During the COVID-19 pandemic, 80% of
U.S. states mandated masks to slow the spread of SARS-CoV-2, but
accumulating research shows mask mandates and use do not lower the
spread of the virus.1
While rules requiring masks did increase compliance, they didn't
translate to lower transmission growth rates, whether community spread
of SARS-CoV-2 was low or high.
Even before COVID-19 was declared a pandemic, mask mandates were put
in place without ever properly evaluating efficacy, but that didn't stop
them from dividing communities and being used as a form of virtue
signaling and a visible reminder of compliance with the "new normal."
Now, with research showing not only that masks don't protect you but
may actually make you sick, the rationale behind their widespread
mandated usage must be questioned.
Mask Mandates Didn't Lower COVID-19 Cases
Using CDC data, researchers with the University of Louisville
calculated total COVID-19 case growth and mask use for the U.S. No
significant differences were found in case growth between mandate and
non-mandate states during periods of low or high transmission.
"Surges were equivocal," they noted, concluding, "Mask mandates and
use are not associated with slower state-level COVID-19 spread during
COVID-19 growth surges."2
While stating that their findings "do not support the hypothesis that
SARS-CoV-2 transmission rates decrease with greater public mask use,"
they did note that "masks may promote social cohesion as rallying
symbols during a pandemic."3
Similarly dismal results from mask mandates were demonstrated in
Europe. A study published in Cureus analyzed data from 35 European
countries, including morbidity, mortality and mask usage, over a
six-month period. The researchers noted:4
"Mask mandates were
implemented in almost all world countries and in most places where masks
were not obligatory, their use in public spaces was recommended … These
mandates and recommendations took place despite the fact that most
randomized controlled trials carried out before and during the COVID-19
pandemic concluded that the role of masks in preventing respiratory
viral transmission was small, null, or inconclusive."
When the data were analyzed, the study also revealed that the
widespread use of masks did not reduce COVID-19 transmission. Worse, a
moderate positive correlation was found between mask usage and deaths in
Western Europe, which "suggests that the universal use of masks may
have had harmful unintended consequences."5
Mask Mandates in Schools Didn't Reduce COVID-19 Cases
As part of the government sponsored propaganda campaign, a widely
cited CDC study, published in October 2021, reported that counties
without school mask mandates had larger increases in COVID-19 case rates
in children after the start of school compared with counties that had
school mask mandates.6
The study was used to support school mask mandates, but a team of
researchers revisited the research, incorporating a larger sample size
and longer study period. The updated study,7
published in May 2022, used nearly six times more data compared to the
original study and found no significant relationship between mask
mandates in U.S. schools and COVID-19 case rates. According to the
researchers:8
"We failed to establish a relationship between school
masking and pediatric cases using the same methods but a larger, more
nationally diverse population over a longer interval. Our study
demonstrates that observational studies of interventions with small to
moderate effect sizes are prone to bias caused by selection and omitted
variables. Randomized studies can more reliably inform public health
policy."
On Twitter, surgeon and public policy researcher Dr. Marty Makary
pointed out that the CDC's original study appeared to include
cherry-picked data and the agency refused to publish an update using the
more extensive data:9
"This study demonstrates how the CDC was
cherry-picking data to support their school mask dogma. The article
states that CDC's MMWR journal rejected publishing this re-analysis.
Most likely because it exposed the CDCs salami-slicing of data & use
of science as political propaganda."
It should be noted that a previous CDC study found mask requirements
for students had little effect on COVID-19 incidence in Georgia schools,
while improved ventilation, such as opening a window, reduced cases
more than mask mandates for staff and teachers.10
The Foegen Effect: Mask Mandates Increased COVID-19 Deaths
A profoundly important study was conducted by German physician Dr.
Zacharias Fögen to find out whether mandatory mask use influenced the
COVID-19 case fatality rate in Kansas from August 1, 2020, to October
15, 2020.11 He chose the state of Kansas because, while it issued a mask mandate, counties were allowed to either opt in or out of it.
His analysis revealed that counties with a mask mandate had
significantly higher case fatality rates than counties without a mask
mandate. "These findings suggest that mask use might pose a yet unknown
threat to the user instead of protecting them, making mask mandates a
debatable epidemiologic intervention," he concluded.
That threat, he explained, may be something called the "Foegen
effect" — the idea that deep re-inhalation of droplets and virions
caught on facemasks might make COVID-19 infection more likely or more
severe.
“The fundamentals of this effect are easily demonstrated when wearing
a facemask and glasses at the same time by pulling the upper edge of
the mask over the lower edge of the glasses. Droplets appear on the mask
when breathing out and disappear when breathing in.”
"In the "Foegen effect," the virions spread (because
of their smaller size) deeper into the respiratory tract. They bypass
the bronchi and are inhaled deep into the alveoli, where they can cause
pneumonia instead of bronchitis, which would be typical of a virus
infection.
Furthermore, these virions bypass the multilayer
squamous epithelial wall that they cannot pass into in vitro and most
likely cannot pass into in vivo. Therefore, the only probable way for
the virions to enter the blood vessels is through the alveoli."12
Wearing Masks Could Be Related to Long COVID
Fögen explained that wearing masks could end up increasing your
overall viral load because, instead of exhaling virions from your
respiratory tract and ridding your body of them, those virions are
caught in the mask and returned. This might also have the effect of
increasing the number of virions that pass through the mask, such that
it becomes more than the number that would have been shed without a
mask.
The fact that "hypercondensed droplets and pure virions in the mask
might be blown outwards during expiration, resulting in aerosol
transmission instead of droplet transmission" is another issue that
could make transmission worse instead of better, and the use of "more
protective" masks could also backfire, making COVID-19's long-term
effects worse. Fögen explained:13
"The use of "better" masks (e.g., FFP2, FFP3) with a
higher droplet-filtering capacity probably should cause an even stronger
"Foegen effect" because the number of virions that are potentially
re-inhaled increases in the same way that outward shedding is reduced.
Another salient point is that COVID-19-related
long-term effects and multisystem inflammatory syndrome in children may
all be a direct cause of the "Foegen effect." Virus entry into the
alveoli and blood without being restricted to the upper respiratory
tract and bronchi and can cause damage by initiating an (auto) immune
reaction in most organs."
Clear Risks of Prolonged Mask Use
Two expert reports spoke out against the use of masks for children in 2021. The first, a psychology report,14 stated that masks are likely to be causing psychological harm to children and interfering with development.15
"The extent of psychological harm to young people is unknown," the
report stated, "due to the unique nature of the 'social experiment'
currently underway in schools, and in wider society."16
The second report focused on health, safety and well-being,17 noting potential permanent physical damage to the lungs caused by fibrosis from inhalation of fibrous nanoparticles.
"There are real and significant dangers of respiratory infection,
oral health deterioration and of lung injury, such as pneumothorax,
owing to moisture buildup and also exposure to potentially harmful
levels of an asphyxiant gas (carbon dioxide [CO2]) which can cause
serious injury to health," the authors explained.18
Normally, the CO2 then dissipates into the air around you before you
take another breath. In the open air, carbon dioxide typically exists at
about 400 parts per million (ppm), or 0.04% by volume.
The German Federal Environmental Office set a limit of CO2 for closed
rooms of 2,000 ppm, or 0.2% by volume. If you're wearing a facemask,
the CO2 cannot escape as it usually does and instead becomes trapped in
the mask. In a study published in JAMA Pediatrics, researchers analyzed
the CO2 content of inhaled air among children wearing two types of
masks, as well as wearing no mask.19
While no significant difference in CO2 was found between the two
types of masks, there was a significant elevation when wearing masks
compared to not wearing them. CO2 in inhaled air under surgical and
filtering facepiece masks came in between 13,120 ppm and 13,910 ppm,
"which is higher than what is already deemed unacceptable by the German
Federal Environmental Office by a factor of 6," the researchers noted.20
Also important, this level was reached after only three minutes,
while children wear masks at school for a mean of 270 minutes at a time.
Even the child who had the lowest measured CO2 level had a measurement
three-fold greater than the closed room CO2 limit of 0.2%. However,
younger children appeared to have the highest CO2 values; a level of
25,000 ppm was measured from a 7-year-old wearing a facemask.21
Bacterial Infection Risk, Problems With Social Learning
The full consequences of prolonged mask use are only beginning to be
understood. The University of Louisville researchers noted, however,
that using a mask for more than four hours per day "promotes facial
alkalinization and inadvertently encourages dehydration, which in turn
can enhance barrier breakdown and bacterial infection risk."22 Other reported adverse effects include:23
Increase in headaches and sweating |
Decreased cognitive precision |
Association with medical errors |
Interference with social learning in children |
Obscured nonverbal communication |
Distorted verbal speech |
Removal of visual cues, which is detrimental to people with hearing loss |
|
After a lawsuit was brought by Leslie Manookian's Health Freedom
Defense Fund (HFDF), U.S. District Judge Kathryn Kimball Mizelle finally
voided the CDC's U.S. mask mandate on airplanes and public transit in
April 2022.24 The U.S. Department of Justice (DoJ) has appealed the court order,25
however, making it clear that they don't intend to give up on mask
mandates without a fight. In response, HFDF issued the following
statement:26
"DoJ's statement [that it would appeal] is perplexing
to say the least and sounds like it comes from health policy advocates
not government lawyers. The ruling by the US District Court ruling is a
matter of law, not CDC preference or an assessment of 'current health
conditions.'
If there is in fact a public health emergency with
clear and irrefutable science supporting CDC's mask mandate, does it not
warrant urgent action? Why would DoJ and CDC not immediately appeal?
HFDF is left with no option but to conclude that the
Mask Mandate is really a political matter and not at all about urgent
public health issues or the demands of sound science. While DoJ and CDC
play politics with Americans' health and freedoms, HFDF trusts
individual Americans to make their own health decisions.
HFDF is confident that Americans possess ample common
sense and education to understand that there are real questions about
mask efficacy and risk and that CDC's policy reflects neither."
You can support the Health Freedom Defense Fund and push back against
the DoJ and CDC by taking to social media. Please follow and/or like
the HFDF on the following platforms, share their content, and invite
your followers to do the same: