CDC's flagrant lie about mask efficacy

 

 

One thing the COVID-19 pandemic has unveiled about our society is how many people have surrendered their responsibility for critical thinking to authorities and institutions, and how much these institutions have become complacent, arrogant and irresponsible as a result of this intellectual capitulation.

 

For example, the Director of the CDC, Rochelle Walensky, confidently stated on November 6 that masks can reduce your chance of COVID-19 infection “by more than 80%”. Except there is absolutely no evidence to back up this outlandish claim.

 

The evidence behind the effectiveness of masking to prevent respiratory viral diseases has always been poor. A 2015 study looking at mask use in health workers to prevent respiratory viral infections found that medical masks offered no appreciable benefit, while cloth masks actually increased the risk of infection multiple times.

 

Contrary to Walensky’s words, the CDC’s own 2020 review stated that:

“[E]vidence from 14 randomized controlled trials of [hand hygiene and face masks] did not support a substantial effect on transmission of laboratory-confirmed influenza.”

 

The WHO published in 2019, on nonpharmaceutical public health measures during pandemics:

“Although there is no evidence that [wearing face masks] is effective in reducing transmission, there is mechanistic plausibility for the potential effectiveness of this measure.”

 

The American Medical Association, writing in the journal JAMA in March 2020, stated:

“Face masks should not be worn by healthy individuals to protect themselves from acquiring respiratory infection because there is no evidence to suggest that face masks worn by healthy individuals are effective in preventing people from becoming ill.”

 

Indeed, the recent studies specifically looking at the effect of masking on COVID-19 bear out these conclusions.

 

The eagerly awaited Danish study, a randomized controlled trial of the efficacy of masks in preventing COVID-19, published in 2021, found that masks did not reduce rates of infection, even when masks were provided and instructions on proper use was given.

 

The recent study conducted in Bangladesh is perhaps the most authoritative study on this topic. It examined the effect of mask wearing on preventing COVID-19 infection across 600 villages (involving 342,000 adults). Villages were assigned as either mask villages or non-mask villages. Villagers in mask villages were provided with free cloth or medical masks, instructed on their proper usage, and mask wearing was heavily promoted. In this almost ideal situation for mask wearing, the results show that cloth masks had no effect, while medical masks had a marginal effect, reducing infections by 11%. This is miles away from the 80% figure given by the Director of the CDC.

 

But this marginal benefit of masking comes with costs, which no authority ever mentions. A 2020 German study found that medical masks significantly reduced ventilation. It can also result in increased blood CO₂ level, which can cause a host of problems such as exhaustion, reduced cognitive performance, intensified psychiatric issues, and gynaecological risks. Masks also pose the risk of inhaling microplastic debris, which can lead to lung disease.

 

A recent study in Germany reflected some of the negative effects of masking in children, who reported difficulty concentrating, irritability, headaches and other malaise. This is concerning, as masks are being mandated for children as young as two in places such as New York, with heavy endorsement from Walensky’s CDC.

 

The inanity of Walensky’s directive is nonsensical not only because her statistic on masking is wrong, but because children and young people are much less likely to both catch and transmit the disease. The risk of death or even serious illness from COVID is also extremely low in children, as shown by a recent large UK study. In Sweden, where masks were never mandated and preschools and schools remained open, a study following over 1.9 million children across a 4-month period found that not a single child died from COVID, including two children with cancer who contracted the virus. Therefore, in essence, Dr Walensky is peddling a potentially harmful solution for children, using inaccurate evidence, for a problem that does not exist.

 

The ease with which supposed leaders and experts like Walensky and Fauci can lie to the world proves Orwell’s remark that “Saints should always be judged guilty until proven innocent”. It is high time that people started to think for themselves again, lest the authorities, drunk with power and conceit, rob your right to decide anything for yourselves and your children.