Masks – do benefits outweigh the harms?

https://www.hartgroup.org/masks/

March 28, 2021

By Dr Gary Sidley
Retired Clinical Psychologist

and Dr Alan Mordue
Retired Consultant in Public Health Medicine & Epidemiologist

Whilst masks are a successful psychological tool to remind the public to remain alert, they are not effective in preventing the community spread of disease.

Download the briefing PDF

In the summer of 2020, mandates were introduced to compel healthy people to wear masks in the community, purportedly to reduce the spread of COVID-19. Prior to this time, the World Health Organisation (WHO) and UK politicians alike did not support face coverings for the healthy but U-turned, apparently in response to political lobbying.¹

In the early stages of the novel coronavirus in the United Kingdom, public health advice remained that masks for the general public were of little benefit, and could even be harmful.² There is emerging evidence that cloth masks can amplify the spread of COVID-19 particles by acting as a ‘microniser’, transforming large droplets, which would ordinarily fall swiftly to the ground close to the person, into smaller, truly airborne & respirable droplets.³

As has been established in the preceding article on asymptomatic spread, for a person to be ‘clinically relevant’ in public health terms, they must have symptoms. The mandating of mask-wearing for the majority of the population who are perfectly healthy is not an effective public health measure to contain the spread of COVID-19. Prior to 2020 this was not a controversial position. Whilst masks have undoubtedly been a successful psychological tool to remind the public to remain alert, they have not achieved their primary objective, that is, to act as a safe and effective measure to curb the spread of disease.

Masks don’t reduce community transmission
Contrary to the Government message that it ‘follows the science’, the sudden change in advice by the WHO was not based on any new, high-quality scientific studies. By summer 2020, there was substantial evidence that non-medical masks for the general public did not reduce the transmission of respiratory viruses. A review of 14 controlled studies had concluded that masks did not significantly lessen the spread of seasonal ‘flu in the community.⁴ A Norwegian Institute for Public Health review found that non-medical masks achieve no benefit for healthy individuals, particularly when viral prevalence is low.⁵ From a common sense angle, scientists had argued that cloth masks contain perforations that are far too big to act as a viral barrier and therefore ‘offer zero protection against COVID-19’.⁶

Inevitably, the public often wear masks incorrectly, or improperly handle them when putting them on, or removing them, constituting an additional infection hazard. There has been recognition of this contamination risk in the scientific literature⁷ and other researchers have cautioned against the use of cloth face coverings.⁸ Potential harms to the wearer include exhaustion, headaches, fatigue and dehydration.⁹ Some doctors have suggested an increased risk of pneumonia.¹⁰ Furthermore, the widely varying physical characteristics of the face coverings used by people in the community, that are not standardised for material, fit, length of wearing, changes after washing and drying, and disposal, means that laboratory research on mask efficacy cannot be generalised to real-world situations.

With particular reference to COVID-19, the only large randomised controlled trial exploring the benefits of adopting face coverings in the community found that masks (even the surgical variety) did not result in a significant reduction in infection risk for the wearer.¹¹ A detailed analysis¹² of all research investigations, including those purported to suggest that masks might achieve some benefits, led to the view that there is ‘little to no evidence’ that cloth masks in the general population are effective.

Masks cause psychological harm
Masks impair verbal communication, render lip-reading impossible for the deaf, and stymie emotional expression, the latter effect potentially constituting a gross impediment to children’s social development. Acting as a crude, highly visible reminder that danger is all around, face coverings are fuelling widespread, irrational fear.

Wearing a mask will heighten the distress of many people with existing mental health problems and may trigger ‘flashbacks’ for those historically traumatised by physical and/or sexual abuse. Sadly, going without a mask (even as a means of avoiding psychological distress) can often attract harassment and further victimisation. In response to this, ‘exemption lanyards’ have been developed, which further stigmatise those who cannot wear face coverings due to health conditions or previous trauma.

Mandates in schools
Beginning March 8, 2021, secondary-school pupils are now required to wear masks in indoor areas for the entire day. In addition to the lack of demonstrable benefits as described above, it is most concerning that no comprehensive risk assessment of potential harms has been carried out before making these demands. Prior to imposing this requirement for masks, a full assessment should have been conducted, incorporating the following areas:

● Assessment of oxygen levels in mask wearer at the beginning and end of the day¹³
● Assessment of impairments to concentration and ability to learn¹⁴
● Assessment of impairment to children with hearing difficulties and special educational needs^15,16,17,18
● Assessment of impairment to psychological wellbeing¹⁹
● Assessment of possible damages from inhalation of micro-fibres²⁰
● Assessment of potential harms of repeated use of dirty cloth masks^21,22
● Assessment of impairment to non-verbal communication²³

Many of the potential harms may only become apparent in the long-term, thereby casting yet more doubt on the assumption that, for children, the benefits outweigh the risks. What is even more puzzling is that the masking requirement has been introduced at the time of year when there is almost no circulating COVID-19 in the community due to its seasonality. There is no justification for this move from the Department for Education. It should be rapidly retracted for the safety and well-being of all children.

Conclusion
Wearing a mask is not a benign intervention. Making masks mandatory would only be justified if science had shown they achieved a marked reduction in viral transmission. The evidence is simply not there. On the contrary, it is clear that face coverings for healthy people do more harm than good. Additionally, evidence demonstrating that asymptomatic, healthy members of society are unlikely to spread the virus strengthens the conclusion that mask mandates are unnecessary.

Endnotes

1. Daily Mail, Tuesday 14 July, 2020: Fines for not wearing masks
2. Face masks could increase risk of getting coronavirus, medical chief warns
3. Low-cost measurement of face mask efficacy for filtering expelled droplets during speech
4. Non pharmaceutical Measures for Pandemic Influenza in Non healthcare Settings—Personal Protective and Environmental Measures
5. Should individuals in the community without respiratory symptoms wear face masks to reduce the spread of COVID-19?
6. Cloth face masks offer zero shield against virus, a study shows
7. Advice on the use of masks1 in the community setting in Influenza A (H1N1) outbreaks
8. A cluster randomised trial of cloth masks compared with medical masks in healthcare workers
9. Physical interventions to interrupt or reduce the spread of respiratory viruses. Part 1 – Face masks, eye protection and person distancing: systematic review and meta-analysis
10. Medical Doctor Warns that “Bacterial Pneumonias Are on the Rise” from Mask Wearing
11. Effectiveness of Adding a Mask Recommendation to Other Public Health Measures to Prevent SARS-CoV-2 Infection in Danish Mask Wearers: A Randomized Controlled Trial
12. Are Face Masks Effective? The Evidence
13. Preliminary report on surgical mask induced deoxygenation during major surgery
14. Corona children studies “Co-Ki”: First results of a Germany-wide registry on mouth and nose covering (mask) in children
15. The challenges of facemasks for people with hearing loss
16. Lip Reading, Facial Expressions: How Masks Make Life Harder for People with Hearing Difficulties
17. Face masks and communication – coronavirus info for families of deaf children
18. The Challenges of Face Masks: Organisation of Autism Research
19. Corona children studies “Co-Ki”: First results of a Germany-wide registry on mouth and nose covering (mask) in children
20. Need for Assessing the Inhalation of Micro(nano)plastic Debris Shed from Masks, Respirators, and Home-Made Face Coverings During the COVID-19 Pandemic
21. Can You Get a Sore Throat From Wearing a Dirty Mask?
22. Face mask hygiene: how dirty is yours?
23. Masked education? The benefits and burdens of wearing face masks in schools during the current Corona pandemic

 

Why did Canada, population 37 million, just order 293 million covid vaccine doses?

Saturday, August 28, 2021 by: Ethan Huff

Tags: badhealth, badmedicine, badscience, booster, booster shots, Canada, COVID, depopulation, genocide, medical fascism, Medical Tyranny, Moderna, obey, pandemic, Pfizer, Plandemic, Theresa Tam, vaccine wars, vaccines

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(Natural News) In a strange turn of events, the Canadian government just placed an order for 293 million additional doses of Wuhan coronavirus vaccine, despite the entire country having a population of just 37 million people.

What is Justin Trudeau up to, you might be asking? Good question. We would like to know the same as it appears that he is gearing up to inject every Canadian citizen and resident with at least eight additional “booster” shots.

According to reports, Moderna, one of the two manufacturers of messenger RNA (mRNA) injections, has signed a contract with Canada to supply 20 million doses of its experimental jab annually for the years 2022, 2023 and 2024. This amounts to 60 million doses over the next several years with the option to throw in an additional 15 million doses if needed.

“Not a bad deal for your first product ever to market – and a drug that’s still in clinical trials to boot,” writes Celeste McGovern, reporter for LifeSite News, linking to the clinical trials website with more details. “Especially since Moderna has some problems with the safety of its novel platform mRNA vaccine.”

A mere three months after its initial launch, the Moderna injection has received more than 300,000 reports of side effects, many of them serious. This figure is far higher than what has been officially reported to the government in accordance with the law.

All in all, Canada will have eventually received 105 million doses of Moderna’s Chinese Virus injection by 2024, suggesting that covid booster shots will become a seasonal thing much like annual flu shots.

As you may recall from a few months back, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) pushed back against a suggestion from Pfizer that “fully vaccinated” people get booster shots. Just a few weeks later, the FDA changed its mind and rushed out an emergency use authorization (EUA) contract allowing Pfizer to dole out boosters starting in September.

FDA pretends to not support covid “booster” shots only to rush them through at warp speed

It turns out that the FDA’s initial refusal was just for show. As far back as April, Canada had already secured some 35 million Pfizer booster shots for the years 2022 and 2023, which came with the option to add another 60 million doses in 2024.

“That’s 188 million Pfizer shots,” McGovern writes.

“Added to Moderna’s supply that’s 293 million vaccine doses – enough injections to shoot every Canadian nearly eight times over in just three years. Do you think they might have a few booster shots a year in mind? Or are the extras for Canadian cats, perhaps?”

Canada’s chief public health officer Theresa Tam pulled a similar stunt as the FDA, pretending to oppose booster shots for covid only to change her tune just two weeks later, perfectly on schedule.

Now, boosters are becoming part of the plandemic lexicon, and will likely become a routine part of staying “fully vaccinated” against the Fauci Flu. Is anyone really surprised about this?

“No one seems to be asking why the miracle vaccine needs a booster dose or why, since every vaccination bar ever presented and then raised again – has been passed in Canada – and 99% of long-term care residents are vaccinated, why are heavily vaccinated Canadians – and Israelis and Brits and others –locked down in a ‘4th wave’ of COVID cases?” McGovern asks.

“Why is the wonder vaccine failing?”

The answer, of course, is that it was never a wonder vaccine to begin with – it was always a scam to fuel the spread of disease with new vaccine-spawned variants. The so-called “vaccines,” in other words, are the real pandemic.

The latest news about the Chinese Virus injection scam can be found at ChemicalViolence.com.

Sources for this article include:

LifeSiteNews.com

ClinicalTrials.gov

NaturalNews.com

 

 

Japan discovers “magnetic” substance in Pfizer covid vaccines; journalists start DYING from the vax they pushed

Friday, August 27, 2021 by: Mike Adams
Tags: badhealth, badmedicine, badscience, contamination, graphene oxide, Japan, magnetic, SPIONs, Vaccine deaths, vaccine ingredients, vaccine injury, vaccine safety, vaccine wars, vaccines

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(Natural News) We have turned the corner on the vaccine debate. The Pfizer vaccine is rapidly failing, and now most infections, hospitalizations and deaths are occurring among the “fully vaccinated.” Journalists who promoted vaccines are literally dying from those same vaccines, and a bombshell new study reveals that natural immunity offers approximately 13 times better protection against the “Delta” variant than vaccine-induced immunity.

Japan, meanwhile, has discovered a contaminant affecting millions of doses across hundreds of vaccine injection sites there, and a health ministry official describes the contaminant as “magnetic” and “possibly metal.” This means people are, in fact, being injected with substances that respond to magnets, which obviously explains why covid vaccines are allowing magnets to stick to peoples’ bodies.

From The Epoch Times:

Japan announced on Aug. 26 that it’s suspending the use of about 1.63 million doses of the Moderna COVID-19 vaccine due to reports of contamination.

“It’s a substance that reacts to magnets … it could be metal,” a ministry official reportedly said, according to Nikkei Asia.

Nikkei Asia further reports:

Takeda Pharmaceutical handles distribution of the U.S.-developed Moderna vaccine in Japan.

Nasdaq-listed Moderna confirmed receiving “several complaints of particulate matter” in vaccine vials distributed in Japan but said it had found “no safety or efficacy issues” related to these reports.

You read that correctly. There’s some sort of magnetic, possibly metallic contamination in the vaccines, but the vaccine manufacturer claims there are “no safety or efficacy issues.”

What else are they going to say? That the vaccines are dosed up with graphene oxide which responds to magnets and external electromagnetic fields? That would give away the whole agenda if such a truth were acknowledged.

The message to Japanese health officials is clear: Stop looking at the vials! Just inject your people and do as you’re told!

BBC journalist List Shaw confirmed to have been killed by vaccine-induced clotting in the brain

We always knew that journalists who have been pimping for the vaccine industry would begin to be killed by those very same vaccines. It makes you wonder how anyone can even call themselves a “journalist” if they aren’t willing to ask questions of the vaccine establishment. By definition, you’re not really a journalist if you express blind faith in the very institutions you’re supposed to be keeping in check. Then again, today’s “news” industry has nothing to do with journalism. They’re mostly just the propaganda arm of Big Pharma and the CIA.

In the UK, BBC journalist Lisa Shaw is now confirmed to have been killed by blood clots caused by the AstraZeneca vaccine, confirms The Guardian (UK):

An award-winning BBC radio presenter died as a result of complications from the AstraZeneca coronavirus vaccine, a coroner has concluded.

Lisa Shaw, who worked for BBC Radio Newcastle, died at the city’s Royal Victoria Infirmary in May, a little more than three weeks after her first dose of the vaccine developed by academics at the University of Oxford.

The inquest heard that Shaw, 44, had been admitted to hospital after doctors investigating her complaints of headaches found she had suffered a brain haemorrhage.

The reason people suffer headaches after taking these “clot shots” is because blood clots block the brain blood vessels that normally supply blood to the brain. Since the heart is still pumping, pressure builds up behind the blood clot. In some people, this results in a “blowout” of the blood vessel, or a “blood brain bleed” / brain hemorrhage. As The Guardian reports, “She was transferred to the Royal Victoria Infirmary where she received a number of treatments, including cutting away part of her skull to relieve the pressure on her brain, but despite those efforts she died on 21 May.”

I’m quite certain that “cutting away part of your skull” was never mentioned to Shaw as a possible side effects of taking the vaccine. How many vaccine recipients have undergone emergency brain surgery around the world? These reports are shockingly common, and it’s obvious why: The “clot shot” causes blood clots that block blood supply to the brain, heart, skin and other organs. This is also why covid vaccine shots are causing skin to die and rot off the faces and bodies of some people. This condition, also known as “whole body skin peeling,” is often misdiagnosed as a burn, so many of the vaccine victims whose skin is “rotting” off are never recorded as vaccine injuries.

Journalists who are nearly killed by vaccines keep promoting them… because they’re victims of Stockholm Syndrome

Some journalists who are not yet dead but injured by the vaccine somehow remain wholly brainwashed to keep pushing the vax propaganda. Yahoo Australia reports on a pro-vaccine journalist who obviously was almost killed by the vaccine, yet still somehow believes doctors when they tell him they hope his intense pain will fade away on its own. From that story:

“Nearing the end of the second week my heart started to race, I was getting pins and needles in the arms, extreme fatigue and a very strange sensation of dizziness,” he wrote.

“I took Nurofen, and I kept working.”

By the end of the third week after his vaccination though, Mr Hitchcock said he had gotten “steadily worse”.

“Sharp chest pain — cold shivers and chills — and the dizziness was intense,” he said.

“25 days after the shot and probably a little late to hospital — but here I am — diagnosed with pericarditis — or inflammation of the heart due to the Pfizer vaccine.”

… it’s going to take some time getting used to the constant pain – which they hope will eventually go away.

What’s interesting in all this is how there even appears to be self-censorship by this journalist, who appears to be a victim of Stockholm Syndrome where he remains loyal to the very people who are trying to kill him. That last sentence, “it’s going to take some time getting used to the constant pain – which they hope will eventually go away,” appears to have been removed from his Instagram post. Perhaps he was threatened with being fired if he admitted the vaccine is causing “constant pain.”

Over the next year we’re going to see a WAVE OF DEATHS among journalists, doctors and pharmacists who all pushed the vaccine with deliberate lies

What’s worth noting in all this is that vaccine deaths and injuries among journalists, doctors, nurses, pharmacists, bureaucrats and others who pushed vaccines are going to skyrocket over the next few months. With fully-vaccinated people now 13 times more likely to be injured, hospitalized or killed by the “Delta” variant compared to those with natural immunity, it’s not difficult to do the math on all this: The coming wave of deaths will be among the vaccinated themselves, many of whom were also propagandists for the vaccine industry (Karma sure is a bitch.)

This doesn’t even consider the Antibody Dependent Enhancement effect that many health experts predict will kick in during the coming winter flu season. If that phenomenon takes hold, we could see literally millions of post-vaccine deaths over the next 1-3 years, most likely taking place during traditional flu seasons.

A lot of mainstream journalists, you see — both conservative and leftist — are not merely unethical enough to push poisons onto other people; they’re also stupid enough to take those poisons themselves (while the informed globalists are taking saline injections because they’re not fools). The result is simple cause and effect: If you inject yourself with a toxic biological weapon that causes systemic blood clotting, you should not be surprised to discover that your body is filled with blood clots. Nor should you be surprised to plummet to the ground if you step off a tall building, since media propaganda — now matter how intense — still can’t change the laws of physics (or biochemistry).

Those who push the poison will die by the poison.

For those propagandists who pushed vaccines and ended up killing themselves, their lies won’t be missed, and they are instantly replaceable anyway since they mostly just read teleprompter scripts authored by the CIA and Big Pharma lobbyists. It’s not just that they’re dead, it’s that their entire lives were dedicated to harming others and making sure no one had access to the truth about vaccines, nutrition, vitamin D, Ivermectin and so on.