Masks still don’t work.

Confession: I get triggered by folks in masks these days. It’s me, not you. I was running on the Huckleberry Trail here in Blacksburg recently (it’s July 2022 – over two years since “15 days to slow the spread”)^[1]Before we blame President Trump for this egregious mistake, it’s important to note that this strategy was cooked up by Dr. Deborah Birx, admitted to her in recent book Silent Invasion. (See Deborah … Continue reading, and a young couple was walking on the trial – wearing masks.^[2]All evidence says that people under 70 are extremely unlikely to encounter significant health problems from COVID.

Nevermind all the other data that has poured in for the last two years about the ineffectiveness of lockdowns, social distancing, etc. The reason I get triggered is that it’s not good for people to wear masks constantly. Especially outdoors. In 92 degree heat (RealFeel that day was 100!). And it’s not good for people to wear masks when it’s been proven that they are completely ineffective.

I care. I care because when we remain silent about lies, it promotes falsehood. People who think masks have prevented the spread of the virus have believed a lie that our agencies and politicians refuse to proclaim was such. I don’t know why they insist on the narrative that “masks work.” They don’t.

One of the stories constantly trotted out is the near-universal masking during the 1918 Spanish Flu. What is not talked about is the near-universal admission post-1918 that masks didn’t stop the spread then either.

There’s a collection of historical articles here to show headlines and lessons learned from 1918 (which didn’t seem to be applied to the recent pandemic).^[3]1918 Newspaper Clippings – We’ve Known the Truth for 100 Years! by Justin Hart, Rational Ground, October 1, 2021

Here’s a poem “from The News Journal, Wilmington, Delaware, Feb 14, 1920 (still in publication today!), satirical in style, decrying the plethora of masks in 1920.”

A Merchant of Masks by Willis Steed

Masks! Masks! Who will buy?
Here are masks in profusion,
All sorts and all colors, try
Em on before a conclusion.
This one, sir? We call him Tartuffe
Why, I don’t know, but the name suits;
He was a poet you think? Like enough.
We traders in masks are but brutes,
We talk prose and the jingle we love
Is a clink, money clink.
That’s Byron; he fastens above
For a highbrow. Shelley’s? I think
He sells badly, too quaint,
Too removed from the fashion, a link
Betwixt hero and saint.
But you choose it. Good. Off he goes
Wearing the mask of a poet.
Over his ugly nose!
All men are fools and they show it
Under their masks!

Masks! Masks!
Players and painters and preachers,
Pretenders at all sorts of tasks,
Including a number of teachers,
How they growd up to be fitted!
Is this your choice, madam, this face?
All who have worn it admitted
It covers the lines that men trace
To a kind of living called fast.
Too dear? It can’t be for you,
For a semblance of the thing that’s past
People must believe it is true
Character no one will buy,
Amiable faces too,
To sell them ’tis no use to try.
Clever masks are best sellers,
more than a few
Ounces are eager for,
But the masks that would sell like hot cakes,
That every one’s an intriguer for
Are the sort… that nobody makes
These days. Masks! Masks!

Science says

The studies keep rolling in, and science is affirming what we knew about masks in February 2020, before they were politicized.

“Mask mandates were entirely ineffective at stopping the spread of Covid-19 throughout the pandemic.”^[4]Kyle Becker, The Wildfire Newsletter, July 6, 2022

Kyle Becker is an independent journalist has been tracking the continuing drama. His articles are worth reading.^[5]A recent article helpfully shows that the CDC has not been forthcoming about masking: New Study at ‘The Lancet’ Debunks Widely Cited CDC Study Justifying School Mask Mandates

Senator Rand Paul tweeted back in April:

“Now that mask wearing on planes is voluntary and virtually everyone has voted not to wear masks, we need to review dispassionately the literature that overwhelmingly shows masks to be ineffective for aerosolized viral disease.”

Now that mask wearing on planes is voluntary and virtually everyone has voted not to wear masks, we need to review dispassionately the literature that overwhelmingly shows masks to be ineffective for aerosolized viral disease.https://t.co/86mphMmyYB

— Rand Paul (@RandPaul) April 26, 2022

He linked to this massive study on the ineffectiveness of masks.

And if that’s not enough to at least make you question the CDC narrative, how about More than 150 Comparative Studies and Articles on Mask Ineffectiveness and Harms?

And that was published in December 2021. We know so much more now…^[6]It seems the dam has broken, and even MSM outlets are now questioning the effective of mask mandates – though some still want to claim masking for individuals works! (See this New York Times … Continue reading

In February 2022, our local school district received an excellent presentation from Dr. Noelle Bissell, director of the New River Health District. Feel free to watch her presentation (it starts with her comments about masks). She stated that after paying attention to studies, her opinion about the effectiveness of masks had changed. I appreciated her honesty.

But do masks actually make you sick?

One question that is being pursued by many is whether constant mask use actually increased your risk to illness from COVID and other diseases. There have been many studies (some debunked, others supported, showing that very thing^[7]How Masks Make You Sick Instead of Protecting You by Dr. Joseph Mercola. You can read the article for free here. An even better article by Justin Hart is Masking Children is Insane and Harmful. ). That will throw an obvious wrench into things…

I don’t know how to graciously tell people to take off their masks. If you have a suggestion, let me know.

Want more COVID research by independent researchers?

Try these:

1. The Robber Baron on Twitter^[8]He posts summaries of the latest studies for COVID and mitigation efforts each week. This week: “Covid does not spread more in academic settings”
2. Ian Miller at Unmasked 
3. Martin Kulldorf^[9]He is Professor of Medicine at Harvard University (on leave) and a Fellow at the Academy of Science and Freedom. His research focuses on infectious disease outbreaks and the monitoring of vaccine and … Continue reading at the Brownstone Institute and Twitter
4. Dr. Joseph A. Ladapo^[10]Surgeon General of the state of Florida. For a really sane look at how an entire state has managed COVID (better than California, New York, and most other states), check out the Florida Department of … Continue reading on Twitter
5. Justin Hart^[11]His article A Thread of Super Threads! is superb for putting all the questions about COVID and vaccines in one place. on Rational Ground

Keep in mind that these researchers, reporters, scientists, doctors and professors have been vilified, ridiculed and subjected to scathing “fact-checking” … and their information has stood the test of time over the past two years. What possible motivation could they have for enduring so much?

But people still think masks work…

“Repeat a lie often enough and it becomes the truth” – Joseph Goebbels, Nazi propagandist

It is an insidious psychological strategy used by those who have power over information and mediums to indoctrinate and reduce dissent. It has a name – the illusory effect (sometimes referred to as the illusion of truth effect).^[12]How liars create the ‘illusion of truth’ by Tom Stafford, BBC.com

The quote attributed to Goebbels above is pulled from a longer version:

“If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it. The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie. It thus becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of the State.”

Profoundly, Goebbels “probably got the idea from his boss:”^[13]https://www.answers.com/Q/Who_said_Repeat_a_lie_often_enough_and_it_will_believed

In Mein Kampf, Adolf Hitler said:

“But the most brilliant propagandist technique will yield no success unless one fundamental principle is borne in mind constantly and with unflagging attention. It must confine itself to a few points and repeat them over and over. Here, as so often in this world, persistence is the first and most important requirement for success.”

Did I just compare the CDC and pro-maskers to the Nazis? No. That’s not the point. The point is that there are infamous instances in history when narratives have been fashioned and lies have been told to control a populace. The motives vary (I can’t speculate here on why the mask mandate narrative has been predominant among one political party in the U.S.^[14]“More than 60 percent of very liberal Americans believe that mask mandates should continue for the foreseeable future. Most moderates and conservatives see mandates as a temporary strategy that … Continue reading; that’s for others to solve.).

Just because you repeat something over and over doesn’t make it true. It may be propaganda. Or worse. Psychologist Daniel Kahneman in Thinking, Fast and Slow, says, “A reliable way to make people believe in falsehoods is frequent repetition, because familiarity is not easily distinguished from truth.”^[15]Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman (New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2011), 62. You can get this book on Kindle FREE if you have Amazon Prime. (italics mine)

Simply put. Masks still don’t work.