The New York Times is wrong. Mask mandates didn't do 'nothing'. They wrought havoc.
The New York Times is wrong. Mask mandates didn't do 'nothing'. They wrought havoc.
The New York Times opinion piece on masks is too late. And it is wrong.
It’s not true that mask mandates did nothing. Yes, it is true they did nothing to halt the transmission of Covid, but the mask mandates damaged us all.
The imposition of masks without evidence was an appalling step for supposedly enlightened and democratic countries. Health professionals lied and have now lost our trust. Politicians lied too, although that was less surprising.
People with hearing loss, autism and PTSD suffered unnecessarily. Babies’ and children’s speech development and learning were impacted. People with serious lung conditions felt pressured by social conformity and authority to wear masks, at a cost to their health. Teenagers developed acne. Communication curtailed, we were separated; human interaction was generally ruined. Masks were uncomfortable.
Masks were dropped on the ground and now litter oceans and add to landfill.
If you knew they didn’t work, then the mask wrapped around your face was a painful restraint, trapping the truth and humiliation in your covered mouth.
The behavioural scientists deliberately exploited the human desire to conform and literally said out loud that the British public would ‘do the heavy lifting’ and enforce masks using social pressure. This was the case: if you refused to wear a mask, people stared or even shouted. Twitter shouted #WearADamnMask. Venues denied entry. GPs refused medical appointments to the unmasked.
One government insider told me that ‘we are lying when we say masks work. They are a signal, a psyop. And we’ve criminalised not wearing them. Masks also transfer the blame onto individuals for the epidemic spreading. We have people counting the unmasked on public transport, policing each other. It is deeply unethical that we have set people against each other in this way. It allows the creation of an “out group” to blame.’
If masks gave you comfort, it was not real. The false sense of security may have even made you drop your guard and increased your risk.
Mask fervour resembled a religion. They became talismans, good luck rags, and signals of virtue. Seamstress Nina Murden and I created a photographic series, ‘Faith Masks’ to illustrate this.
The experts told us right at the beginning we didn’t need to mask. Then masks were mandated despite no new evidence. The Cochrane Review is the final, gold standard nail in the coffin. Read it if you are still in any doubt: ‘Physical interventions to interrupt or reduce the spread of respiratory viruses’.
So, no, it’s not true that masks did nothing.
If you enjoyed this article please consider subscribing to my substack! Subscriptions help me to continue to produce content and remain independent.
I so agree with this.
I knew these masks were not doing any good, so I refused to wear one, claiming exemption. If said with enough conviction people usually backed off, however it was an extremely uncomfortable position to have been put in.
Sometimes to the point of actually being dystopian. Sitting in the Florence opera with everyone masked apart from the three main singers and myself...
And just to wear one to comply would have hurt me to the core. I know maybe an extreme response for some, but it was simply how I felt about this whole Covid theatre.
Well said. I have also been asking about the environment impact of not only the manufacture and disposal of masks and gloves and aprons, and plastic alcohol gel bottles, but also of the needles, and bottles for billions of doses of vaccines [presumably the used needles need special disposal rules?], and also all the refridgeration units and running costs for them. The very people who call themselves environmentalists, and are for draconian climate crisis measures, are the very ones who are pro-everything covid measures and shrug their shoulder when asked about environmental costs of these..