Posts published in October 2020

Chris Christie wants desperately to get back in the good graces of the media and political elite. So he wrote a self-serving op-ed that misleads the public about masks, while failing to tell the truth about what really must be done to combat COVID.

Chris Christie thinks he erred by not wearing a mask. I’m here to tell you that his real problem is gross obesity; and that if he cares about his health, he needs to go on a diet and exercise, and worry less about wearing a mask.

And what is true of Christie is true of most Americans: Our biggest health risk, by far, is not that we fail to cover up (our faces); it is that we fail to cut back (on our consumption of food).

Christie, of course, is the former Republican governor of New Jersey. He contracted the coronavirus after huddling in close quarters with President Trump and other advisers as they prepared Trump for his Sept. 29, 2020, presidential debate with Joe Biden.

“I should have worn a mask,” Christie writes in the Wall Street Journal.

It was a serious failure for me, as a public figure, to go maskless at the White House. I paid for it, and I hope Americans can learn from my experience. I am lucky to be alive. It could easily have been otherwise.

Evidence and Data. In truth, there is no real evidence or data to demonstrate that a mask would have prevented Christie from contracting the coronavirus. His problem was not that he failed to wear a mask; it was that he failed to social distance by going to the White House in the first place. (Have you heard of Zoom or FaceTime, governor?)

And, as far as being “lucky to be alive,” this is hyperbolic. Again, the data show otherwise: According to Johns Hopkins University’s Coronavirus Resource Center, the case fatality rate in the United States for COVID19 is 2.6 percent.

In other words, more than 97 percent of those who get the virus here (confirmed cases) do not die as a result.

In fact, because physicians and patients understand the virus better and have developed better therapeutics and better treatment regimens, increasing numbers of Americans—including, for instance, President Trump—are recovering remarkably quickly and with fewer side effects and complications.

Obesity. But if you’re obese—as millions of Americans are—you are at heightened risk not only of contracting the virus, but of suffering serious complications as a result, including death. As Yale Medicine reports:

“We all know that older age is the greatest risk factor. But obesity is emerging as one of the next most important ones,” says Dr. Ania Jastreboff, MD, PhD, a Yale Medicine endocrinologist and obesity medicine physician.

“Additionally, if you consider other diseases implicated with COVID-19 severity such as type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease, or hypertension, obesity is a common contributor underlying all of them.”

And it looks like the excess weight itself is problematic, not just the other health conditions it causes.

“Early data support that obesity is an independent risk factor, meaning that if you control for diabetes, heart problems, hypertension, and other medical conditions, obesity—itself a chronic disease—may potentially be the unifying disease involved in exacerbating COVID-19,” Dr. Jastreboff says.

In fact, one study out of New York City showed obesity was a stronger factor predicting hospitalization for COVID-19 than high blood pressure, diabetes, or cancer—or even pulmonary, kidney, or coronary disease.

Another study, which looked at hospitalized COVID-19 patients under age 60 in New York City, found that individuals who have obesity were twice as likely to be hospitalized and even more likely to require critical care than those who do not have it.

This matters because obesity is an epidemic problem in America. Some 42.4 percent of adults, and 20.6 percent of adolescents (12-19 year-olds), are obese, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Christie is one of them. He has been chronically obese his entire adult life. Yet, nowhere in his Wall Street Journal mea culpa does Christie mention his weight—or obesity in general—as a problem or risk factor for COVID. But doing so, obviously, would have been a real public health service.

Nor does Christie mention the fact that patients who have taken Vitamin D and Zinc supplements have averted the worst outbreaks of the virus. But again, doing so would have been a real public health service.

Instead, Christie gratuitously attacks a straw man: people who don’t wear a mask because they supposedly think a mask is a sign of weakness or political virtue signaling.

Unmasked. In truth, there are perfectly legitimate reasons not to wear a mask. These include:

• the fact that there are no valid scientific studies or data to demonstrate that masks are effective at stopping the spread of the coronavirus or any other virus;
• masks instill in many people a false sense of confidence that they are safe and protected by a mask, worn either by themself or by others; and that they can refrain, therefore, from social distancing;
• masks inhibit effective communication—including, importantly, non-verbal, facial communication; and
• in places that have good ventilation, and which allow for social distancing, masks are, at best, superfluous, redundant, and unnecessary.

Polarization. Christie also laments the “polarization of something as practical as a mask.” But who has polarized the mask and made it a symbol of seriousness about COVID19?

The media and political elite, who have been on hair-trigger alert for whenever a political or public figure—especially President Trump—is or is not wearing a mask.

The President, by contrast, has been a model of tolerance and open-mindedness: by choosing sometimes to wear a mask and other times not to wear a mask. Trump, moreover, has allowed his staff to don masks without judgment or pressure from him either to do so or not to do so.

In short, Christie’s complaint about the polarization of the mask is misplaced; and his focus on the mask as the critical public health measure that we all should embrace is equally misplaced.

And Christie’s focus is deliberately misplaced because he is less interested in performing a genuine public health service than he is in getting back in the good graces of the media and political elite.

In truth, if you want to avoid coming down with a bad case of the coronavirus, go on a diet, exercise, and lose weight. Take Vitamin D and Zinc supplements. Social distance and avoid crowds.

Wear a mask if it makes you feel better, but as the data clearly shows: wearing a mask is the very last thing you should worry about.

Just don’t ask Chris Christie. He’s too interested in what the media and political elite think than in what the science demonstrates.

Feature photo credit: Chris Christie courtesy of Chance Dagger’s Notes on Contemporary Life.

Our elites tell us ad nauseam that masks will stop the spread of COVID. There’s only one problem: they’re wrong, and Sweden shows why.

Now that President Trump has contracted the coronavirus, our elites have renewed their heavy-handed push to try and shame everyone into wearing a mask.

Of course, the efficacy of masks is always assumed and never questioned or challenged. But in truth, the scientific evidence for the efficacy of masks is utterly lacking.

The studies that purport to show masks work often conflate mask use with other practices (such as social distancing) that do work to conclude, erroneously and illogically, that masks are the independent variable which resulted in stopping or slowing the spread of COVID.

Or they point to other countries (such as Hong Kong, Taiwan, and the Czech Republic), where mask use reportedly is widespread and the coronavirus relatively contained, and conclude (erroneously and prematurely) that masks are the reason for these countries’ success.

But this assumption is a leap of faith. Association, after all, does not equal causation. In truth, as I’ve observed here at ResCon1:

there are too many other potential explanatory factors at work to explain why some countries and regions have been better able to avert or avoid the coronavirus.

Mask wearing populations may be more fastidious and disciplined about social distancing, which is effective at stopping the spread of the coronavirus.

Or they may suffer fewer medical complications and co-morbidities. Maybe they’re a younger demographic.

Sweden. Moreover, how do the mask zealots explain the relative success of Sweden and other Nordic countries, where masks are almost universally shunned?

As the New York Times reported last week from Stockholm, facemasks in Sweden are “nowhere to be seen.” Yet Sweden increasingly is seen as an exemplary model of how to manage a viral pandemic.

The Swedes made a critical mistake early-on by rationing care for nursing-home patients and failing to protect their more vulnerable elderly population.

However, Swedish leaders learned from their mistake and have since done a good job at containing the spread of the virus—and they have done so without economic lockdowns and mandatory mask orders.

“As I write this on 20 September 2020,” concedes Richard Smith in the BMJ Opinion Journal,

the difference in the number of cases in Sweden and most of the rest of Europe is striking. Most countries in Europe have a rapid rise in cases, whereas Sweden does not. Spain, which had one of the most severe lockdowns, has one of the steepest increases.

Adds the Medical Xpress:

Public health officials [in Sweden] argue that masks are not effective enough at limiting the spread of the virus to warrant mass use, insisting it is more important to respect social distancing and handwashing recommendations…

Sweden’s public health officials say they see no reason to change their strategy given the seemingly positive trend—including their stance on masks.

State epidemiologist Anders Tegnell of the Public Health Agency insists scientific studies have not proven that masks are effective in limiting the spread of the virus, suggesting they can do more harm than good if used sloppily.

“There are at least three heavyweight reports—from the World Health Organization, the (EU health agency) ECDC and The Lancet report that the WHO cites—which all state that the scientific evidence is weak. We haven’t carried out our own assessment,” he recently told reporters…

“Several countries that introduced masks are now seeing big resurgences [in COVID infections],” he said on August 14, 2020.

Politically Taintned Science. Why do Swedish public health officials have such a strikingly different view on the efficacy of masks than their American counterparts?

A big reason is that Swedish public health officials are much less politicized and tainted by political concerns. Recall that social distancing was a public health imperative in the United States—until it wasn’t because of the “Black Lives Matter” protests.

“Swedish health authorities,” explains Dr. Greg Ganske in the Des Moines Register, “are very independent and largely shielded from politics. They pride themselves on ‘following the science’ and are highly respected by the population.”

In the United States, by contrast, too many public health officials follow the political herd and say what is politically expedient, not what is scientifically necessary and warranted.

As a result, we get a lot of glib commands to “wear a mask!”—as if doing so is a self-evident truth that must be obeyed rather than a highly dubious edict that doesn’t pass scientific muster. President Trump, after all, was indifferent to masks, and look at what has happened to him!

But partisan political concerns and a desire to thump Trump in the court of public opinion should not sway or influence public health guidance. Follow the science, not the politically motivated herd.

Scrupulously social distance; avoid crowds (especially indoors); wash your hands; and practice good hygiene. And don’t worry about wearing a mask—and don’t worry about whether your fellow shoppers or neighbors are wearing a mask!

The science simply doesn’t show that masks work. Just ask the Swedes.

Feature photo credit: Washington Post.