Meme - "The women's Canadian team just played FREAKING OLYMPIC HOCKEY in KN94 masks, and won their game, 6-1. I NEVER want to hear another dude bro complain about having to wear one in the grocery store ever again."
One poor person managed to become rich. I never want to hear another leftist complain about structural poverty again
Maskless San Francisco mayor breaks health order, seen partying with BLM co-founder at nightclub - "San Francisco Mayor London Breed was seen partying and singing maskless in a nightclub with a Black Lives Matter co-founder, breaking her city's mask mandate... The Black Cat Nightclub's Instagram page had posted, and then deleted, a photo showing Breed smiling and partying with friends maskless on Wednesday evening, the San Francisco Chronicle reported. She was accompanied by BLM co-founder Alicia Garza and singer Raphael Saadiq... This isn’t the first time that Breed is being criticized for breaking her own coronavirus rules. She was spotted in the swanky French Laundry restaurant in November dining with seven other people to celebrate the birthday of a friend, socialite Goretti Lo Lui."
Ian Miller on Twitter - "Shockingly, US states with mask mandates are currently reporting significantly higher COVID case rates than those without mask mandates It’s remarkable how often politicians and experts will say it’s “too soon” to lift mask mandates when they literally never work"
Mask fetishists' faith in masks fulfils psychological needs. Clearly at the very least this shows that they're not as effective as covid hystericists claim. Indeed, since places without mask mandates differ in more ways than that (tellingly, mask fetishists like to gush about how the people they don't like are supposedly all dying out), the effect of masks is even more dubious
Dangerous pathogens found on children’s face masks - "A group of parents in Gainesville, FL, sent 6 face masks to a lab at the University of Florida, requesting an analysis of contaminants found on the masks after they had been worn. The resulting report found that five masks were contaminated with bacteria, parasites, and fungi, including three with dangerous pathogenic and pneumonia-causing bacteria. Although the test is capable of detecting viruses, including SARS-CoV-2, only one virus was found on one mask (alcelaphine herpesvirus 1)... Half of the masks were contaminated with one or more strains of pneumonia-causing bacteria. One-third were contaminated with one or more strains of meningitis-causing bacteria. One-third were contaminated with dangerous, antibiotic-resistant bacterial pathogens. In addition, less dangerous pathogens were identified, including pathogens that can cause fever, ulcers, acne, yeast infections, strep throat, periodontal disease, Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever, and more... The face masks studied were new or freshly-laundered before wearing and had been worn for 5 to 8 hours, most during in-person schooling by children aged 6 through 11. One was worn by an adult. A t-shirt worn by one of the children to school and unworn masks were tested as controls. No pathogens were found on the controls"
CDC: No difference in mask wearing in schools with mandate - "According to a large study conducted by the CDC, rates of COVID transmission are no higher in schools without a mask mandate than in schools with a requirement to wear a mask."
Joe Kinsey on Twitter - "First engagement of 2022 & they kissed with their masks on. 😂"
The CDC has said that fully vaccinated people no longer have to wear a mask in public : TwoXChromosomes - "Imma keep wearing the mask because it’s basically a part of me now, like Venom. Plus I disagree with this decision and I feel like this is the right thing to do. I can’t imagine just ditching the mask. I would feel so... exposed and naked. Plus it’s an added level of security. A man hasn’t told me I’d look better if I smiled in over a year. Even better if I have on sunglasses. It hides almost my entire face and even though some men will harass you even in mascot suit that has a pink bow, it at least minimizes it. Maybe it’s just me but as a woman I feel safer with the mask knowing men don’t know what I look like. But maybe I watch too much true crime. Maybe I’m just paranoid."
Carl Benjamin - Posts | Facebook - "It's staggering how brazen their hypocrisy is. It's like they don't think you can see them only wearing the masks for the staged photos, but the pictures of before and after are everywhere. They think you are a complete idiot."
PoliMath on Twitter - "We've really gotten to a point where masks are more of a symbol of power than an attempt to control the pandemic. If you're powerless (kids in schools, service workers) you wear a mask b/c they can make you. If you're powerful, you don't b/c they can't."
Facebook - "Vancouver: Where they care more about a wearing a mask in a restaurant than fentanyl in their cocaine."
Anthony LaMesa on Twitter - "The @CDCDirector just said on @CNN that "heavily breathing" kids "on a soccer field" should be wearing masks. @WHO: "Children should not wear a mask when playing sports or doing physical activities, such as running.""
How many people will mask fetishism hurt
Effect of Face Masks on Interpersonal Communication During the COVID-19 Pandemic - "Interpersonal communication has been severely affected during the COVID-19 pandemic. Protective measures, such as social distancing and face masks, are essential to mitigate efforts against the virus, but pose challenges on daily face-to-face communication. Face masks, particularly, muffle sounds and cover facial expressions that ease comprehension during live communication. Here, we explore the role of facial expressions in communication and we highlight how the face mask can hinder interpersonal connection. In addition, we offer coping strategies and skills that can ease communication with face masks as we navigate the current and any future pandemic."
Masks Can Be Detrimental to Babies' Speech and Language Development - Scientific American - " We wanted to know whether and when babies might discover the importance of a talker’s mouth. So, in one study in my lab, we showed videos of talking faces to babies of different ages and tracked their attention by using an eye-tracking device. We discovered that babies begin lip-reading at around 8 months of age. Crucially, the onset of lip-reading at this age corresponds with the onset of canonical babbling, suggesting that babies begin lip-reading because they become interested in speech and language. By lip-reading, babies now gain access to visual speech cues which, as Janet Werker and her colleagues at the University of British Columbia have shown, are clearly perceptible to them. So, the lip-reading now enables babies to see the visible speech cues that they need to figure out which face goes with which voice. Of course, babies cannot access visible speech cues if others are wearing masks."
The Case Against Masks for Children - WSJ - "Some children are fine wearing a mask, but others struggle. Those who have myopia can have difficulty seeing because the mask fogs their glasses. (This has long been a problem for medical students in the operating room.) Masks can cause severe acne and other skin problems. The discomfort of a mask distracts some children from learning. By increasing airway resistance during exhalation, masks can lead to increased levels of carbon dioxide in the blood. And masks can be vectors for pathogens if they become moist or are used for too long. In March, Ireland’s Department of Health announced that it won’t require masks in schools because they “may exacerbate anxiety or breathing difficulties for some students.” Some children compensate for such difficulties by breathing through their mouths. Chronic and prolonged mouth breathing can alter facial development. It is well-documented that children who mouth-breathe because adenoids block their nasal airways can develop a mouth deformity and elongated face. The possible psychological harm of widespread masking is an even greater worry. Facial expressions are integral to human connection, particularly for young children, who are only learning how to signal fear, confusion and happiness. Covering a child’s face mutes these nonverbal forms of communication and can result in robotic and emotionless interactions, anxiety and depression. Seeing people speak is a building block of phonetic development. It is especially important for children with disabilities such as hearing impairment. The adverse developmental effects of requiring masks for a few weeks are probably minor. We can’t say that with any confidence when the practice stretches on for months or years. What about the risk of Covid, which mask mandates are intended to ameliorate? The CDC reports that for the week of July 31 the rate of hospitalization with Covid for children 5 to 17 was 0.5 per 100,000, which would amount to roughly 250 patients... Children who do develop Covid symptoms are at minimal risk of “long Covid,” according to a Lancet study published Aug. 3: “Almost all children had symptom resolution by 8 weeks, providing reassurance about long-term outcomes.” Children have been known to transmit Covid, but far less often than adults do. A North Carolina study conducted before vaccines were available found not a single case of student-to-teacher transmission when 90,000 students were in school... Public-health officials claim to base their decisions and guidance on science, but there’s no science behind mask mandates for children. A new research study by one of us (Dr. Makary) and his Johns Hopkins colleagues found that of the $42 billion the National Institutes of Health spent on research last year, less than 2% went to Covid clinical research and not a single grant was dedicated to studying masks in children... Any child who wants to wear a mask should be free to do so. But forcing them to make personal, health and developmental sacrifices for the sake of adults who refuse to get immunized is abusive. Before we order the masking of 56 million Americans who are too young to vote and don’t have a lobby, let’s see data showing the benefits and weigh them against the long-term harm"
Of course, experts who go against any part of the narrative are dangerous and must be ignored - even if they mostly stick to it (the authors are pro-masking in adults)
Protective Facemask Impact on Human Thermoregulation: An Overview - "The use of protective facemasks (PFMs) negatively impacts respiratory and dermal mechanisms of human thermoregulation through impairment of convection, evaporation, and radiation processes"
So much for masks being harmless
We need better evidence on non-drug interventions for covid-19 - "Almost 1300 controlled trials have been registered for drug interventions for covid-19... so far only 10 controlled trials of non-drug interventions have been registered, with three reported. This makes no sense. Drug interventions are generally aimed at a relatively small group of people who have been infected and are ill. Non drug interventions such as physical distancing, face coverings, or school patterns of re-opening, are aimed at whole population groups, and yet, these are hardly being tested... We take drug trials seriously because we recognise the possibility of iatrogenic fatalities: we seek the protection of a data monitoring committee and acknowledge that good intentions are not enough. Why is this not the case for non-drug strategies? It is as though non-drug interventions are not considered as capable of doing harm, or regarded as either too hard to investigate, or too obviously beneficial to bother with trials. I think this is an error. A recent analysis in The BMJ argued that concerns about risk compensation was a “dead horse” that “now needs burying to try and prevent the threat it poses through slowing the adoption of effective public health interventions.” Using the example of face masks, evidence was cited which found no clear reduction in concurrent hand washing with mask wearing. But this is not the only possible form of risk compensation. The fundamental question is whether face coverings reduce harm to people in the population. For example, do supermarkets rely on face coverings instead of physical distancing and is this harmful? Do face coverings give people confidence to leave home more, and take more risks when they are out? There are large gaps in our knowledge and without clear evidence on the use of cloth masks in the community we may be wearing false reassurance. Observation of the use of face coverings, in real life, finds that they are commonly worn incorrectly. Nor have we considered enough about the broader societal impact. People with histories of trauma, or who have hearing difficulties, are placed at disadvantage. Yet those who do not wear face coverings are categorised, by proponents of face coverings, as “deviants from the new norm.” Societal cohesion is risked by dividing, rather than understanding behaviour. These are all harms. Nor do we have a clear “end” strategy. We need less panic and more practical, pragmatic research... We need trials because we cannot presume that non-drug interventions won’t do harm or waste resources, thereby diverting attention and money. There is past form on this, for example, baby simulators were used in Australia to try and reduce teenage pregnancy. A cluster RCT found that it increased instead. The “Scared Straight” programme was used to try and deter young people at high risk of committing criminal acts, but ended up increasing it, at large cost. Dr Spock’s well meaning, seemingly sensible advice to lay babies on their fronts to sleep was associated with at least 50,000 infant deaths"
Efficacy of surgical masks or cloth masks in the prevention of viral transmission: Systematic review, meta‐analysis, and proposal for future trial - "There is limited available preclinical and clinical evidence for face mask benefit in SARS‐CoV‐2. RCT evidence for other respiratory viral illnesses shows no significant benefit of masks in limiting transmission but is of poor quality and not SARS‐CoV‐2 specific. There is an urgent need for evidence from randomized controlled trials to investigate the efficacy of surgical and cloth masks on transmission of SARS‐CoV‐2 and user reported outcomes such as comfort and compliance."
You don't need evidence when you can just force everyone to mask up. A mask fetishist said the RCT evidence showing masks didn't work was of poor quality, but given that there is almost no RCT evidence showing they work (poor quality or not)...
Physical interventions to interrupt or reduce the spread of respiratory viruses (Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews) - "There is uncertainty about the effects of face masks. The low‐moderate certainty of the evidence means our confidence in the effect estimate is limited, and that the true effect may be different from the observed estimate of the effect. The pooled results of randomised trials did not show a clear reduction in respiratory viral infection with the use of medical/surgical masks during seasonal influenza. There were no clear differences between the use of medical/surgical masks compared with N95/P2 respirators in healthcare workers when used in routine care to reduce respiratory viral infection... Harms associated with physical interventions were under‐investigated."
A mask fetishist praised systematic reviews as the highest tier of evidence, then claimed that my summary of the literature was "dangerous" "when misinterpreted by those who do not understand how to critically appriase research" (ignoring the fact that I had previously cited a different [less pessimistic] systematic review which said the certainty for masks was low, proclaiming that he had stopped looking at the evidence I presented). Oops. Then he didn't reply when I pointed out two systematic reviews that concluded that there as poor evidence for masks
CDC director says face masks may offer more protection against COVID than a vaccine. Here's what other experts say. - "Dr. Robert Redfield, the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said during his testimony before a Senate subcommittee on Wednesday that wearing face masks may be more effective at protecting against COVID-19 than a vaccine... Several experts contacted by CBS News agree with that assessment: Since vaccines do not guarantee an immune response, masks may be more effective at preventing COVID-19... George Rutherford, a professor of epidemiology and biostatistics and director of the Prevention and Public Health Group at UC San Francisco, said the CDC director is "completely right."
So much for mask fetishism being costless
Notably, this came when Trump was still President. Of course the effect of this on vaccine hesitancy will be denied
Michael Tracey on Twitter - "Every time I walk into a restaurant with my mask affixed for 30 seconds before being seated, then spend 45 minutes unmasked eating and drinking, and then affix my mask again for 30 seconds while leaving, I give thanks for how many thousands of lives this practice has surely saved"
Biden NIH Director Instructs Parents to Wear Masks at Home around Unvaccinated Kids
We're Finally Getting a Picture of How Dangerous PPE Is for Wildlife - Atlas Obscura
Ban masks!
WATCH: Florida surgeon general says data supporting on masking children is 'very weak' | The Post Millennial - "Florida Surgeon General Joseph Lapado is urging parents to step away from what they hear on television, telling them that the data supporting children wearing masks is "very weak."... Lapado stated that there is a "substantial gap" between the quality of data supporting the wearing of masks by children, and what is being instructed by public health officials. "In Florida, we're going to stay close to the data, and we're going to let you know how we feel about the data. And the data do not support any clinical benefit for children in schools with mask mandates. The highest quality data find no evidence of benefit," said Lapado... Governor Ron DeSantis chimed in, noting a Twitter thread from Biden's Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona that cited a few studies in support of masking children. "He cited one study from North Carolina which said force masking of kids works, but it had no control group, because that was required in every school. So they just said it work without comparing it against 'what if you didn't do that,' and people pointed that out immediately," said DeSantis. "Then he cited a study from the University — or from Wisconsin about it. And the researcher who did the study immediately responded to the tweet and said, 'we found no conclusive evidence on the force masking' and basically said that 'you should not use my study to do that,'" DeSantis continued."
CDC Wants Your Vaccinated 5-Year-Old Masked Indefinitely m - "Director Rochelle Walensky characterizes the potential unmasking of even vaccinated children as being "complacent."... Walensky and the CDC have serially misrepresented the data on which they base their global outlier of a recommendation that kids aged 2 and older wear masks in indoor group settings. But what makes the director's comments today particularly distressing for some parents is that it offers zero off ramp; no numerical set of targets to hit; not even a distant glimmer of light when it comes to the increasingly grim and questionably scientific practice of concealing children's faces at a developmentally critical age. "Please find a parameter to unmask children," responded infectious disease specialist Monica Gandhi of UC San Francisco. Or as Johns Hopkins epidemiologist Jennifer Nuzzo wrote yesterday, "Masks in schools were meant to be a temporary measure. It is good policy and practice to establish off-ramps for interventions that aren't meant to be permanent….We should be able to answer what conditions would enable an end." My 6-year-old, who has spent nearly one-quarter of her life wearing masks in group indoor settings, attends a school where all the adults are vaccinated, kids and adults alike get tested once a week, and (per state requirement, as directly influenced by the CDC) everyone over age 2 wears masks, even outdoors. We live in a moderately high vaccination zip code (68 percent of all residents with at least one shot, 64 percent fully vaxxed), in a city with a lower case rate than all but six states, whose positive rate among regularly tested, unvaccinated public school students since mid-September is a minuscule 0.23 percent. I would like to know what any of those numbers need to look like in order for my daughter to see her teachers' mouths again... Walensky's refusal to offer parents any future hope runs the risk of doing more than just boosting alcohol sales. As Monica Gandhi points out, it reduces a potential incentive for parents to vaccinate their young'uns... It also reinforces the growing notion that pandemic restrictions are meted out in proportion to the targets' political power, rather than vulnerability to the disease. "When the 63-year-old governor of NY goes out to crowded bars without a mask, but mandates 2-year-olds (lower risk of severe illness than vax'd governor) wear masks all day long at daycare," noted Democratic New York state legislator Rachel Barnhardt yesterday, referring to some widely circulated photos of Kathy Hochul yukking it up with some Buffalo Bills fans, "it's time for some offramps.""
People love their security blankets
University requires N95s or double masking even though nearly all students are vaccinated - "Johns Hopkins University (JHU) says despite having a "near-universal" vaccination rate at its school, it will still require students to wear two cloth masks or a more protective mask like an N95... Mandated vaccine shots, bi-weekly testing, and "academic flexibility" are all listed as "key precautions" the university is taking... All students, faculty, and staff will be required to receive a booster shot by Feb. 1."
Why don't covid hystericists believe the vaccines work?
New York Supreme Court Judge Strikes Down Democrat Governor’s Mask Mandate - "A New York state Supreme Court judge on Monday struck down Democrat Governor Kathy Hochul’s mask mandate for schools and public locations... Hochul’s mask mandate was “violative of the State Administrative Procedure Act as promulgated and enacted and therefore null, void, and unenforceable as a matter of law,” the judge wrote, adding that it was also “violative of the Public Health Law as promulgated and enacted and therefore null, void, and unenforceable as a matter of law.”"
Liberals hate judges when they don't permit the liberal agenda. The rule of law can only work one way
Negative attitudes about facemasks during the COVID-19 pandemic: The dual importance of perceived ineffectiveness and psychological reactance - "The 16% who did not wear masks scored higher on most measures of negative attitudes towards masks. Network analyses indicated that negative attitudes about masks formed an intercorrelated network, with the central nodes in the network being (a) beliefs that masks are ineffective in preventing COVID-19, and (b) psychological reactance (PR; i.e., an aversion to being forced to wear masks). These central nodes served as links, connecting the network of anti-masks attitudes to negative attitudes toward SARSCoV2 vaccination, beliefs that the threat of COVID-19 has been exaggerated, disregard for social distancing, and political conservatism"
Someone had a bizarre claim that masks that covered the mouth but not the nose should be promoted, since that would make more people wear them since they would be more comfortable covering only one "airway", and that since "the average count of droplets expelled from the mouth is exponentially higher than the number originating from the nose", the increase in participation would make up for the reduction in efficacy. He said it was "unreasonable" and "ridiculous" to posit that the people against covering both their nose and mouth would be happy to just cover the mouth
Yet, people don't want to wear masks because they think masks don't work and they don't like being forced to wear masks. Notably, there was no statistically significant difference in ratings of mask comfort between mask-wearers and non-mask-wearers, which suggests that comfort is not what makes someone wear or not wear a mask
Coronavirus: Why are Americans so angry about masks? - "Most Democrats support the wearing of masks, according to a poll conducted by researchers at the Pew Research Center. Most Republicans do not"
The fact that there is a strong political divide in mask wearing further suggests that comfort is not a major reason why people don't want to wear masks
Coping with face mask discomfort
Some of the reasons that masks are uncomfortable are still present with mouth-only masks: breathing is harder (people breathe through their mouth as well as their noses), claustrophobia is still present since your mouth is covered, the skin is still irritated since the mouth-only mask still touches the skin and the straps still hurt your ears (since the mask still needs to be secured). In any event, a mouth-only mask is still inferior in comfort to no mask
Leaving Your Nose Uncovered Defeats the Purpose of Wearing a Mask: Study Reveals - "just like the nose is better for breathing, the nose also appears to be better at spreading COVID-19. A study published in the journal Cell mapped locations in the respiratory tract where the COVID-19 virus most quickly invades, multiplies and spreads. They found the cells that line the nose were significantly more likely to become infected and shed virus compared to the throat or lungs. That means, every time a person exhales through their nose, they are likely generating a higher concentration of infectious aerosol than if they were simply breathing from their mouth. It also means, in order to block that infectious cloud from escaping to infect other people, it's just as important to cover your nose with a mask."
Stanford Faculty Smear Professor Who Spoke Accurately On Masks - "anonymous posters with the portrait of Stanford University Professor of Medicine Dr. Jay Bhattacharya were plastered on kiosks around the Stanford campus, linking him to COVID deaths in Florida. Even though cumulative age-adjusted COVID mortality is lower in Florida than in most other large states, these smears appeared. Taking it one step further, the chair of Stanford’s epidemiology department, Professor Melissa Bondy, circulated a petition among faculty members demanding that the university president exercise his obligation “to clarify for the faculty the limits of public pronouncements when proclaiming on public health policy.” The petitioners are upset that “several Stanford faculty members have publicly advocated for policies for others that are contrary to those the university has adopted” and that “these recommendations are disturbing and contrary to public health standards; they foster uncertainty and anxiety and put lives at risk.” While insidiously not naming anyone, the petition explicitly targets Bhattacharya by quoting his answer to a question from Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis about masks on children. He responded that “there is no high-quality evidence to support the assertion that masks stop the disease from spreading.” To deserve trust, scientists must be honest about what is and what is not known, and we agree with Bhattacharya. Randomized trials provide the best available research evidence to inform health-care decisions and are considered the gold standard for determining intervention effects. But no randomized studies have shown that masks in children are effective. Instead, there are observational studies of uneven quality that reach conflicting conclusions... surgical mask wearers in Denmark were between 23 percent more likely and 46 percent less likely to be infected by COVID. In a Bangladesh study, surgical masks reduced symptomatic COVID infections by between 0 and 22 percent, while the efficacy of cloth masks led to somewhere between an 11 percent increase to a 21 percent decrease. Hence, based on these randomized studies, adult masks appear to have either no or limited efficacy... Public health requires that scientists openly discuss their differences about the quality of available studies and data. When living up to their ideals, universities support such discussions by providing a forum for scientists to engage respectfully with one another without having to worry about silencing campaigns. Silencing debate will lead to ever more distrust in public health. Faculty petitions can be especially harmful. When circulated by a department chair, junior faculty members will feel pressured to sign. Even worse, it sends a message that open discussion and disagreement is not appreciated. The Stanford petition is unlikely to silence Bhattacharya, but unless there is a strong rebuke, it may have a sinister effect on other faculty members who are reasonably concerned about their careers and livelihoods. Stanford University’s striking motto is “The Winds of Freedom Blow.” It is tragic that other stronger winds are now passing through the Stanford campus that are destructive for science and the global scientific community."
Oregon working to put indoor mask rule in place indefinitely
How far we've come since "2 weeks to flatten the curve"
Dear Prudence: My husband won’t take his mask off—even for sex. - "For the last year, he has refused to take off his face mask, even when we are at home—just the two of us. This is true even now that he is fully vaccinated for the virus. He wears it to sleep, to do most of his bathroom activities, and, yes, even during lovemaking. To eat, he pulls it up to expose his mouth, and then quickly pulls it back down between bites. While he does not insist that I do the same, I can tell it bothers him that I don’t—especially because I have now started going maskless outside, per the CDC guidelines, and plan on restaurant dining inside soon for a girls’ night out. When I have tried to present him with the science, he says, “Scientists don’t fully understand the virus yet,” or, “I know it probably isn’t necessary, but wearing it doesn’t bother me, so if there’s even a small chance that it can protect us, I’d rather be on the safe side. What’s the harm?” I disagree that there’s no harm. I want to see my beautiful husband’s face again. I want to kiss him on the lips romantically, like we used to, and not through a piece of fabric. (He does not change his mask very often and it is often smelly and soiled.) And I don’t want to feel judged by him for my own behavior, which I consider reasonable. This is making me depressed and concerned about our future together. I have asked him when he plans to stop masking, and all he says is “When it is safe for everyone.” What if this becomes a permanent part of him? My mother, who is very conservative, thinks that I should move out."
Plus she's vaccinated too
Dr. Fauci: Masks On Planes Are Here Forever
Life can never go back to normal, apparently
‘You Seem Pretty Ambivalent About Your Mask’: Fauci Goes Mask On, Mask Off At Party - "Dr. Anthony Fauci, whose mask-messaging has been one of the chief criticisms leveled at him over the last year, reportedly alternatively put his mask on and took it off depending on whom he was speaking to at a party... “I said, ‘You seem pretty ambivalent about your mask’ because no one else was wearing one. He said, ‘I just decided that if anyone came up that I didn’t know, I would put my mask on.’” Guests at the book party had to show proof of being vaccinated to gain entry"
Apparently people you know are immune to covid
Face masks in the general healthy population. Scientific and ethical issues - "In most European countries, facemasks use is recommended or mandatory in enclosed spaces where physical distancing is not possible. In Spain, this measure was first extended to open public spaces and later made mandatory regardless of whether or not the interpersonal safety distance can be kept. At present, there is no evidence on the effectiveness of universal masking of healthy people in the community to prevent infection with respiratory viruses, including SARS-CoV-2. The mandatory use of masks poses some ethical questions. Firstly, it entails a paternalistic action. Secondly, application of the principle of precaution becomes questionable when there is no clear benefit-risk relationship. Thirdly, compulsoriness can interfere with equity of public health actions. Fourthly, it can result in social stigma and discrimination against those who do not wear one, even though they well may have good reasons for doing so. Lastly, this measure may generate confusion in the population, along with an altered perception of the risk. The World Health Organization recommends its use in public places with a high potential risk of transmission and where other prevention measures, such as physical distancing, are not possible. Mandatory use of masks in public open spaces, regardless of the risk of transmission or of whether or not the interpersonal safety distance can be kept, is an intrusive measure that restricts individual freedoms, and would not appear to be justified on the basis of available scientific evidence. What we need are recommendations explaining where, when, how and what type of mask to wear."
