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PETER HITCHENS: Face masks turn us into voiceless submissives - and it’s not science forcing us to wear them, it’s politics - Mail Online - Peter Hitchens blog. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Here is a clue. On July 12, Deborah Cohen, the medical correspondent of BBC2’s Newsnight, revealed an astonishing thing. The World Health Organisation (WHO) had reversed its advice on face masks, from ‘don’t wear them’ to ‘do wear them’. But the key fact was that it had not done so because of scientific information – the evidence had not backed the wearing of face coverings – but because of political lobbying.She revealed on Twitter that: ‘We had been told by various sources [that the] WHO committee reviewing the evidence had not backed masks but they recommended them due to political lobbying.’ She said the BBC had then put this to the WHO, which did not deny it.
In March, the WHO had said: ‘There is currently no evidence that wearing a mask (whether medical or other types) by healthy persons in the wider community setting, including universal community masking, can protect them from infection with respiratory viruses, including Covid-19.’
Unlike the Monkees, I am not a believer.
The point of a mask is not to protect the wearer from this or that, it is to protect others from anything the wearer may sneeze or cough or breathe out. Medical staff to do not mask up for surgery for fear of contracting diseases from the patients, do they? Yet they mask up.
ReplyDeleteWell said, George.
ReplyDeleteA point further, is that, even though we do not know that a mask protects the wearer, we do not know that it will not. If you were a city health care worker, and knew you were walking into a room of people with the virus, who had no masks, and were coughing up a storm, but something had to be done, would you wear a mask to protect yourself? That's like, should cops wear bullet proof vests even though they could get shot in the head, right? The answer is, "Yes," and if you did not, then you should be reprimanded if not fired.
A huge reason we do not know whether or by how much masks protect the wearers, is that we cannot contrive a study in which there are people who just tested negative for the virus, some put into a group who will wear a mask, and the other in a group who will be bare-faced. All subjects will then be coughed at by knwon infected people or otherwise exposed to the virus.
Let me take a step back, and interject the common knowledge, to note that the reason everyone should be wearing a mask in public -- except people who have recently recovered from the virus -- is that you are most infectious before you have symptoms, if you are even going to get sick. Roughly one third will never have symptoms, but can shed or spread. Thus, you cannot know that you do not have the virus, unless you are alone in the arctic or something where that can be metaphor for your life.
Yet, we do have research showing how wearing a mask can prevent a person from coughing or singing out the virus in droplets. It has nothing to do with having any subjects get coughed in the face, but has to do with following how the droplets of a cougher have a hang time in the air. Theoretically, then, someone who breathes those droplets in, can catch the virus. Scientists, however, have not "caught" this happening.
I am on quarantine, for living in a duplex with common areas with a person who is currently positive. I never go onto the front porch now. Whenever I go into the basement, I wear a mask, with the idea that it is probably protecting me from catching the virus.
Furthermore, last night, I put on a UVC lamp down there, even though that has not been proven to disinfect from Covid-19. The idea that it works for other viruses has to be good enough for me at this juncture in scientific knowledge. I've got nothing else but the common sense behind that, and the common sense behind wearing a mask to protect myself. So, the answer, once again, is "Yes, I wear the mask to protect myself."
So, here is that WHO statement, once again:
"There is currently no evidence that wearing a mask (whether medical or other types) by healthy persons in the wider community setting, including universal community masking, can protect them from infection with respiratory viruses, including Covid-19."
That's like saying, "We have not tested the A-Bomb, because we have no safe way of testing it". Hey, maybe it will be a dud.
I don't get all this American furor over what is a simple, easy, and relatively cheap safety measure (especially if you sew your own). It's hardly a major burden to use them, so why not give them the benefit of the doubt?
ReplyDeleteGo ahead, Frank, call me 'submissive' -- or a 'monkee'. Oh, the shame of submitting to commonsense precautions!
I observe commonsense precautions. When I enter a store, I wear a mask. I know that the mask protects others from me, just as theirs protects me from them. The CDC has indicated that you cannot contract Covid-19 from the open air. Sunlight kills the virus. Moreover, a mask would be about as useful as trying to keep mosquitoes out of your yard by putting up a chain link fence. Masks protect against bodily fluids to which the virus may become attached. The CDC has also indicated that the virus does not linger on surfaces indefinitely. All this is easily knowable.
ReplyDeleteIt should be interesting if the final numbers suggest that the reaction to Covid-19 was exaggerated.
Addressing the CDC site, and a significant problem with it -- ambiguity and poor logic at times. It's as if multiple people are updating the site, some smart and some not.
DeleteFrank, you state that somewhere in the CDC site, someone has put up information that at least would make an intelligent reader like yourself conclude that it has come time for a CDC announcement that we cannot get Covid-19 from the open air. The correct answer is "Yes, we can." That's what all those droplet studies have shown. But I still do not disbelieve you.
Here are the current CDC guidelines for anyone going to the beach or to pools: Visiting Beaches and Pools. If we cannot catch it in the open air, then why have the following guidelines at the top of the page in bold type and increase font size:
~~
What you need to know
. . . Stay home if you are sick.
. . . Stay at least 6 feet away, both in and out of the water, from people you don’t live with.
. . . Wear a cloth face covering when you are not in the water.
. . . Wash your hands often and don’t share items with people you don’t live with.
~~
It's a problem.
Also on the CDC site are ambiguous guidelines for getting off isolation for having the virus -- which has affected me, still on quarantine for exposure. There is still a guideline on the site that has the doctor and patient count at least 10 days from the time of symptom onset or first positive test, and count at least 3 days since last symptom. Satisfy both these conditions, and you can go back to working, in-store shopping, hugging spouses etc. That may have been the best we could do early on, when tests were unavailable.
The mid-pandemic research we've gotten, indicates that the average person is most infectious a couple days after getting infected. The infectiousness then tends to dissipate on average, like it has a half life. Thus 10 days after onset, it's safer to allow the person to mix with the general population.
That previous sentence is especially true if the infected individual no longer has the virus -- which can only be determined by a test! -- and the stricter procedure the CDC gives is to have 2 negative tests done more than 24 hours apart.
Here are the ambiguous guidelines from the CDC page When You Can be Around Others After You Had or Likely Had COVID-19:
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I think or know I had COVID-19, and I had symptoms
. . .You can be with others after
. . . . . . At least 10 days since symptoms first appeared and
. . . . . . At least 24 hours with no fever without fever-reducing medication and
. . . . . . Symptoms have improved
. . . Depending on your healthcare provider’s advice and availability of testing, you might get tested to see if you still have COVID-19. If you are tested, you can be around others when you have no fever, respiratory symptoms have improved, and you receive two negative test results in a row, at least 24 hours apart.
~~
end quote
The logic in getting tested, as opposed to going with the 10-day half-life assumption, is that, the people who are still infectios after 10 days are the among the people who still have the virus. The 10-day half-life assumption remains fair enough (although I would like to see a few days added on), only where tests are in severe short supply.
Oh, and the Monkees were a rock band that had a hit record titled “I’m a Believer.”
ReplyDeleteYes, I know. I even remember them. It's the implication of 'Monkee/monkee' that is distasteful. Surely we can avoid such nastiness.
Delete(The extent of open-air transmission is not yet settled.)
And how exactly is AOC and her half-assed socialism to any of that? Especially given a population that is increasingly timorous, credulous, and servile, ready to do what it’s told.
ReplyDeleteMy first experience of the pressures of conformity came with the arrival of the Monkees - I loved them, but I quickly realised that they were considered uncool, having been manufactured rather than forming spontaneously a la the Beatles. The fact that snatches of "I'm a Believer" and various other of their songs heard decades later still cheer me suggest they weren't actual trash.
ReplyDeleteAs to masks, I think it is a courtesy, at a time when a highly infectious virus is present & no vaccine is available, to wear one in crowded spaces (but not in the street or in any open spaces). However, I think one should only wear masks made at home, ideally from scraps - the aim of this strategy is to reduce waste and, most importantly, not to buy from China until its current regime collapses, which I pray, for all our sakes, not least the Chinese population, it will before too much longer. Masks are very quick and easy to make (if fashioned from old socks you don't even need sewing skills, and some other varieties only require a stapler). I realise this makes me sound like a crank, but having weathered disapproval for my love of the Monkees at a very young age, I can withstand accusations of 'crank'-ery now, I guess.
This article, by the way, is by a British writer writing for a British paper. So i think what we have deal with here is British furor.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
DeleteDo you really think I don't know that Hitchens is British (and famously confrontational, though I'm in no position to hazard a guess as to his motives)?
DeleteThe anti-mask protests are undoubtedly growing in the UK. However, it remains to be seen whether the furor will reach the proportions and tenor of the American response, which often seems fueled by a rage far in excess of the actual issue. For me, the underlying question is why many of my fellow compatriots are so angry. It is perhaps this anger which helps to explain why wearing a mask has become so politicised.
Actually, I liked the Monkees, too. And their TV show.
ReplyDeleteFunny. I don't see any of this furor. I just see a lot of people — most people — walking around wearing masks. I only wear one inside.
ReplyDeleteFrom the CDC:
ReplyDeleteIncrease circulation of outdoor air as much as possible
increase outdoor air dilution of indoor air
That gets the aerosol particles cleared out, like trying to clear out cigarette smoke. It still can be a problem, as we know how we can catch a sudden mouthful of someone's second hand smoke outside. But it is not like being inside where the smoke can linger and burn your eyes. Too bad we cannot trace the virus with a foul odor.
DeleteDroplets and surfaces remain problematic in the out of doors. Thus, wear masks, keep a distance, and wash hands. To get more sophisticated for the highly intelligent: don't be shaking bare hands or hanging out too long chatting outside or inside, clean door knobs and packages, and keep your hands away from your face.
It's all explained here in the pre-Fauci public service announcement: Dr. Wise on Influenza (1919) | BFI National Archive
Depends on who you want to believe.
ReplyDeleteScience shouldn't be a matter of belief, but I suspect I'm altogether too naive in this regard.
ReplyDeleteScience is the belief in the ignorance of experts.
ReplyDelete— Richard Feynman
You may misunderstand Feynman's clever quip (or...? since I don't know the context). My point is, scientists recognise their ignorance, embrace it, and strive to correct it.
ReplyDeleteUnfortunately, many who claim to be guided by science, don’ t.
ReplyDelete