A Review Of Research Papers On Masks
Summary
- Pandemics are not new. They have been with humanity for ever.
- Masks are not new. They have been used for over two thousand years.
- Scientists have studied masks and their benefits in controlling pandemics.
- Scientists were surprised that masks did not work.
- There is some evidence that masks in fact spread disease.
Pandemics are very old, and people have naturally tried various things to protect against them.
Mask usage is not new either, for instance Jains of India have used masks for over two thousand years.
Naturally, people have put the concepts together and wondered if masks can protect them in pandemics.
There has been some protection in fact, the plague doctors used masks that were useful in controlling pandemics that spread via saliva droplets.
However, what's medicine in one case can be poison in another.
In viral respiratory pandemics, masks are not useful and harmful in fact.
Viral respiratory pandemics - such as Covid-19 - are not new. Earlier scientists referred to them as ILI - Influenza Like Illness. ILI have been widely researched. We now understand them to be viral illnesses of the respiratory system.
It is a bad idea to use masks in a viral respiratory pandemic. Restricting oxygen intake and reducing metabolic energy when it is needed most is a bad idea. Moreover, the common masks are transparent to viruses. Even worse, some of the viruses attach to the mask fiber and masks become coated with the virus and become a tool for spreading the illness and for helping mutations.
The modern (as in 2019-2020) science about mask usage is not good science, it is all based on hypothetical computer modelling with unscientific and uninformed assumptions. It is not based on real-world data or on real science.
Below are some research papers on the subject.
Caveat about the papers: one cannot just read "conclusions" and jump to conclusions. I have highlighted important information from INSIDE the research papers.
Study: Masks Fail to Filter Virus in Coughing COVID-19 Patients
The next reference is a book, reference is to an Amazon preview.
Influenza, a Study of Measures Adopted for the Control of the Epidemic
See page 13 for their conclusions on masks. People were very surprised that masks did not work, but they reported the results as they measured them.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7191274/
Quote: "Medical masks were not effective, and cloth masks even less effective."
This paper above is often quoted to support mask usage. But the only important point here (which most people miss) is that they went through 172 studies, and found not ONE single controlled study that said masks are beneficial. It's all hypotheticals, with no real data.
Quote: "Neither face mask use and hand hygiene nor face mask use alone was associated with a significant reduction in the rate of ILI cumulatively." (See table 4 in fulltext to reconcile the "talk" with the data.)
So this is a bit of what I reviewed, and found out that "experts" were not reading the papers, but just the "conclusions".
What about the research that says masks are useful?
Here:Face Masks Against COVID-19: An Evidence Review
The important thing to note is that the research that says not to use masks, is controlled research. The paper above which says to use masks, is NOT controlled research, it's just a bunch of arguments. They are saying "Virus works this way, masks works this way, therefore the spread of disease is going to work this way." All theoretical, all based on their genius, not on any scientific evidence.
A controlled study is not about hypothetical arguments, it is about measurement. Apples to apples.
On such hypothetical arguments and no actual apples to apples testing, is all media's "masks work against Covid-19" is based.
Hundred years of controlled research says masks are useless.
And worse...
This paper says (INSIDE, look halfway between Fig 1 and Table 3):
"The study suggests cloth masks may increase the risk of infection"
Masks. Increase. Infection. If this is incorrect, why is this not being openly refuted, but suppressed by overwhelming media "scientists say" type of assertions?
Basically, science says masks kill. There is other evidence that Covid-19 is a seasonal disease. Without masks, it would have gone away over the summer, possibly to return at end of year.
Instead, due to masks, we have thousands of people dying in USA every single day of Covid-19, while in the rest of the world outside the Western media influence the pandemic is mostly over.
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