Top Medical Journal Exposes Myth of Face Masks for COVID-19
A new paper from the New England Journal of Medicine exposes the myth that mask wearing will protect you from the corona virus. It warns that “wearing a mask outside health care facilities offers little, if any, protection from infection.”
The paper, ‘Universal Masking in Hospitals in the Covid-19 Era‘ (May 21, 2020) suggests that advocating the wearing of masks in public merely offers a psychological, not a medical, reassurance. [1]
The authors write:
“In many cases, the desire for widespread masking is a reflexive reaction to anxiety over the pandemic.”
The paper is also careful to balance those statements by then explaining why wearing a mask in a clinical setting is advisable and recommended. However, the policies of compulsory mask wearing by large sections of the healthy population is a very different context from that found inside hospitals. The authors explain:
“What is clear, however, is that universal masking alone is not a panacea. A mask will not protect providers caring for a patient with active Covid-19 if it’s not accompanied by meticulous hand hygiene, eye protection, gloves, and a gown. A mask alone will not prevent health care workers with early Covid-19 from contaminating their hands and spreading the virus to patients and colleagues. Focusing on universal masking alone may, paradoxically, lead to more transmission of Covid-19 if it diverts attention from implementing more fundamental infection-control measures.”
The overriding message is that masks serve symbolic rather than clinical roles when deployed outside of a medical facility. The paper ends by declaring:
“Expanded masking protocols’ greatest contribution may be to reduce the transmission of anxiety, over and above whatever role they may play in reducing transmission of Covid-19.”
Reference:
[1] N Engl J Med 2020; 382:e63 (published May 21, 2020) DOI: 10.1056/NEJMp2006372
Read more at www.nejm.org
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Carl
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“Expanded masking protocols’ greatest contribution may be to reduce the transmission of anxiety . . .”
I would say that the opposite is true. Going out in public and seeing everyone wearing masks creates anxiety. Were as going out in public and seeing no one wearing a mask does not.
That is, unless your news source is CNN or you are listening to governor Cuomo who said, “You don’t wear a mask for yourself. You wear a mask to protect me. . . You could literally kill someone because you didn’t want to wear a mask. How cruel and irresponsible would that be?!”
The fact is, it is the one-sided, 24/7 fear-mongering mass media that has created the anxiety that for some people wearing a mask reduces.
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Andy Rowlands
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The WHO has also said there’s no point in wearing masks in the fresh air, so I also think it is more of a psychological crutch than anything else, though the amount of vitriol I’ve seen from some people on social media suggests they think anyone not wearing a mask wishes to kill people. When I have tried to explain or show how cases and deaths in the UK are reducing fast, I have had some quite nasty responses.
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Dev
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Masks, gloves and distancing – virtue signalling!
Gives psychological credence to this absolute farcical crapolavirus meme.
Masks are equivalent to keeping insects off your property with a chain link fence,
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wally
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It may keep out the big ones !!!!!!!
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Squidly
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I like the mask wearing idea. It makes the morons easily identifiable in public so I can stay away from them. Keep wearing masks so I can identify the morons .. thank you!
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NecktopPC
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Neither SURGICAL nor (should have been especially) cotton masks effectively filtered SARS–CoV-2 during coughs by infected patients.
The size of the SARS–CoV particle from the 2002–2004 outbreak was estimated as 0.08 to 0.14 μm; assuming that SARS-CoV-2 has a similar size, SURGICAL MASKS are unlikely to effectively filter this virus.
https://www.acpjournals.org/doi/10.7326/M20-1342
(mine) EMPHASIS supplied.
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