Posts tagged as “masks”

Chris Christie’s WSJ COVID Op-Ed Leaves Too Much Fat on the Bone

Chris Christie’s WSJ COVID Op-Ed Leaves Too Much Fat on the Bone

By John R Guardiano on October 25, 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.

Unmasking the Lies About Masks

Unmasking the Lies About Masks

By John R Guardiano on October 4, 2020

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.

Why Do Some People Embrace Mask Wearing to Stop the Coronavirus?

Why Do Some People Embrace Mask Wearing to Stop the Coronavirus?

By John R Guardiano on May 31, 2020

Hint: it has nothing to do with science and reason and everything to do with politics and feelings.

I noted here at ResCon1 that there is no compelling scientific evidence that wearing a mask stops the spread of the coronavirus.

And in fact, masks can be positively counterproductive because they give people a false sense of security, “thereby leading them to take fewer precautionary measures that actually do help stop or prevent the virus’s spread.”

Yet, masks are all the rage, with some states, like Virginia, now requiring that masks be worn in all public places, including restaurants and retail stores. Why is this?

Again, it has nothing to do with science because the science is clear: As Dr. Mike Ryan, executive director of the World Health Organization’s (WHO’s) emergencies program explained at a media briefing in March:

There is no specific evidence to suggest that the wearing of masks by the mass population has any potential benefit. In fact, there’s some evidence to suggest the opposite in the misuse of wearing a mask properly or fitting it properly.

According to the WHO today, “If you are healthy, you only need to wear a mask if you are taking care of a person with COVID-19.”

Association. Still, some people have argued that because masks are commonplace in certain countries or jurisdictions that have done a relatively good job of containing the spread of the coronavirus, masks must, therefore, be effective. But this is silly. Association, obviously, is not causation.

In these same places where masks are commonplace and the coronavirus is relatively contained, people may eat healthy and hearty breakfasts and refrain from drinking alcoholic beverages. Does this mean that healthy and hearty breakfasts and the absence of alcoholic beverages stop the spread of the coronavirus and thus should be mandatory?

In truth, 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.

This matters because the victims of COVID-19 are overwhelmingly the elderly and those with with underlying medical ailments and chronic diseases.

Feelings. But despite the utter lack of scientific and empirical evidence to support mask wearing, masks have a cult-like following, and for several reasons, I think.

First, there is the understandable belief that they might do some good and, therefore, are worth the annoyance and imposition.

A member of my own family expressed this sentiment well. “If stuck in a room for 12 hours with a person who has COVID-19,” he writes, “wouldn’t you feel better if that person had a mask on?”

That’s a fair and legitimate question, and I suppose the answer is: Yes, I would. But our feelings can be deceptive. They can give rise to a false sense of hope.

That’s why public policy should not be based on feelings. Public policy should be based on facts, logic and empirical evidence.

Masks are like chicken soup. They may make us feel better; but neither a mask nor chicken soup is effective at stopping or combating a virus.

If your sore throat feels better by eating chicken soup, then by all means do so. But please don’t think that chicken soup will heal your sore throat or free you of a viral infection, because it won’t.

By the same token, if wearing a mask makes you feel better or safer—or if it gives you the sense that you’re doing something helpful in this pandemic—then by all means, wear a mask. But please don’t think that your mask will do anything to stop the spread of the coronavirus, because it won’t.

Symbolism. Another reason public health officials push masks is because they see them as a powerful symbol to remind people that we are still in a pandemic and thus need to be extra careful.

In this view, it really doesn’t matter whether the mask actually stops the spread of the coronavirus. What matters is that it gives people pause, causes them to think, and induces them to act appropriately.

This is the position of Dr. Anthony Fauci, who heads up the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease. Back in March, Fauci admitted that people should not be wearing a mask.

“There’s no reason to be walking around with a mask,” Fauci told 60 Minutes.

When you’re in the middle of an outbreak, wearing a mask might make people feel a little bit better, and might even block a droplet. But it’s not providing the perfect protection that people think it is.

And often, there are unintended consequences. People keep fiddling with the mask, and they keep touching their face.

Fauci has since changed his position and says he now thinks people should wear a mask. However, his reason or rationale for changing his position is telling. It’s not that the science behind wearing a mask has changed, because it hasn’t.

Instead, Fauci says, the masks are a powerful “symbol” to prod people to do the kinds of things that they should be doing—mainly social distancing—that will protect people and the public health.

Politics. Some people, moreover, are smitten with masks because they view masks as public rebuke to President Trump, who has declined to wear a mask.

Worse yet, in the view of these anti-Trump political partisans, the president even castigated one reporter for trying to be “politically correct” when that reporter refused to remove his mask while asking Trump a question in the White House rose garden.

In this view, wearing a mask is a way to thumb your nose at Trump.

This, in fact, is why Biden has conspicuously taken to wearing a mask: It’s a way for him to identify with and bond with his left-wing supporters. And forcing all Americans to wear a mask is a way to isolate Trump and have the citizenry en mass thumb them their collective noses at him.

“What could be more delicious!” think Biden’s “progressive” partisans.

A similar and sometimes overlapping group of anti-Trump “progressives,” meanwhile, supports mandatory mask wearing as a means of keeping the citizenry fearful and the country in lockdown.

These “progressives” understand that when Americans are fearful and America is in crisis, it is much easier to impose sweeping statist measures that will “fundamentally transform” America along socialist and redistributionist lines.

Indeed, for the left, the mask is a convenient political tool that will help them to impose their statist agenda on an otherwise resistant citizenry.

The bottom line: there are several reasons, ranging from the benign to the malevolent, that people support mandatory mask wearing despite the lack of scientific evidence that masks stop the spread of the coronavirus.

But regardless of the reason or rationale, the groupthink that now dominates our politics, our media, and our culture—to wit: that wearing a mask is a self-evident good that will protect us and the public health—is counterproductive and untrue.

And no matter what you think, we all should agree: truth, science and reason should trump feelings, sentiment and wishful thinking.

Feature photo credit: New York Post.

Social Distancing, Yes; Mask Wearing, No.

Social Distancing, Yes; Mask Wearing, No.

By John R Guardiano on May 25, 2020

“The debate over whether Americans should wear face masks to control coronavirus transmission has been settled,” declares the New York Times‘ Knvul Sheikh. “Governments and businesses now require or at least recommend them in many public settings.”

Sheikh is right about the requirement or recommendation to wear masks in many public settings, but wrong about how the debate has been settled.

In truth, the masks do little or nothing to prevent the spread of the coronavirus, and actually cause real harm: by giving some people a false sense of security, thereby leading them to take fewer precautionary measures that actually do help stop or prevent the virus’s spread.

Social distancing, for instance, makes good public health sense. Yet, how many times have we seen people donned up in full mask-covering mode standing just inches away from a friend or colleague who is talking, gesticulating, or jointly texting on their phone?

I’ve seen this image many times. These people no doubt think they’re safe and doing the right thing because they are wearing a mask, but nothing could be further from the truth.

The mask, of course, does not protect the mask wearer. Instead, the mask theoretically protects other people from being the infected by the mask wearer if the mask wearer is an unknown or asymptomatic carrier of the coronavirus.

(A known or symptomatic carrier of the coronavirus would presumably be self-quarantined and not out and about in a public setting.)

I say theoretically because the logic or rationale behind the requirement to wear a mask depends on dubious assumptions that don’t stand up to practical, everyday scrutiny.

Makeshift Cloth Masks. First, the studies and analyses that say masks can prevent the spread of the coronavirus involve surgical masks. But most people aren’t wearing surgical masks. Instead, they’re wearing makeshift cloth masks, which are inherently subpar and leaky.

“Fabric masks also allow air in around the sides, but lack non-woven, moisture-repelling layers. They impede only about two percent of airflow in,” said May Chu, a clinical professor in epidemiology at the Colorado School of Public Health in an interview with LIveScience.

N95 surgical masks, reports Live Science, “effectively prevent viral spread [by filtering] out 95 percent of particles .03 microns or larger.”

However, because N95 surgical masks are in short supply, even for the medical professionals who most need them, and because they are difficult to properly wear or fit, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) “does not recommend them for general use.”

As for airflow outward through a mask, whether surgical or nonsurgical, studies report marginal benefits at best.

“The evidence for the efficacy of surgical or homemade masks is limited, and masks aren’t the most important protection against the coronavirus,” LiveScience notes.

“To me, it’s not harmful to wear these masks, but it doesn’t look from this study, [April 3, 2020, in the journal Nature Medicine], like there is a whole lot of benefit,” said Rachel Jones, an associative professor of family and preventative medicine at the University of Utah…

The recommendations that everyone wear masks are because “any kind of impediment is better than nothing,” Chu said. But fabric masks are not expected to be as protective as surgical masks, she said…

“There’s been enough research done to be able to confidently say that masks wouldn’t be able to stop the spread of infection, that they would only have a small effect on transmission,” added Ben Cowling, head of the Divison of Epidemiology and Biostatistics at the Hong Kong University.

“We shouldn’t be relying on masks to help us get back to normal.”

“Another April study, published in the Annals of Internal Medicine,” writes Mark Siegel, a clinical professor of medicine at NYU Langone Health, “revealed that the force of sick patients’ coughs propelled droplets through both surgical masks as well as cloth masks.”

The CDC,” Siegel explains,

based its revised mask recommendation on studies that found asymptomatic spread was far more common than had been thought. But there have been no studies on masks’ effectiveness in preventing it [emphasis added].

Although the coronavirus is highly contagious, it is much less so than, say, measles, which can linger in the air for two hours after a cough. a sneeze or even speech.

By contrast, the Covid-19 virus has not been proved to be aerosolized. Coronaviruses often enter the body through the eyes, and frequent hand and face washing and social distancing is much more effective than masks at preventing that.

Moreover, as Sheikh acknowledges:

“Many people also wear masks incorrectly, letting them dangle off the tips of their noses, or concealing just their mouths.

People also tend to readjust face masks frequently, or remove them to communicate with others, which increases their risk of being exposed or infecting others, he said.

He is Dr. Eli Perencevich, an infectious disease physician at the University of Iowa and the Iowa City Veterans Affairs Health Care System. Dr. Perencevich recognizes the problems inherent with masks, which is why, as Sheikh reports, he advocates the use of face shields instead.

Face shields, unlike masks,

protect the entire face, including the eyes, and prevent people from touching their faces or inadvertently exposing themselves to the coronavirus.

Face shields may be easier to wear than masks, he said, comparing them with wearing glasses or a hat. They wrap around a small portion of a person’s forehead rather than covering more than half their face with material that can create the urge to itch.

Importantly, face shields are far more sanitary than masks, which are supposed to be disposed of or regularly washed, but often aren’t. Indeed, mucus and germs can and do accumulate on the mask, thus putting the wearer at risk of other viral infections.

“The nice thing about face shields,” by contrast, “is that they can be resterilized and cleaned by the user, so they’re reusable indefinitely until some component breaks or cracks,” Dr. Yu said. A simple alcohol wipe or rinse with soap and hot water is all it takes for the shields to be contaminant-free again.

Dr. Yu, Sheikh notes, is a dermatology resident affiliated with Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston.

Siegel agrees: face shields make a lot more sense than masks. “When I worked on a coronavirus ward, I felt much safer because I also wore a plastic face shield, which blocks viral particles from even reaching the mask,” he writes.

Science Says. But my point here is not to argue for face shields instead of masks. My point is that people who (often self-righteously) insist we wear masks do so not because the science impels them to. They do so because it makes them feel good.

In truth, the science behind mask wearing is weak and lacking. The science behind social distancing, hand washing, and good hygienic practice, by contrast, is strong and compelling.

Which is why I avoid wearing a mask whenever I can while still practicing social distancing. The latter makes individual and public health sense; the former does not.

Feature photo credit: The Catholic Weekly.