On July
1, Pennsylvania’s Rachel Levine published an “Order of the Secretary of the
Pennsylvania Department of Health Requiring Universal Face Coverings.” This is merely the latest, of course. For ninety days, everyone inside a building presenting
a prescription or getting an oil change or purchasing a banana had to wear a
mask, as well as the people who filled the prescription or changed the oil or sold
the banana. But that wasn’t enough. Now if there’s some chance you might come
closer than six feet from somebody outside,
on a running track or at a farmers market or pushing your child on a swing,
you are required to wear a mask as well.
Why? Well, there’s not a lot of explanation for
that. We’re all just supposed to know it
because it is pounded home to us on every newscast and in every newspaper. “Wear your mask! It’s the smart thing to do! We’re all in this together!” Etc.
So I
went there, and first of all, it was not easy.
The address of the CDC site is not hyperlinked in the Order, and since
it was published as a PDF file, I also couldn’t figure out how to copy and
paste the address. (My browser? My ineptitude?) What I had to do was manually type the more
than 100 characters of the address into my search engine, and of course, I made
a couple of mistakes before I got it right.
Now, I am not claiming this is part of some grand conspiracy among
Rachel Levine, Anthony Fauci and the Illuminati, but the point is that one is never
encouraged to look behind the curtain, to assess the “science” on your own.
At the
website, some of the nineteen studies have links embedded, and others do
not. It is possible, however, to track
down the studies and read them. I did
so, though I only had to go beyond the abstracts on a couple of them. One must assume that neither Rachel Levine
nor Governor Wolf ever read the damn things, because if they had, they would be
embarrassed to claim they offer any
support for her statement that, “When used in public settings, face coverings
will work to reduce the spread of COVID-19 in the Commonwealth.”
A dozen
do not even mention masking. They deal
with two issues that were much discussed early on in the pandemic but which
nobody argues about today. First was the
question whether direct human-to-human transmission was even possible. This was only an issue because the Chinese
authorities initially lied about it and said there was no direct transmission. The second question was whether asymptomatic
or minimally-symptomatic people can transmit the ‘rona; there is no longer much
question that this is possible.
The
other studies on the CDC site at least mention
masking in some context. A few deal
with the efficacy of surgical masks worn by professional care workers in
hospitals (e.g, “Effectiveness of selected surgical masks in arresting
vegetative cells and endospores when worn by simulated contagious patients” by
Green, Davidson, Panlilio et al., 2012).
Others speculate on what materials (cotton, silk, etc.) might be most effective in masks worn by
the general public. (e.g, “Testing the
efficacy of homemade masks: would they protect in an influenza pandemic?” by
Davies, Giri, Kafatos, Walker, Bennett, 2013).
But literally
none of these studies offer any
support for Rachel Levine’s claim that “When used in public settings, face
coverings will work to reduce the spread of COVID-19 in the Commonwealth.”
*
But there
was one recent study of public mask-wearing that has gotten considerable
attention for its conclusion that face covering is effective in preventing
infection. It was not on Levine’s (or
the CDC’s) list. This is the
much-discussed “Identifying airborne transmission as the dominant route for the
spread of COVID-19” that was presented in the Proceedings of the National
Academy of Sciences on May 16.
I read it. I’m not
an epidemiologist (but neither are the authors---they’re chemists and climate
scientists),
and I can't say it was easy, and maybe I even misunderstood some of it, but I
do have some observations about the methodology and the geographical areas the
researchers decided to study.
So let's start with the areas chosen for study---Italy, NY
and Wuhan. I will grant you that every place that has taken a serious hit
from COVID has had a different experience from every other place that has been
hit hard, but is it possible to come up with three places LESS typical of the
pandemic experience than Italy, NY and Wuhan? Italy has the oldest
population in Europe (second oldest in the world), and a dreadful national
health service, and as a result, had a very unpleasant experience with the
virus. New York is unique for its lunatic Governor who ordered the
state's nursing homes to take in COVID patients discharged from hospitals but
still infectious, so they could infect thousands of otherwise healthy (though
vulnerable) elderly people. Then he sneakily undercounted the nursing
home deaths. Then he blamed Trump for it all. In general, if you
remove the 14,000 or 15,000 Cuomo-inflicted nursing home deaths from New York's
numbers, the state did not have an unusually lethal experience. Also, of
course, mask-wearing had exactly nothing to do with Cuomo’s nursing home
holocaust.
Finally, there's Wuhan, where the researchers dutifully
report the official Chinese government numbers of 4600 deaths, and then
conclude that the swift imposition of mask protocols in China, along with the
general acceptance of mask-wearing among the Chinese, was responsible for the
extremely low numbers of Wuhan fatalities.
Question. Have you read any other study of the COVID
experience that accepts Chinese government case numbers and fatalities and uses
them to draw rational, scientific conclusions? No? Well, I haven't
either. Maybe you remember the stories about the numbers of urns
delivered to funeral homes in Wuhan, or the various accounts of health-care
workers (some of whom were never heard from again). Guo Wengui, the
exiled Chinese businessman and whistle-blower, estimated the death toll in
Wuhan was 50,000, based on his information from crematoriums. Other estimates
from those on the scene are of a similar magnitude.
Italy, NY and Wuhan. Are these the places you would
have chosen if you were seeking to draw some general conclusions about what typical
governments or the health-care establishment did effectively?
Another troubling issue was related to their methodology,
specifically the (unstated, undiscussed) assumption that the only factors in
the spread of the virus and the number of cases were the government edicts
regarding masks, distancing, etc. In other words, they assume the nature
of the virus itself had no role in the matter. Nowhere do they even
acknowledge the number of studies (probably in double-digits by now), reporting
on the pattern of infections and cases that was common from country to
country. With minor variations, there's six weeks of build-up to a peak
that lasts about two weeks, and then the number of cases declines rather
sharply. This has happened everywhere, and it is not possible that these
researchers are unaware of the studies, yet they ignored them. To them,
the only thing that mattered was when mask-wearing rules were imposed,
regardless of where in the ten-week pattern the rules were issued.
In terms of the number of cases to be expected in coming
weeks, nothing is more important than how far along a state or country is in
this ten-week pattern. If a mask edict
is imposed in Week 2, cases will continue to spike for another six weeks and
the mask edict will appear to have no effect.
If the edict is promulgated in Week 8, however, mask-wearing will appear
to have “broken” the pandemic because the number of new cases is about to fall
precipitously. In either case, the masks
would have nothing to do with it. In
Week 8 of the ten-week pattern, if an Order were issued demanding that people
wear underwear on their heads, it would
appear to have a miraculous effect because the number of cases is about to fall
anyway. Underwear on the head? Who knew??
This type of selective “science,” ignoring important and well-known
factors in the spread of cases in the interest of reaching a desired conclusion,
is indefensible. Maybe masks have an effect. Maybe distancing does,
and other restrictions. I can accept that if it's true. But the
failure of these researchers to even acknowledge the epidemiological playing
field on which they are working is hard to forgive.
Next,
the climate scientists here base their conclusions on an assumption that mask orders
are black-and-white matters, so they measure infections and deaths before and
after critical dates like NY's imposition of mask-wearing on April 17 or
Italy's on April 6. But the distinction between NY on April 17 and
Pennsylvania on April 17 (or Sweden on April 17) is anything but a bright
line. In Pennsylvania, EVERYONE in a store, or engaged in a food-related
transaction, has been required to wear a mask since March 16. Is that so
different from Italy or NY, or even China? People in Sweden wear masks
though they may not be required to. Yet, for these researchers, the
measuring begins and ends on the dates of certain particular government edicts
even though the edicts really cannot logically be used to differentiate one
place from another.
So
based on all their assumptions, the authors conclude (spoiler alert!), that
wearing masks is the reason Wuhan and NY had such an easy and carefree COVID
experience. No kidding. They really think New York and Wuhan did a
great job, and they assert that the mask edicts were a central aspect of the
success of those two governments. I
do not share their conclusions. In fact,
I LOL’ed when I got to that part of the study, and that’s something I rarely do
when I read a peer-reviewed medical article in an academic journal.
The response of actual epidemiologists to this paper has
not been kind, and there have been demands that the PNAS withdraw it from their
prestigious publication. For one thing,
nobody takes China's official numbers seriously. In addition, nobody
except propagandists views China's behavior during the pandemic to be
especially admirable. Finally, there is another reason to withdraw the
study, though no one will mention it. The
first four authors of this study praising China’s brilliant response to the
pandemic are Renyi Chang, Yixin Li, Annie L. Zhang, and Yuan Wang.
*
I could perform this same sort of comic autopsy on any
number of recent academic articles on mask-wearing that rely on unsupportable assumptions
and often appear to grow more out of political beliefs than an honest desire to
answer a scientific question. Another
that has gotten some attention is “The Case for Universal Cloth Mask Policies
to Increase the Supply of Medical Masks for Health Workers,” published April 6
by Abaluck, Christaki, Forman, and a bunch of other Yalies. They simply assume the effectiveness of masks worn by the general public,
citing a number of studies as proof, but which prove no such thing. Their contribution to the debate is
apparently their ability to monetize the benefits, concluding that each John Q.
Public who routinely wears a mask while filling his tank or shopping at Costco translates
to a societal boon of $3,000 to $6,000 (a “conservative” figure, they assure
us).
There’s just not much there. There is speculation that masks prevent
infection, and there is plenty of scolding, particularly from those who are
deeply invested politically in forcing the public to wear masks. But “science?” There’s nothing really. A fair summary would be that there seems
little reason to think wearing masks does any great harm, though there is also some
disagreement about that. Some believe
that wearing a mask for an extended period and rebreathing one’s own exhaled
air is unhealthy, though there are no studies supporting that either. Also, Surgeon General Jerome Adams said on
March 2, 2020 that the public should not wear masks because some people would
wear them incorrectly and increase
the spread of the infection. (A
reminder: as recently as March, the WHO, the CDC and the U.S. Surgeon General each
recommended that the general public not wear masks. All recently changed their official
positions.)
Which leaves us, finally, with the argument we increasingly
hear from our bureaucrats and politicians and cable-news geniuses: "Wear a mask! Why not? It’s not going to kill you, and
maybe it will help. We’re all in this
together!”
We might just as well pass a law saying everyone has to
wear garlic around their necks because, well, that’s not going to hurt us
either, right? The point is that we are
either a society that is governed by logic and reason and science or we’re not,
and if we are not, why not? I’m still
kind of fond of the Enlightenment. I’m
committed to reason. I thought we all
were, or at least were supposed to be.
Besides, I’m not trying to order anyone NOT to wear
masks. Wear them everywhere. Enjoy yourself. Wear them until they develop that vaccine you’ve
been praying for. However, “it can’t
hurt much” is hardly a justification for a universal, significant intrusion of
indefinite duration upon my personal space and the rights I am guaranteed under
American law. For that, you need a bit
more. You need something, anyway, especially when the authorities issuing these orders have been so consistently wrong in their public health pronouncements. So why don’t you decide what’s best for you,
and I’ll decide what’s best for me. That
way, we can both be right.
Copyright2020MichaelKubacki
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