The photo at the left shows Nancy Pelosi, Speaker of the House and the most influential woman in America, at a large dinner party in Napa surrounded by a crowd of invited political guests. Even though she is around 80 and in a high risk group, she is not wearing a mask and neither are her guests. Despite her words to the contrary, are her actions telling us that masks are not really needed if we have been vaccinated?
Actually I have wondered about the effectiveness of masks in protecting us from the coronavirus from day one. I know some people attribute the absence of flu last year to the use of masks, but I believe that social distancing and the fact that children and teachers have not been in school did more to stop the flu than anything. In any event, the masks have obviously not stopped the coronavirus which still remains with us after more than a year of mask mandates.
Last fall, I visited my Ear, Nose, and Throat doctor (ENT) because of sinus related symptoms. He did a test and the results showed that I had a staph infection. Although staph infections can be severe, mine was not. He prescribed an inexpensive anti-biotic that did the trick. He said that he was treating an above average number of staph infections this year.
I asked him if he thought the increase could be related to the masks that everyone was wearing to protect against the coronavirus. “Definitely,” he answered. He went on to explain that most of the staph infections he treated were in the mouth and nasal passages. Could it be that the masks are causing more harm than good?
About the same time, my local newspaper contained an editorial with this banner headline: “Wear a mask for the sake of strangers.” It went on to explain that “anyone whose face is now uncovered in public is truly unmasked as a nonconformist…. But by scorning masks many outliers express disregard for the rest of humanity.” The editorial went on to complain that there will always be people who resist social norms and laws, and applauded the Governor’s intention to impose monetary fines on non-compliers.
However, there was not one bit of science in the paper’s editorial. Why are we wearing masks? At the beginning of the pandemic my local state representative in her regular newsletter urged all of her constituents to wear masks, and she provided a link to a scientific study.
I went to the link and discovered that it was a study of the efficacy of wearing masks in a hospital environment. Well, duh! Who would doubt the value of doctors and nurses wearing masks in an operating room? The masks are worn to protect patients whose defenses are breached in the course of surgery. Any open wound is prone to infection. Moreover, medical professionals are trained in the proper use of masks, and usually discard them after one use. Even so, many patients still develop infections while in hospital settings.
Use the loops to take your mask on and off.
Do not touch your mask while you are wearing it.
Be sure your mask covers your nose, mouth and chin.
I love advice like this that is almost impossible to follow for ordinary people. Just look at people adjusting their masks while putting them on or taking them off. Imagine not touching your mask inadvertently. Also, how many times do you see people with their masks only covering their chin? Ordinarily, our skin protects us from germs of all kinds even when they land on our chins but when you move the mask from your chin to cover your nose and mouth, you are potentially bringing all sorts of bacteria into your mouth and nasal passages.
Although politicians and media commentators continue to urge people to wear masks in public, I have seen no study that would indicate that they are effective in keeping ordinary people from infecting others, or being infected by others. Indeed, a Google search for studies of mask effectiveness fails to find any conclusive scientific studies. Controlled scientific studies of public mask wearing are almost impossible to conduct. Actually, when government officials claim that two masks might be necessary, they are tacitly admitting that one mask is not effective. Social distancing and frequent washing makes more sense to me.
Nevertheless, it is now regarded as a kind of crime against humanity to appear in public without a mask. Although there is no scientific study that children can infect others, all children must wear masks in school. Does anyone remember the many diseases that children brought home from school in previous years? Why weren't masks needed then?
On a somewhat related note, my local newspaper ran a front page story last year with the headline: “Doctors drop use of lead X-ray aprons.” Apparently, doctors at Yale Hospital are abandoning the lead shields because they have found that they actually do more harm than good.
Describing it as a monumental shift in medical practice, the radiology director at Yale explained that over the past 50 years “they were taught over and over again to shield, to shield, to shield … to protect the patient. However, research has found that the lead shield not only does little if anything to protect the gonads from radiation that might cause genetic defects or cancer, but that it may result in an increase.”
Fifty years of science out the window. It will be interesting to read the final scientific verdict on the wearing of masks. We have already discarded the practice of continually wiping down surfaces. Will the masks be next?
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