‘Masks are, at best, marginally useful indoors in crowded settings,’ ex-N.Y. Times reporter tells Tucker Carlson
Excerpted from: Alex Berenson: ‘Wear a mask’ social pressure has ‘real consequences’ by Angelica Stabile, 25 September 2020 | Fox News
Americans are being harshly judged for disobeying coronavirus mask guidelines — and the social pressures are more dangerous than the risk from the virus, journalist Alex Berenson claimed Thursday on “Tucker Carlson Tonight.”
Berenson, a former New York Times reporter, is the author of “Unreported Truths About COVID-19 and Lockdowns.”
“Masks are, at best, marginally useful indoors in crowded settings, OK?” Berenson told host Tucker Carlson. “And the evidence that people have tried to drum up in the last six months to suggest otherwise is almost embarrassingly weak.”
Recent global studies regarding the efficiency of masks have been inconsistent, Berenson argued, adding that before the pandemic became politicized in the U.S., science suggested that masks were “broadly useless” in a public setting.
Continue reading ‘Wear a mask’ social pressure has ‘real consequences’ at Fox News
Meanwhile Simon Kent writing for Breitbart news in a piece dated 29 September demonstrates the hyperbolic, over the top, sociopathic and possibly even psychopathc tendencies of those that demand absolute adherence and compliance with universal masking.
‘Star Trek: Discovery’ Star Jason Isaacs: People Who Don’t Wear Masks Should Be in Prison or ‘Hanging in the Streets’
People who refuse to wear masks — or wear them improperly, or “who don’t wear it over their nose” — should be “in stocks, in prison, or hanging in the streets,” according to Star Trek Discover star Jason Isaacs.
“I am less annoyed by the people who don’t wear masks, who should be in the stocks or prison, but the people who don’t wear it over their nose,” Isaacs said doing an interview with talk show host Lorraine Kelly. “Or the people who pull it down to have a chat and then pull it back up, they should be hanging in the streets!”
Mr. Kent goes on to point out the growing rage felt by those in the mask compliance movement;
Anti-mask rage is becoming more palpable, seemingly, by the day. Earlier this month, Twisted Sister singer Dee Snider took to social media to condemn anti-maskers who went into a Florida Target store blaring the group’s hit “We’re Not Gonna Take It” while ripping off their masks. In a tweet Wednesday, Snider called the stunt “moronic,” and shared a video that was recorded by an upset customer inside the Target at Coral Ridge Mall in Fort Lauderdale. The video had more than 30 million views.
Interestingly enough, in an article published in the New England Journal of Medicine, the premier peer reviewed medical publication of the United States, published by Michael Klompas, M.D., M.P.H., Charles A. Morris, M.D., M.P.H., Julia Sinclair, M.B.A., Madelyn Pearson, D.N.P., R.N., and Erica S. Shenoy, M.D., Ph.D. titled Universal Masking in Hospitals in the Covid-19 Era; we find this little gem:
We know that wearing a mask outside health care facilities offers little, if any, protection from infection. Public health authorities define a significant exposure to Covid-19 as face-to-face contact within 6 feet with a patient with symptomatic Covid-19 that is sustained for at least a few minutes (and some say more than 10 minutes or even 30 minutes). The chance of catching Covid-19 from a passing interaction in a public space is therefore minimal. In many cases, the desire for widespread masking is a reflexive reaction to anxiety over the pandemic.
One paper cited as reference for their claims was published in Science Direct by Doctors Miguel Angel Royo-Bordonadaa,Fernando JoséGarcía-López, Fátima Cortés, and Gustavo Andrés Zaragoza. Their finding(s) were titled; Face masks in the general healthy population. Scientific and ethical issues
In most European countries, facemasks use is recommended or mandatory in enclosed spaces where physical distancing is not possible. In Spain, this measure was first extended to open public spaces and later made mandatory regardless of whether or not the interpersonal safety distance can be kept. At present, there is no evidence on the effectiveness of universal masking of healthy people in the community to prevent infection with respiratory viruses, including SARS-CoV-2. The mandatory use of masks poses some ethical questions. Firstly, it entails a paternalistic action. Secondly, application of the principle of precaution becomes questionable when there is no clear benefit-risk relationship. Thirdly, compulsoriness can interfere with equity of public health actions. Fourthly, it can result in social stigma and discrimination against those who do not wear one, even though they well may have good reasons for doing so. Lastly, this measure may generate confusion in the population, along with an altered perception of the risk. […]. Mandatory use of masks in public open spaces, regardless of the risk of transmission or of whether or not the interpersonal safety distance can be kept, is an intrusive measure that restricts individual freedoms, and would not appear to be justified on the basis of available scientific evidence.
The Spanish Doctors used the pejorative, “paternalistic action.”
Paternalism, attitude and practice that are commonly, though not exclusively, understood as an infringement on the personal freedom and autonomy of a person (or class of persons) with a beneficent or protective intent. Paternalism generally involves competing claims between individual liberty and authoritative social control. Questions concerning paternalism also may include both the claims of individual rights and social protections and the legal and socially legitimated means of satisfying those claims. The discursive use of the term paternalism is almost exclusively negative, employed to diminish specific policies or practices by presenting them in opposition to individual freedom.[1]
Justified, authoritative social control, becomes the main question in the argument for or against universal masking. Most of us contend that if you want to wear a mask, please feel free to do so, but in the same respect, do not deny the rest of us the right not to wear a mask.
In a follow up, attempting to rectify their transgression of discrediting the official scientism doctrine of unquestioned universal masking, Michael Klompas, M.D., M.P.H., Et Al wrote;
We understand that some people are citing our Perspective article (published on April 1 at NEJM.org)1 as support for discrediting widespread masking. In truth, the intent of our article was to push for more masking, not less. It is apparent that many people with SARS-CoV-2 infection are asymptomatic or presymptomatic yet highly contagious and that these people account for a substantial fraction of all transmissions.2,3 Universal masking helps to prevent such people from spreading virus-laden secretions, whether they recognize that they are infected or not.4
We did state in the article that “wearing a mask outside health care facilities offers little, if any, protection from infection,” but as the rest of the paragraph makes clear, we intended this statement to apply to passing encounters in public spaces, not sustained interactions within closed environments. A growing body of research shows that the risk of SARS-CoV-2 transmission is strongly correlated with the duration and intensity of contact: the risk of transmission among household members can be as high as 40%, whereas the risk of transmission from less intense and less sustained encounters is below 5%.5-7 This finding is also borne out by recent research associating mask wearing with less transmission of SARS-CoV-2, particularly in closed settings.8 We therefore strongly support the calls of public health agencies for all people to wear masks when circumstances compel them to be within 6 ft of others for sustained periods.[2]
When you thoroughly research the available papers by diverse researchers published in various peer reviewed journals you begin to realize that masking is only effective in closed environments for extended periods. And homemade or commercially available cloth masks are totally ineffective in stopping the intake of aerosolized droplets expelled by the infected person; only high grade medical masks are capable of reducing the spread of Covid-19 in this regard.
Even in the papers cited above, the likelihood of contracting the disease in a casual environment such as passing another shopper in the grocery store or at an outdoor event where social distancing is observed, is infinitesimally small. So why trample all over the rights of those who find masks intrusive? Could this be, as conspiracy theorists contend, a ramp up to total social control?
[1] Paternalism https://www.britannica.com/topic/paternalism
[2] Universal Masking in the Covid-19 Era https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMc2020836
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