Thursday’s Maskless Forever Wide Open Comments

The Highly Sought After Covid + Anti-Mosquito Mask Available Only in Cut & Shoot

(Disposable Gloves Come Free of Charge)

Christopher Rufo contributes one article and Jeffrey H. Anderson has two.  Please read and save all three of these link-rich articles full of solid, incontestable evidence against wearing masks unless, of course, you are performing open heart surgery today.

City Journal contributing editor John Tierney called Cochrane “the world’s largest and most respected organization for evaluating health interventions.” A recent Cochrane review found that “[w]earing masks in the community probably makes little or no difference to the outcome of influenza-like illness (ILI)/COVID-19 like illness”—or “to the outcome of laboratory-confirmed influenza/SARS-CoV-2”—“compared to not wearing masks.” The review also found that “use of a N95/P2 respirators compared to medical/surgical masks probably makes little or no difference” for the “outcome of laboratory‐confirmed influenza infection.”

and this which is insulting to any conscious, thinking man or woman,

In response, Oreskes claimed that “[t]he Cochrane finding was not that masking didn’t work but that scientists lacked sufficient evidence of sufficient quality to conclude that they worked.” She continues, “Jefferson erased that distinction, in effect arguing that because the authors couldn’t prove that masks did work, one could say that they didn’t work. That’s just wrong.”

You got that ?  If your Chevrolet pickup truck dies on the side of the road and you say it won’t run this Harvard professor of the history of science will publicly call you a liar and maintain your truck not moving down the road is insufficient evidence to claim it doesn’t run.  She will demand more proof.

Remember thousands of parents each year cough up a minimum of $80,000 in tuition, meals and lodging for a single child to attend a school with bombastic imbeciles like this Oreskes woman lecturing them.

Moreover, “The use of a N95/P2 respirators compared to medical/surgical masks probably makes little or no difference.” Stating things even more plainly, the review’s lead author, Oxford’s Tom Jefferson, said of masks in a subsequent interview with Australian investigative journalist Maryanne Demasi, “There is just no evidence that they make any difference. Full stop.”

and furthermore,

Surgical masks were designed to protect patients’ open wounds from being infected by medical personnel, not to prevent the spread of viruses. N95s were designed to protect workers from breathing in dust, fumes, or smoke. On the occasions that N95s were worn in hospitals pre-Covid, it was usually to protect against the spread of tuberculosis bacteria, not to protect against the spread of viruses. As an article on the National Institutes of Health website, published in the less politicized pre-Covid days, puts it, “Viruses are tiny. . . . Billions can fit on the head of a pin.” Bacteria are comparatively huge: “Bacteria are 10 to 100 times larger than viruses.”

The author of this second article is Jeffrey H. Anderson, founder of the American Main Street Initiative, a think tank for everyday Americans.

One major difference between then and now is the increased role of public health officials. Long before their ascension, Socrates made clear in Plato’s Republic that he did not want doctors to rule. Philosophers or even poets would be better governors of society, because they at least attempt to understand political and social life in its entirety and minister to the human soul. Doctors, by contrast, tend to disregard the soul: it is the nature of their art to focus on the body in lieu of higher concerns. Moreover, Greek philosophers and poets alike celebrated courage in the face of death—Plato’s Socrates and Homer’s Achilles were undeterred from their noble missions by fear of the grave. But rule by public health officials, under which we increasingly live today, encourages excessive risk-aversion and almost transforms cowardice into a virtue.

plus this one,

The day after the CDC endorsed nationwide mask-wearing, President Trump announced, “I won’t be doing it personally.”* From that instant, the mask quickly became a symbol of civic virtue—a sort of Black Lives Matter flag that could be hung from one’s face. For many it conveyed a trio of virtues: I’m unselfish; I’m pro-science; I’m anti-Trump. What it also conveyed, incidentally, was rejection of longstanding Western norms, unhealthy risk-aversion, credulous willingness to embrace unsupported health claims, and a pallid view of human interaction.

American Main Street Initiative 

* I had forgotten about this, but it was in the back of my memory.