decisions based on the data at hand rather than the fear porn published in the daily papers and other media. For example, calls to reconsider the rights of doctors questioning the COVID propaganda to renew their licenses — or even have them revoked have intensified by NPR over the months since the shots were introduced. In response to having his license revoked in Oregon, at least one, Dr. Paul Thomas, came right back and sued the state licensing board; Thomas is asking for $35 million for defamation and civil rights violations “alleging they maliciously destroyed his practice over his refusal to follow federal vaccination recommendations.” Everything really points to this pandemic being overblown and prolonged for purposes that have nothing to do with saving lives and everything to do with “resetting” the global financial and power structures — none of which will benefit us. The lockdowns are essentially just conditioning you to accept a radically new way of life — one in which we have limited ability to travel or work, one in which we're conditioned to being partially or wholly dependent on a government handout, one in which we must submit to being tracked and surveilled with little or no right to privacy, one in which the government dictates how you can spend your time, where you can go, who you can spend time with and for how long. Eventually, once the global economies are in irreparable shambles, the central banks will roll out a debt erasure program to solve all our problems. The price will be your

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humanity, your freedom. Will you pay it? Or will you resist the whole deviled scheme while you still can?

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References:

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Bookmarks

Landmark Study Finds Masks Are Ineffective

What the Danmask-19 Trial Found

Masks May Lower, or Raise, Infection Risk

Government Tyrants Double Down on Mask Mandates

Epidemic of Spineless Leadership

Mask Mandates Have Had No Impact on Infection Trends

Masks Delay Inevitable Acceptance of COVID-19 Reality

There's Nothing to Fear but Fear Itself

Search Results

Bookmarks

What the Danmask-19 Trial Found

Masks May Lower, or Raise, Infection Risk

Government Tyrants Double Down on Mask Mandates

Epidemic of Spineless Leadership

Mask Mandates Have Had No Impact on Infection Trends

Masks Delay Inevitable Acceptance of COVID-19 Reality

There's Nothing to Fear but Fear Itself

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