Masks have been shown consistently over time and throughout the world to have no significant preventative impact against any known pathogenic microbes. Specifically, regarding COVID-19, we have shown in this paper that mask use is not correlated with lower death rates nor with lower positive PCR tests.
Masks have also been demonstrated historically to contribute to increased infections within the respiratory tract. We have examined the common occurrence of oral and nasal pathogens accessing deeper tissues and blood, and potential consequences of such events. We have demonstrated from the clinical and historical data cited herein, we conclude the use of face masks will contribute to far more morbidity and mortality than has occurred due to COVID-19.
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- As of October 2020, there are >1 million documented deaths with COVID‐19.
- Many early deaths may have been due to suboptimal management, malfunctional health systems, hydroxychloroquine, sending COVID‐19 patients to nursing homes, and nosocomial infections; such deaths are partially avoidable moving forward.
- About 10% of the global population may be infected by October 2020.
- Global infection fatality rate is 0.15‐0.20%
- Global infection fatality rate in those younger than 70 years old is 0.03‐0.04%.
- Targeted, precise management of the pandemic and avoiding past mistakes would help minimize mortality.
We call for collaborative efforts from scientists, manufacturers, and regulators to assess such risks and look for viable methods to reducing micro(nano)plastics and other respirable debris in face masks and respirators worn by a large population worldwide during the current pandemic.
There is no biological history of mass masking until the current era. It is important to consider possible outcomes of this society-wide experiment. The consequences to the health of individuals is as yet unknown. Masked individuals have measurably higher inspiratory flow than non-masked individuals. This study is of new masks removed from manufacturer packaging, as well as a laundered cloth mask, examined microscopically. Loose particulate was seen on each type of mask. Also, tight and loose fibers were seen on each type of mask. If every foreign particle and every fiber in every facemask is always secure and not detachable by airflow, then there should be no risk of inhalation of such particles and fibers. However, if even a small portion of mask fibers is detachable by inspiratory airflow, or if there is debris in mask manufacture or packaging or handling, then there is the possibility of not only entry of foreign material to the airways, but also entry to deep lung tissue, and potential pathological consequences of foreign bodies in the lungs.
Airborne simulation experiments showed that cotton masks, surgical masks, and N95 masks provide some protection from the transmission of infective SARS-CoV-2 droplets/aerosols; however, medical masks (surgical masks and even N95 masks) could not completely block the transmission of virus droplets/aerosols even when sealed.
The vitamin D endocrine system have a variety of actions on cells and tissues involved in COVID-19 progression.
Early calcifediol (25-hydroxyvitamin D) treatment to hospitalized COVID-19 patients significantly reduced intensive care unit admissions-Calcifediol seems to be able to reduce severity of the COVID-19.
Calcifediol seems to be able to reduce severity of the disease.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0960076020302764
A curated list of mask facts and medical publications.
COVID-19 is as politically-charged as it is infectious. Early in the COVID-19 pandemic, the WHO, the CDC and NIH’s Dr. Anthony Fauci discouraged wearing masks as not useful for non-health care workers. Now they recommend wearing cloth face coverings in public settings where other social distancing measures are hard to do (e.g., grocery stores and pharmacies). The recommendation was published without a single scientific paper or other information provided to support that cloth masks actually provide any respiratory protection. Let’s look at the data.
- Surgical masks are loose fitting. They are designed to protect the patient from the doctors’ respiratory droplets. There wearer is not protected from others’ airborne particles.
- People do not wear masks properly. Many people have the mask under the nose. The wearer does not have glasses on and the eyes are a portal of entry. If the virus lands on the conjunctiva, tears will wash it into the nasopharynx.
- Most studies cannot separate out hand hygiene.
- The designer masks and scarves offer minimal protection. They give a false sense of security to both the wearer and those around the wearer.
**Not to mention they add a perverse lightheartedness to the situation. - If you are walking alone, no need for a mask. Avoid other folks; use common sense.
- Remember: children under 2 years should not wear masks because of accidental suffocation and difficulty breathing in some.
- Even if a universal mask mandate were imposed, several studies noted that folks do not use the mask properly and over-report their wearing. Additionally, how would the mandate be enforced??
- The positive studies are models that assume universality and full compliance.
- If wearing a mask makes people go out and get Vitamin D – go for it. In the 1918 flu pandemic people who went outside did better. Early reports are showing people with COVID-19 with low Vitamin D do worse than those with normal levels. Perhaps that is why shut-ins do so poorly.
…it is recommended that improving vitamin D status in the general population and in particular hospitalized patients has a potential benefit in reducing the severity of morbidities and mortality associated with acquiring COVID-19.
https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0239799
COVID-19 is not a pandemic. It is a syndemic. The syndemic nature of the threat we face means that a more nuanced approach is needed if we are to protect the health of our communities.
A syndemic is not merely a comorbidity. Syndemics are characterised by biological and social interactions between conditions and states, interactions that increase a person’s susceptibility to harm or worsen their health outcomes. In the case of COVID-19, attacking NCDs will be a prerequisite for successful containment.
https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(20)32000-6/fulltext
None of this, however, explains the 40 years of medical
misinformation and suppression of the pharmaceutical truth.
To have covered up the knowledge for four decades that
viruses could potentially be treated by antimicrobials required
extensive effort:
• Censorship. It is likely that some scientists were never
published again after authoring one paper on the antiviral benefits of CQ.
• Buying silence of news media. This is evident from the
blackout across the political news spectrum concerning
vaccine adverse effects. Pharmaceutical manufacturers
provide the most lucrative advertising for both written
and broadcast news programs.
• Misdirection. For years, pharmacology professors in
medical schools have perpetuated lies of omission.
• Lies by drug companies. Merck was caught publishing its
own “peer reviewed” journal to promote its drugs.54
• Regulatory capture. “Big Pharma” essentially owns the
FDA by being its biggest funder and employing more
than 58 percent of the FDA’s upper-level regulators and
administrators either before or after their tenure.55,56
• Research funding. Big Pharma is the major funder of
nearly all “independent” drug research, and there is no
incentive to research cheap/ less profitable solutions.
The COVID-19 pandemic is calling attention to the
potential for treating viral diseases with currently available
drugs, and exposing long-available but ignored research.
The implications of all this are very disturbing. Where have
the virologists been, and the CDC “experts” who claim to care
about influenza deaths? Has the burgeoning nearly trilliondollar vaccine industry been built at the expense of patients’
lives?
Life expectancy at birth in the UK in 2017 to 2019 was 79.4 years for males and 83.1 years for females; slight improvements were observed from 2016 to 2018 of 6.3 weeks and 7.3 weeks for males and females respectively.
Our study shows that the COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in a large number of potentially missed or delayed diagnoses of health conditions, which carry high risk if not promptly diagnosed and effectively treated. Primary and secondary care services must proactively prepare to address the large backlog of patients that is likely to follow. Should a public health emergency on the scale of the COVID-19 pandemic occur in the future, or if subsequent surges in COVID-19 cases arise, national communication strategies must be carefully considered to ensure that large numbers of patients with urgent health needs do not disengage with health services.
https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanpub/article/PIIS2468-2667(20)30201-2/fulltext#
The number of new infections per day is a key quantity for effective epidemic management. It can be estimated by testing of random population samples. Without such direct epidemiological measurement, other approaches are required to infer whether the number of new cases is likely to be increasing or decreasing: for example, estimating the pathogen reproductive rate, R, using data gathered from the clinical response to the disease. For COVID-19 (SARS-CoV-2) such R estimation is heavily dependent on modelling assumptions, because the available clinical case data are opportunistic observational data subject to severe temporal confounding. Given this difficulty it is useful to reconstruct the time course of infections from the least compromised available data, using minimal prior assumptions. A Bayesian inverse problem approach applied to UK data on COVID-19 deaths and the disease duration distribution suggests that infections were in decline before full UK lockdown (24 March 2020), and that infections in Sweden started to decline only a day or two later. An analysis of UK data using the model of Flaxman et al. (2020, Nature 584) gives the same result under relaxation of its prior assumptions on R.
Almost half of patients with COVID-19 have abnormal chest x-ray findings with peripheral GGO affecting the lower lobes being the most common finding. Chest x-ray can be used in diagnosis and follow up in patients with COVID-19 pneumonia.
https://bmcpulmmed.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12890-020-01286-5
Accumulating data on deaths from covid-19 show an association with age that closely matches the “normal” risk we all face. Explaining risk in this way could help people understand and manage their response, says David Spiegelhalter
As covid-19 turns from a societal threat into a matter of risk management, it is vital that the associated risks are understood and clearly communicated.1 But these risks vary hugely between people, and so finding appropriate analogues is a challenge. Although covid-19 is a complex multisystem disease that can cause prolonged illness, here I focus solely on the risks of dying from covid-19 and explore the use of “normal” risk—the risk of death from all causes each year—as an aid to transparent communication.
- General population: the risk of catching and then dying from covid-19 during 16 weeks of the pandemic was equivalent to experiencing around 5 weeks extra “normal” risk for those over 55, decreasing steadily with age, to just 2 extra days for schoolchildren
- Over 55 who are infected with covid-19: additional risk of dying is slightly more than the “normal” risk of death from all other causes over one year, and less for under 55s.
Background:
Influenza infection is a common cause of respiratory disease and hospitalization in children. Neurologic manifestations of the infection have been increasingly reported and may have an impact on the severity of the disease. The aim of this study is to describe neurologic events in pediatric patients hospitalized with influenza and identify associated risk factors.
Methods:
Retrospective cohort study which included all hospitalized patients with microbiologic confirmation of influenza disease over 4 epidemic seasons, focusing on neurologic complications. Demographic, laboratory and clinical data, as well as past history, were recorded. Descriptive and analytic statistical study was performed using SPSS and R statistical software.
Results:
Two hundred forty-five patients were included. Median age was 21 months (interquartile range, 6–57) and 47.8% had a previous underlying condition. Oseltamivir was administered to 86% of patients, median hospitalization was 4 days (interquartile range, 3–6), and pediatric intensive care unit admission rate 8.9%. Twenty-nine patients (11.8%) developed neurologic events, febrile seizures being the most frequent, followed by nonfebrile seizures and encephalopathy. Status epilepticus occurred in 4 children, and 69.6% of seizures recurred. Patients with a previous underlying condition were at greater risk of developing a neurologic complication [odds ratio (OR), 4.55; confidence interval (CI), 95% 1.23–16.81). Male sex (OR, 3.21; CI 95%, 1.22–8.33), influenza B virus (OR, 2.82; CI 95%, 1.14–7.14) and neurologic events (OR, 3.34; CI 95%, 1.10–10.19) were found to be risk factors for pediatric intensive care unit admission.Conclusions:
A significant proportion of influenza-related hospitalized patients develop neurologic complications, especially seizures which may be prolonged or recurrent. Previous underlying conditions pose the greatest risk to neurologic events, which increase disease severity.
Are children as likely as adults to acquire COVID-19?
Emerging evidence suggests that children may be less likely to acquire the disease. This is supported in countries that have undertaken widespread community testing, where lower case numbers in children than adults have been found.4 14 44 45 Between 16 January and 3 May 2020, 35,200 children in England were swabbed for SARS-CoV-2 and 1408 (4%) were positive. Children under 16 years old accounted for only 1.1% of positive cases.
Can children transmit the virus?
The importance of children in transmitting the virus is difficult to establish, particularly because of the number of asymptomatic cases, but there is some evidence that their role in transmitting the virus is limited…
https://www.rcpch.ac.uk/resources/covid-19-research-evidence-summaries#transmission
“In the 14 days before illness onset, 71% of case-patients and 74% of control participants reported always using cloth face coverings or other mask types when in public.”
No statistically significant differences in the rates of hospitalization, admission to the intensive care unit, and mechanical ventilator use between children with COVID-19 and those with seasonal influenza.
Question What are the similarities and differences in clinical features between coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) and seasonal influenza in US children?
Findings In this cohort study of 315 children with COVID-19 and 1402 children with seasonal influenza, there were no statistically significant differences in the rates of hospitalization, admission to the intensive care unit, and mechanical ventilator use between the 2 groups. More patients with COVID-19 than with seasonal influenza reported fever, diarrhea or vomiting, headache, body ache, or chest pain at the time of diagnosis.
Meaning The findings suggest that prevention of both COVID-19 and seasonal influenza in US children is prudent and urgent for the well-being of this population.
https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle/2770250
While the testing data are so opaque, using them to direct local lockdowns is unhelpful, argues Heneghan. “The testing is there to drive the test and trace strategy,” he says. “But what seems to be happening is that, as soon as we see an outbreak, there tends to be panic and over-reacting. This is a huge problem because politicians are operating in a non-evidence-based way when it comes to non-drug interventions.”
https://web.archive.org/web/20200904104824/https://www.bmj.com/content/370/bmj.m3374.full