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Are Masks Useful After All? Not Likely.
Until a week or two ago, all I’d heard in a long time about masks indicated they were doing more harm than good. Sure, it made sense when we thought we might have a child-killer spreading through coughing. But then, even back in 2020, we starting hearing that Covid doesn’t hurt kids much. We also learned that the virus doesn’t spread much by coughing. It’s aerosolized; it spreads through infected people just breathing it out, and when they do it’s small enough to go both through and around cloth masks and regular surgical masks. And then Omicron came., replicating in the outer airways 70 times as fast as Delta, which was already a much faster-spreading virus than the original Covid.
There’s no stopping this thing with masks, which are not harmless in any case, and little to no slowing of it. Don’t trust me, of course. I’m a dang philosopher. Trust reliable sources on the internet–if you can find any. But does that count the New England Journal of Medicine? Some authors there say masks can at least prevent the spread of the virus.
Some Problems with the NEJM Article
Now there are any other problems with the article’s reasoning. It doesn’t stick to medical science, and spins its own supposed discoveries as a great way of fighting structural racism. It ignores the harm done by masks–the unhealthiness of breathing through sweaty face diapers, the developmental delays in small children who can’t see adults’ mouths when they’re trying to learn how to talk, the cruelty to asthmatics. It ignores the relative harmlessness of Omicron–generally ranging from mild cold to bad flu, and that’s only for the people who actually have symptoms. It ignores the fact that probably somewhere between 75 and 95 percent of us have had some kind of Covid by now anyway.
Basically, as it seems to me, there’s no awareness of the need to do any cost-benefit analysis. Nor of the superior abilities of people, who know their own situation better than centralized bureaucrats, to do their own analysis for their own dang selves.
Still, if there really is some actual evidence here that masks really do have the benefit of preventing some Covid infections, I would like to know that. My early-2020 optimism about masks has since given way to a deep pessimism about masks. Was I wrong then, or am I wrong now?
The Article’s Main Argument
So let’s look at the NEJM article’s argument for that conclusion. From what I can understand, these guys are comparing Boston schools without mask requirements and Boston schools with mask requirements and finding that during the April-June Omicron spike there were more positive Covid cases in the schools that lifted mask requirements.
Something like . . . 45/1,000 more people getting Covid over a space of 15 weeks.
This is illustrated in the article’s Figure 1, which shows higher Covid rates for the schools that dropped the mask mandates.
They conclude from this that the lack of masks is likely the reason these schools had more Omicron cases.
Ok. Seems to make sense. And, to their credit, they make some effort to rule out other possible causes–e.g., the schools that kept the mask mandates and had less Covid were also the ones that had worse “ventilation or filtration systems,” so when some schools had higher Covid rates it wasn’t because they had worse air systems.
But I’m kind of interested in something else: Figure 2. If I’m reading it properly, the same schools with the higher Covid rates after dropping mask requirements also had higher Covid rates during the December-January spike.
So this raises a darn big question: How are we supposed to know whether these schools were not just more prone to getting Covid for some reason not considered in the article? (There are plenty of possible explanations I can think of–something about their location, schoolkids’ parents’ jobs, or what a few clusters of first-graders sometimes do on the weekend–and many more I can’t even think of.) The reason they got even more Covid during the next Omicron spike is simply that the next version of Omicron was spreading even faster.
That was my initial, provisional concern with the article.
Other Problems with the Article
Apparent Dr. Vinay Prasad had some objections as well. Dr. Prasad says this study is not a randomized control trial; it’s just an observational study. But a randomized control trial is what we need. This would not be difficult, but Fauci is against it, and won’t fund it, and instead we’re funding these “observational studies that fit a certain narrative.”
That’s an important objection! Do you remember why they were saying back in 2020 that chloroquine didn’t have good science in its favor? It was because it didn’t have any randomized controlled studies–you know, the kind we still apparently don’t have for masks either.
Sheesh.
Dr. Prasad recommends reading this piece on Substack by Dr. Tracy Beth Høeg. It’s a nice, detailed look at many things wrong with the NEJM piece. I don’t notice Høeg looking over my particular concern, but I am pleased that she, Dr. Prasad, and I are all worried about other causes of a difference in Covid rates that the article does not sufficiently rule out.
And golly–Dr. Høeg did a great job critiquing the NEJM article! Her article has some of the same concerns as Dr. Prasad. It also has this insight: The NEJM study assumes that Covid spread outside of school is caused by Covid spread inside school, and not vice versa. That’s a heckuvan assumption there. And Høeg links to some other studies that indicate little to no benefit of masks.
“Let Us Hear the Conclusion of the Whole Matter”
Not that I find all this easy to understand. But if I’m provisionally trusting someone, whom am I going to trust–the freethinker on Substack or the establishmentarians jabbering about structural racism and calling it medical science?
In short, the NEJM article notwithstanding, it is still perfectly reasonable to think that masks are not useful against Covid–that they are doing more harm than good. As far as I can tell, the available evidence still points to that conclusion.
Published in General
I think that’s great. I had to reread it five times, but when I got it, it was eye-opening.
Amazing that there are still people pushing this nonsense. But they are never going to go away. Every day you go out in public you see one or two of the diehard mask zealots, still absolutely confident that their faith in this talisman is warranted.
Warm water vapor created a breeding ground for the virus.
More like collecting ground, I think.
Does it stick? It’s plenty small enough to go through. Does something stop most of it?
It sure sounds like you’re asking for the studies mentioned by the writer on Substack.
I bet vibranium would work. In Wakanda, it fixes pretty much everything else.
If I’m not mistaken, the “experts” including people at the CDC and maybe even Fauci, have admitted that masks are totally useless when it comes to incoming virus. They explain that it’s only use is to prevent infected people from expelling the virus into the atmosphere. The virus being bound to expelled water droplets from an infected person that can get trapped by the mask is the critical difference. Viruses floating in a “cloud” have no such impediments.
Excellent report, and I have to say many of us noticed the same checkers & delivery people out on the front lines, yet alive and well despite all the human to human contact.
And yet nobody has conducted a double-blind study on mask effectiveness. The same goes for lockdowns, no double-blind study on effectiveness. I was told that was the only way to make any conclusion.
There have been RCTs on mask effectiveness against respiratory viruses. The established, uncontroverted science says that they will provide little to no benefit. During the first weeks of the pandemic (back when Fauci correctly observed that drug store surgical masks would be pretty useless), one of Fauci’s senior NAIAD colleagues took the trouble to look up the record of such studies and emailed him her findings (around page 1,770 of the FOIA data dump of Fauci emails if you are checking). Oddly enough, the science was almost immediately dumped in favor of mandated pretenses to Do Something About It :
N95s are supposed to filter most viruses out.
Once they are in the filter, they are no longer aerosol. That means that any danger they still pose would be through touch contact, which has been shown not to be a danger with this virus. It’s spread through the air, not through touch. That’s why hand sanitizer isn’t being pushed anymore. Even if that’s wrong, its still better to stop the virus than to breathe it in, even if it remains in the mask. Plus, virus dies after a certain amount of time out of the body.
Well, yeah.
Is that what you were talking about all this time?
I was talking about the masks nearly all the people who wear masks are actually wearing.
A properly fitted and worn N95 mast filters most viruses out.
Indeed. If those had been the requirement, and had the NEJM article been about them, this would be a very different conversation. We’d be talking about costs and benefits instead of wondering “What benefits?”
Uh…ok. My bad I guess. I’ve never worn a cloth or polyester mask. Not once, ever. (Although I do recall Fauci wearing them during his Congress testimony.)
That isn’t true. The virus will thrive on the warm moist air you exhale. If you cough or sneeze you will violently expel the accumulated virus. I know of no guidance that says handwashing isn’t effective.
He assumes a perfect fit which there isn’t, even with an n95.
Are you going to wear a mask the rest of your life?
Fair enough, I guess. But an N95, in crowded indoor spaces if you’re vulnerable or if the virus is more dangerous or still an unknown, really would do some good–I think–in reducing transmission.
Great post, doc! Makes sense.
ka-POW!
I’m fairly confident that doctors, post-surgery, don’t wear their mask out to the car, leave it in the glove box, then pull it out again for tomorrow’s surgery.
Now, I’m no doctor. But citing medical environments as being applicable to the 99.99999% of the world that is not a medical facility is nuts.
What’s really nuts is that because the survivability rate is so high and only diminishes, slightly, at the very top end of the age curve (ignoring for a moment people with pre-conditions), means that the negatives most certainly outweigh the positives of mask-wearing, and isolation for children, and the elderly, many of whom isolated from their families due to travel restrictions, and died alone.
But hey. Masks. I think the conversations would be different if the CDC said everyone had to wear a plastic bubble on their heads, y’know, to save us all from Covid. The diaper is intrusive but easily put on and put off, provides the Patina of Protection (pm), and you get to feel good that you’re helping others.
Looking forward to permanent masking rules during flu seasons.
The purpose of the mask was not to stop virus but as a constant reminder of the pandemic and to avoid each other.
every study on masks in a community setting has shown that masks have almost no effect in a long term community basis. That is not to say at an individual basis it may have had some effect.
I sure hope not. I hate it. But if you recall what I said, I wear a mask less than about an hour a week. That’s not the rest of your life.
I volunteer at a dog shelter almost everyday. it’s often crowded and is the kind of place I normally would put one on. But your hands get so dirty with the dogs, there’s no point in wearing one. You’d be touching and adjusting your mask with filthy hands. So no mask there. I wear N95 masks only when it’s convenient and in places where I think it might be necessary, for short periods of time.
You missed the point. Covid is endemic. it isn’t going away but will ebb and flow like the flu viruses. If you feel more secure wearing one, by all means do so. Some of us prefer not to be masked up the rest of our lives. I will deal with covid like I deal with the flu. I got the pneumonia shot. Meanwhile, criminals will continue to take advantage of masks to help them escape recognition and capture.
I wore a mask. Was convinced they helped to stop the spread. Then Biden dropped the mask mandate except for federal agencies and left it up to the States. I did some research about the size of the virus and the gaps in a mask (even an N-95) and decided that it was all BS. Now I firmly believe that masks were just ineffective measures taken by Fauci and others for political reasons and to give the impression they were doing something.
I mean, remember the theater of putting on a mask to enter a restaurant, taking it off to eat and putting it back on to go to the restroom?
I got 2 Moderna shots and one booster. I don’t plan to get the 2nd booster because I read that it only provides protection for 3 weeks. As far as I know, I’ve never had Covid. At least I have never tested positive and I tested myself whenever I got a cold or any symptoms. I recently had the flu. Tested twice and both times were negative for Covid.
I live in Texas now (thank God!) and the only time I had to put on a mask was on a visit to the local Social Security office. The guard apologized for having to ask us to do it.
Link: https://www.technocracy.news/masks-are-neither-effective-nor-safe-a-summary-of-the-science/
https://swprs.org/face-masks-evidence/
The Democrat’s MAGA hat.