Intro
With winter here for many of us, so comes with it an increase in respiratory illnesses. Flu season, as they call it. Except for when COVID was apparently with us and ‘ravaging through society’, the flu all but disappeared, coincidentally…
Where I’m at, I’ve seen an uptick in mask usage unfortunately. In the streets, in crowded outdoor spaces, and indoors as well. Young, old, tourists, I’m seeing a ~10% increase in usage.
Because I recently included in a recent article about how Taiwan, on December 1st, just removed its outdoor mask mandate, the science-followers they clearly are, and because of increased mask usage where I am, it got me thinking – when will the masks end? Is there a connection between mask usage and culture? Will parts of the world continue masking whenever the government tells them?
Do the masks even work?
Let’s start with a fundamental analysis. If the masks worked, could we pinpoint when a mask mandate went into effect and a subsequent decline in cases/deaths? Have there been many studies prior to COVID that demonstrate the ineffectiveness of masks - surgical up to N95s - that we can point to that show any statistically significant difference?
And the answer to all of these is: No. They’re talismans at best - magical charms that the wearer thinks kills COVID immediately. It has become a magical force field.
Too bad it’s like trying to keep a mosquito out of a chain-link fence.
But I digress…
Going back decades, governments have published studies showing the ineffectiveness of masks against respiratory viruses. Even Fauci mentioned in March 2020 that they’re ineffective, then subsequently retracted that statement a few months later – ‘the science’ must have suddenly changed.
This analysis of 170 comparative studies done by the Brownstone Institute explains,
It is not unreasonable to conclude that surgical and cloth masks, used as they currently are being used (without other forms of PPE protection), have no impact on controlling the transmission of Covid-19 virus. Current evidence implies that face masks can be actually harmful. The body of evidence indicates that face masks are largely ineffective.
The majority of wearers aren’t wearing properly fitted masks, nor are they properly swapping out fresh masks – they’re wearing loosely-fitted masks for weeks at a time. I’ve seen people drop their mask on the ground, pick it up, and put it on their face!
Yep, it’s all about safety. And not using your brain.
Tom Woods created a website called covidchartsquiz.com that tested people on the effectiveness of various government regulations. The site uses graphs and government-provided data to ask the user COVID-related questions such as the one below.
The site provides example after example of the ineffectiveness of all of these silly regulations in ‘stopping the spread’. Instead they wrecked economies, stunted childhood development, and myriad other destructive outcomes. But those were supposedly an afterthought - we all know it was deliberate, however.
Who is wearing a mask now?
Various outlets and voices are still pushing the mask. It’s become too much of their identity. They can’t imagine a world full of bare faces again.
A recent article out of the New Yorker was one of the worst pieces of journalism I’ve ever read. It’s titled The Case for Wearing Masks Forever.
Written by Emma Green, an overpaid hack that’s written for The Atlantic as well, she tries to make her case for permanent masking.
Last December, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced that it was shortening the recommended isolation period for those with covid-19 to five days. Getting exposed to the virus no longer meant that people needed to quarantine, either, as long as they were fully vaccinated and wore a mask. It was a big moment, and it occurred just as the Omicron variant was surging. Mindy Thompson Fullilove, a professor of urban policy and health at the New School, was livid.
Fullilove, who is Black, has spent her career studying epidemics: first aids, then crack, then multidrug-resistant tuberculosis. She has seen how disease can ravage cities, especially in Black and working-class communities. From the beginning, Fullilove was skeptical of how the federal government handled the coronavirus pandemic. But these new recommendations from the C.D.C., she said, were “flying in the face of the science.” Not long after the announcement, she sent an e-mail to a Listserv called The Spirit of 1848, for progressive public-health practitioners. “Can we have a people’s CDC and give people good advice?” she asked. A flurry of responses came back.
The start of the second paragraph is almost too ridiculous to include. Why does it matter that she’s black? Why does the race card need to be played here? And now they don’t trust the CDC, which is “flying in the face of the science” all of a sudden? It’s such trash reporting.
And guess what? A ‘People’s CDC’ actually came out of this flurry of responses. It’s a group of activists, ‘doctors’, academics, and other commies “who believe that the government has left them to fend for themselves against covid-19”. More trash reporting. More victim mindset.
And showing their commie leanings, they don’t believe in hierarchies and even call each other comrade!
No one is in charge of the People’s C.D.C., and no one’s expertise is valued more than anyone else’s. The problems of “the pandemic and its response are rooted in hierarchical organizations,” Mary Jirmanus Saba, a filmmaker and one of the volunteers, told me.
And, comrade, the journalistic masterpiece doesn’t stop there,
Fullilove would neither confirm nor deny whether there are any current C.D.C. employees involved with the People’s C.D.C., but, in a recent Webinar, Edgar Rivera Colón, who often serves as the group’s meeting facilitator, claimed that there has at least been some moral support: “We have comrades that are within the C.D.C. who are saying to us, ‘Go ahead with your bad selves.’ ” The volunteers don’t necessarily agree among their bad selves about what, exactly, their larger goal is—whether their project is a protest, an act of mutual aid, or an exercise in shadow governance. What’s clear is that the People’s C.D.C. interprets evidence about this stage of the pandemic, and what we should do about it, differently than the C.D.C. and the White House.
I won’t continue citing the article. It’s madness. But for comedic purposes have a full read.
Generally speaking, aside from the freakshows as part of the People’s CDC, the US gave up masking quicker than most countries from what I could gather. Many countries, and even large segments of the US population (the big blue areas and even universities), are still stuck in the masking illusion/trance though.
Asia has been masking for decades now. Whether for pollution or the common cold/other respiratory illnesses, masking is quite common to see outdoors even. The data isn’t clear on whether masks even protect against pollution – some they work, others don’t. As I mentioned above, the science based country of Taiwan just announced they lifted the outdoor masking requirement on December 1st. Yes, an outdoor mask requirement just a month ago. Science!
Judging past behavior and the constant ‘threat of new variants’, I imagine wide swaths of Asia will continue the charade. Maybe for pollution, maybe for another government fear campaign for another virus. A lot of this has to do with cultural elements as well. To be seen as not thinking of one’s neighbor is a much bigger deal than, say, the US’ individualistic mindset. Cultural forces continue the charade to a large degree.
Also a serial offender for COVID masking has been Latin America. Even now, particularly in the big cities, masking is the norm even outside. Kids walking on the street can frequently be seen with a silly mask on. It’s child abuse. It’s absolute ignorance. Some countries are better though. My time in Mexico, for example, led me to believe there will be a double digit percentage of people that never stop masking. I couldn’t help but feel empathy for them. It seems their brains were fried from all of the propaganda.
Moving forward
The virus has been endemic for a while now. If such a virus isn’t caught at ground-zero and immediately contained, there’s really no way to stop it. As the Great Barrington Declaration outlined, at that point it’s really just about protecting the vulnerable while the rest go on with their lives. Let individuals gauge their level of risk and not upturn the world for a virus with a 99.7%+ IFR.
The media and the establishment can’t seem to let COVID go, either. There’s always going to be a new variant with a new scary name. The most recent one is apparently ‘the most transmissible’ and is spreading everywhere. But it’s basically a cold at this point. It’s well past time to move on.
If people want to keep wearing a mask, so be it. But don’t force it on me, or manipulate the government to demand I wear one. Unless a new virus comes out which is actually deadly and there are studies to show preventative measures actually work, then get the big tech censors out of the way and let a healthy debate carry on.
Throughout the past three years I rarely wore a mask. Not because I didn’t care, it was precisely because I cared enough to do my own research and realize what a joke it was.
Besides, if the mask is so effective for you, why do I need to wear one? And doesn’t the vaxx and sixth booster give you superior protection?
Just let us live our lives. Wear your freakshow face talisman and let me be.
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