Unmasking the Mandates

If at first you fail-- fail, fail and fail again.

Remember mask mandates. Remember the general hysteria over vaccines and mask mandates. The people who want to have absolute control over the dissemination of information were seriously involved with forcing people to do what they wanted them to do. That included taking the covid vaccine and wearing masks.

Anyone who disputed these imperious dictates was immediately canceled and silenced. The philosopher kings who decided by themselves what was or was not disinformation prevailed over the viewpoints of serious scientists. 

Given the level of danger, open discussion and debate was shut down. The apocalyptic rhetoric that had long surrounded all discussions about the weather was transferred to the virus. 

So, America ignored the science and embraced the opinions of bureaucrats. By now, we should all know that these policies caused more suffering than they prevented. We should know that the virus did not prevent the disease from being transmitted. And we should all know the downside of mask mandates.

We should, but apparently, we do not. The Biden administration is getting ready to force vaccination on everyone. Can mask mandates be far behind?

Normal interpretation suggests that the government is softening up the population, teaching it to be obedient. If the government can get you to walk around with a useless mask on your face, what else can it force you to do?

And when it can do so despite the evidence, why would you ever think that this was about anything more than mind control?

Obviously, the assault on bodily autonomy has an illustrious history. Children who want to enroll in school must be vaccinated against a variety of illnesses. And yet, these are highly contagious illnesses, whereas Covid-19 is not very contagious for children. In truth, most countries and more than a few American states kept schools open, without there being any ill effects.

Of course, all rules have exceptions. German judge Christian Detmer overturned a mask mandate for school children in the state of Thuringa. For his efforts he is losing his legal career, losing his pension and receiving a two year suspended prison sentence.

Just in case you think that America is uniquely insane over the issue.

For now we will follow John Tierney, who explains in detail, that wearing masks is a health hazard, in and of itself.

Moreover, while masks do not deprive you of bodily autonomy, they cause you to lose face. They cause you to be largely unrecognizable. If you are tempted to make shoplifting your career, you will be happy to know that you can now enter a store masked without provoking any suspicion.

For those who know the Bible, we recall that there is a special importance in seeing face to face. Today, of course, what with the mania over texting, people rarely communicate face to face. And this means that young people, in particular, rarely communicate with each other. Thus, they feel chronically disconnected and depressed. 

So, masking produces mental health problems. If you are in the business of mental health, this is good news. If you are not, it is not. Besides, forcing people to disconnect makes them more vulnerable and thus easier to manipulate. 

Tierney effectively made the case against masking:

Never mind that at least 97 percent of Americans have Covid antibodies in their blood as a result of infection, vaccination, or both. Never mind that actual experts—the ones who studied the scientific literature before 2020 and drew up plans for a pandemic—advised against masking the public. Never mind that their advice has been further bolstered during the pandemic by randomized clinical trials and rigorous observational studies failing to find an effect of masks and mask mandates. Scientific evidence cannot overcome the maskaholics’ faith.

In some cases, masking produces medical problems:

A possibly toxic effect of prolonged mask-wearing, particularly for pregnant women, children, and adolescents, was identified in a review of the scientific literature published this year by German researchers. They warn that mask-wearers are rebreathing carbon dioxide at levels linked with adverse effects on the body’s cardiovascular, respiratory, cognitive, and reproductive systems. Writing for City Journal, Jeffrey Anderson summarized their conclusions: “While eight times the normal level of carbon dioxide is toxic, research suggests that mask-wearers (specifically those who wear masks for more than 5 minutes at a time) are breathing in 35 to 80 times normal levels.”

As for the science, Tierney turns to the Cochrane review:

Cochrane, the preeminent authority for evaluating medical evidence. The Cochrane review concluded that wearing a mask of any kind “probably makes little or no difference” in reducing the spread of Covid, flu, or respiratory illnesses. Maskaholics were reduced to arguing that the masks’ effects were too subtle to be detected in clinical trials. (Imagine a drug company trying to make that argument to the Food and Drug Administration.) 

But the masks’ futility was also evident in Covid trends around the world. Unmasked Swedes fared much better than other Europeans forced to wear masks. A 2021 study comparing states across the U.S. found no association between mask mandates and the spread of Covid. The mandates’ irrelevance was especially obvious in a graph tracking weekly changes in Covid rates and mask policies during the first two years of the pandemic: the weekly rates of Covid infection in states without mask mandates remained steadily the same as in states with mandates. There was also virtually no difference in the rates of cumulative mortality (the rate was slightly lower in the states without the mandates).

As it happened, when children wore masks they suffered emotionally and academically. 

The researchers found that a mandate had no significant effect on cumulative Covid infections or mortality, but that it did correlate with one statistically significant effect: a decline in fourth-graders’ test scores. That’s not hard to explain, considering the evidence that masks interfere with children’s ability to learn. What’s inexplicable is the singular cruelty of America toward children. All European countries have followed the recommendation of the World Health Organization (WHO) not to mask children under age six, and some haven’t masked children under 12, but the CDC continues recommending masks for children two years old and above—while denying that there are any adverse effects.

As noted above, certain German states are the exception to this rule, but, we nevertheless should know by now that masks are not only ineffective in stopping the spread of the virus but are damaging in and of themselves.