Face Masks and Panic Porn

Panic porn has taken over even the medical community that should know better.  Dr. Ted Noel is an anesthesiologist who has rounded up plenty of data and studies about whether these annoying face masks are doing any good.  He concludes his American Thinker piece:

Of key interest, in one CDC study, 85% of COVID victims report nearly always wearing face masks. One study claiming benefits had to be withdrawn after its conclusions were contradicted by continuing experience. Others have major confounding variables. Mask advocates ignore significant downsides such as reduced personal performance, severe psychosocial consequences, and difficulty breathing. And the Danish Mask Study, a “gold standard” randomized, controlled study, showed no benefit to mask wearing in the general population.

Difficulty breathing is something I didn’t quite appreciate during the thirty-six years I wore a mask on a daily basis in the operating room. After all, masks were a part of life. But I always dropped my mask the moment I left the OR, and almost every other OR staff member did the same. It’s really simple. Masks increase your work of breathing. If you’re wearing a properly fitted N-95, all your air has to come in and out through that filter material. That’s work. And it makes you short of breath.

Do a simple experiment. Fold a bath towel a couple of times and try to breathe through it. Make sure you aren’t breathing around it. The filtration from the fabric creates resistance to air flow. Now do it for several minutes. That’s what breathing through an effective mask feels like. You’ll get short of breath, and as soon as you can, you’ll take it off. What you felt was increased work of breathing. And that’s why the movies often show someone being strangled with a pillow.

Most Americans intuitively recognize that masks don’t reduce infections. But they go along with the virtue signaling to be good citizens. And, to make their own life a bit better, they use a single thickness gaiter over their mouth and nose like a train robber. Or they use a face shield that does nothing at all other than “covering” their mouth and nose without restricting air flow. Often you see them with a mask over their mouth but not their nose. And of course, President Biden doesn’t wear one in the Oval Office.

Returning to Einstein, since a single mask doesn’t help in the general populace, why should anyone think that double masking might help? Or quadruple, as Dr. Segal suggests. Such suggestions fall under the logical designation of “magical thinking.” Or as Albert Einstein is reputed to have said, insanity.

The full article is here.  I wear my mask around my chin as a small protest. I’ve been asked to wear it over nose and mouth only once – at a medical clinic.

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