We cannot say we don’t live in interesting times, can we? Just recently the public school board that my six year-old son is currently registered with sent an update on school openings which included this announcement:
We will be following our public health authorities’ recent recommendation that all students in Grades 1 to 12 be required to wear a mask or face covering while indoors at school.
The notion that a school board would have the right to force my son to wear a mask over his face to pursue a public education, or that I would be forced to keep him home if I didn’t want him wearing a mask, which would greatly impact my ability to work, is egregious to me.
And, as far as I can tell, it is not even legal. There is no ‘law’ in Ontario stating that a child has to wear a mask in school. There is an amorphous “public health authorities’ recommendation” which I don’t see being based in science, statistics, past experience or common sense. We will get to the science in a minute.
Lawsuit in Ontario
There is actually a lawsuit in the province of Ontario, where I live, being led by lawyer Rocco Galati. One of the plaintiffs is Vaccine Choice Canada, and this press release by VCC president Ted Kuntz describes the nature of the lawsuit and links to the statement of claim filed by Mr. Galati which seeks an injunction against ALL Covid measures endorsed by government.
Canada’s governments have failed to present robust and verifiable scientific evidence to legitimize the ongoing emergency measures, nor offered a medical and economic cost-benefit analysis of the impact of such measures.
It has long been obvious that the health, social and economic consequences of the Covid-19 measures are dire and adversely affect the well-being of the citizens of Canada. Yet, our governments and health agencies have been oblivious to the mounting damage and deaf to the pleas of citizens, civil-society organizations, and medical and research experts. Under these circumstances the only recourse is legal action.–Ted Kuntz
My situation with my son being forced to wear a mask at school is just my personal example. But every single one of us has been touched by masking mandates of different types, at work, when shopping, in large gatherings, and so on. And if you ask me when I thought mask mandates were reasonable and just, I would unhesitatingly say none of them. Not now. Not during the height of a second wave. Not ever. My belief is that if the science, statistics, history and common sense all indicated that it would be beneficial to humanity for each person to wear a mask, then there would be no need to mandate it. Most of the population would do it by choice.
Accordingly, I think those individuals who believe masks are ineffective in preventing the spread of a virus and may even be harmful to their own health would best serve the rest of humanity if they stopped wearing a mask. This article series is devoted to the premise that we all need to stop wearing masks right now. First, here is what the science has to say about it.
Masks are Ineffective
In June Denis Rancourt, a researcher at the Ontario Civil Liberties Association, published a paper entitled ‘Masks Don’t Work: A Review of Science Relevant to COVID-19 Social Policy‘. The main premise of the paper is as follows:
There have been extensive randomized controlled trial (RCT) studies, and meta-analysis reviews of RCT studies, which all show that masks and respirators do not work to prevent respiratory influenza-like illnesses, or respiratory illnesses believed to be transmitted by droplets and aerosol particles.
Here are some of the conclusions that some of the researchers came to:
“None of the studies reviewed showed a benefit from wearing a mask, in either HCW or community members in households.”–Cowling, B. et al. (2010)
“There were 17 eligible studies. … None of the studies established a conclusive relationship between mask/respirator use and protection against influenza infection.”–bin-Reza et al. (2012)
“A total of six RCTs involving 9,171 participants were included. There were no statistically significant differences in preventing laboratory-confirmed influenza, laboratory-confirmed respiratory viral infections, laboratory-confirmed respiratory infection, and influenza-like illness using N95 respirators and surgical masks.”–Long, Y. et al. (2020)
Of course, this article received pushback, and the editors welcomed contrarian views in the interest of truth and science and were willing to publish them. This lead the publishers to put out an update on August 12th entitled ‘Still No Conclusive Evidence Justifying Mandatory Masks.’ where they analyze and comment on all the rebuttals they have received. What they found was that, although there were some nit-picky and sometimes even ad hominem attacks on Denis Rancourt, the overall conclusion remains the same: there has been no RCT scientific studies that prove that mask-wearing prevents the spread of viruses–because there aren’t any. I don’t ask you to take my word for it, I ask you to read these articles and also do your own search for such studies and see what conclusions you come to.
The fact that it is being recommended to the world that people wear cloth masks or even home-made masks to prevent the spread of the virus lays the whole fallacy bare. As the illustration below vividly demonstrates, wearing a cloth mask to prevent the transmission of a virus is like building a chain-link fence to prevent mosquitoes from coming into your yard.
Further, some experts in mask manufacturing and testing have said that the gaping openings on top and on the sides of masks that are not fully sealed over the mouth and nose make it as easy to contract a virus as if the person wasn’t wearing a mask. This is because the mask can push a high percentage of the inflow and outflow of your breathing to the periphery of the mask, giving ample entry to airborne particles through these gaps no matter what size the particles are.
Physical And Psychological Harm From Masks
For most people, common sense would dictate at least a suspicion that the prolonged wearing of masks could cause physical and psychological harm. Many people I know have had actual experiences of discomfort, in the form of headaches, dizzy spells and the like, especially at the workplace.
I have seen several videos of people who seemed to know what they were doing who have measured their oxygenation levels (the amount of oxygen they are taking in with each breath) while wearing a mask. Their conclusion was that after a few breaths the mask was causing a drop in their oxygenation levels. Unfortunately, now that I am looking for them on Youtube, I can’t find them. The only Youtube videos I see are those that try to prove that oxygen levels are not impacted by mask wearing.
Neither type of video constitutes rigorous scientific study, so at this point I am neither accepting or denying as fact that prolonged mask-wearing is dangerous to one’s health. Nor am I confident that doing a Google search on RCT studies on the short and long term effects of prolonged mask-wearing would cause physical harm. But just the fact that, as with many other issues today, the social media giants’ algorithmic bias against anything that does not support and reinforce the mainstream narrative on the Pandemic and its recommended measures indicates that there is a lot of fear about giving equal coverage to both sides of the question.
The psychological harm that may be caused by prolonged mask use would be even harder to scientifically measure or determine. In the absence of rigorous data, we are left to come back to the center of what it is to be a free, thriving, happy human being, and note that there is absolutely no place for mask-wearing for those seeking optimal health and happiness.
Certainly the conclusions I have drawn on the psychological implications of mask-wearing on my son is that it would likely be a cause of anything from mild fear/anxiety and social inhibition to deep and immeasurable psychological trauma. Even the least of these impacts is not acceptable to me, and I will defend my son’s right to not wear a mask to my death, or at least until I become thoroughly convinced that it is in the public good to do so.