We also applied stupid "zero liability" driven anti-risk policies in eliminating nuts from schools. Kids instead bring crappier snack food, AND, the school nut bans did NOT help the kids. In fact, allergies are best served by contact, not by total withdrawal.
We are medicalising and infantilising society, demanding medical intervention on small risks, which individuals could have perfectly handled on their own.
I am not a medical professional, but due to health issues, have gone down many health related rabbit holes. I have learned a bit.
My lungs are, apparently, healthy. Good lung capacity. I have sung for years.
I wore masks as little as possible. They were never comfortable. In our Eastern Ontario heat, it was worse.
I went for a haircut. Mask required. During the cut, the hairdresser caught the elastic of the mask (the blue surgical type)and it fell off. My lips were blue. The hairdresser asked me not to replace the mask!
Funny thing, is that later on I tried removing a layer of the same mask (to create a sneaky, breathable mask), and found a HAIR from my haircut inside!
This is my favourite series on masking, and the articles get better and better. You have a great way of combining good science with real life stories. I'm so glad I found your work. Please don't stop.
I am copying the link to this article, and sending it to so many people. It should be obvious that wearing a mask where no one is sick, is a ridiculous practice. It is analogous to opening an umbrella when it is not raining... irrespective of whether "it works" or not, if there were someone really infectious. When you add all the harms you describe in the article, it should be obvious that forcing people to wear a mask is a crime.
That could be a good protest technique, go out in public with an umbrella, or maybe double life preservers. People may get a few honks of support, from those who've seen the JP Sears videos.
> Particularly for the hearing impaired, the “age of masking” has been an age of “what they hell did that person just say?”
While I do not lip read, I need to see peoples lips moving in order to understand what they are saying because of my hearing impairment.
As for the children, we're going to have 2+ years of kids who will not properly learn how to judge faces and emotions. The effects are going to be profoundly negative when these individuals grow into unempathic adults.
I like the content and style. It reassures me in some fundamental way to see reason being applied to the response to SARSCOV2 when that faculty has been so conspicuously absent for so long. It helps relieve some of the depression that results from recognizing how terribly humanity failed the test presented by this virus.
Small point: I thought oxytocin was the "love hormone".
And I agree with you. I lost a great deal of faith in humanity since COVID appeared. And I didn't have a surplus in the first place. I try to remember there are good people out there, and I try to preferentially associate with them as much as possible. Also, I think many, many normal people are not on board with The Overlords. It's just that most won't raise their head above the parapet.
Where would the Stalinist purges, the Great Leap Forward, the Final Solution and the Killing Fields have been without such compliance? I tend to agree with Völva: it's evolution's fault.
Great essay, and this last sentence ((entire paragraph, really) truly resonates with me. I believe that for evolutionary reasons the majority of people are genetically prone to following rather than leading, but if enough of us do raise our heads ( I do this with all patients I assume it’s safe or worthwhile- not everyone’s mind can be accessed - to do so with) even those “followers” may start to change their perception of “what everyone is doing” and start to follow a new trend, one of reason. Thank you for writing!
That's an interesting idea, and suggests that nature has selected for an amount of disagreeable people (guilty, as I suspect both of you are as well) high enough to interrupt sociecidal group behaviours, but not high enough to entirely prevent group cohesiveness. I would expect that amount could be determined and would be stable. Also makes me think of the Margaret Mead principle ("Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it's the only thing that ever has.") that we see operating currently with such terrible effect in wokeness and COVID hysteria. However, another "small group" is coming together now (Hi!) and it's going to be really interesting and fun to see what happens when we really get going.
You've elegantly summarized my thoughts. I find that those I know - patients, friends etc - that are highest in agreeableness, are the most gullible ones, and the ones least likely to think independent thoughts, or even want to think that anything other than the official narrative might be going on.
Yes seatbelts have some minimal efficacy in reducing certain types of injuries. However, seatbelt laws did NOT drive a reduction in injuries. The vast reduction in injuries from the 70s and 80s were achieved through better vehicle construction.
I just did a course at work where the pyramid of corrective measures places "elimination of risk" before "engineering to reduce risk". This is a faulty approach. It is MUCH MUCH more efficient at a population level to engineer better cars, than to "mandate" seatbelts.
I personally never wear mine, except if I'm planning to have an accident oddly enough. I've had 4 risky accidents, but not huge ones, and oddly enough, all on those extremely rare times I was belted in. I suspect risk compensation at work here. Maybe I actually drive better when I don't have that false sense of security provided by a "seatbelt".
It's the same statistics with cyclists. Helmeted cyclists have more accidents. More risk compensation.
Yes, risk compensation is called the Peltzman effect. It's probably an issue with harm reduction programs for drug use as well - something I plan to write about in the future.
Some people joke that the best safety device you could put in a car (anti-Peltzman-effect) is a 6-inch spike in the steering wheel that points at the driver. Nobody would speed, tailgate, run a red light, etc...
Wish I knew about this blog earlier... great stuff. I'm in Nova Scotia as well and I was appalled at the mask and vaccine mandates. I was put on a month and half unpaid leave for resisting the vax mondate. I was forced under financial duress to get it, and I don't feel we were able to give full informed consent without long term testing.
The misinformation of "98% effective" gave people like Strang the green light to implement mandates with the backing of ineffectual politicians who desperately needed to look as though they were taking action. The totali-terrorized public fell right in line, shaming and stigmatizing the unvaxxed... calling them dangerous racists and misogynists.
It has been a strange and sad time for those with their eyes open. Sadly many folks who get their "information" from mainstream news still see Strang/the government/draconian policies as saviours that prevented tens of thousands of deaths. The evidence from places like Sweden and other countries without the same draconian policies is lost in the noise of the constant government propaganda bombardment.
I just found out about your conference in October... Great to hear NS will be associated (if just in a small way) for open discussion, science and dissent rather than kowtowing to officials.
We are not a majority, but we are significant... More and more critical minds are coming out of the closet, but unfortunately most Bluenosers tend to follow the crowd and don't want to rock the boat.
Thank you you “two”! Great measured piece👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻 1) Milk of Amnesia!! My gastroenterologist called it “ Michael Jackson Juice” once 😂2) regarding masks, what would you say about Asthmatics ?? And, I read that that Canada is mandating a Booster every 9 months???? Say it ain’t so!!
I have definitely noticed that people who are short-of-breath for any reason really mind wearing a mask. This has to impact asthmatics if they are in a flare.
My prediction (for what it's worth). Our healthcare system is collapsing under the weight of bureaucracy, and for lack of people who actually do patient care. They lost ~2-3% of staff during vax mandate #1. There are MANY of us (?5%-10%, maybe more) who will not get a booster even if it means losing our job. What is left of our healthcare system would completely implode. Despite the ineptitude of MOH's and politicians, even the simplest bean counters can read those tea leaves. I don't think they'll do it for that reason. But I've been wrong before when I predicted rules could not be more ridiculous.
Thank you! I simply cannot imagine that a government would schedule regular vaccines for a population when there are so many adverse effects being reported and who knows what is yet to come? A generation riddled with infertility/auto immune disorders, etc. I’m 70 and am a DES baby... they loaded my mother up with because she had slight spotting... the the DES proves to be worthless. So many reproductive cancers and infertility... I have two children , but 7 pregnancies and one preemie death. I say “damaged hormone receptors “ to a ob/gyn, they look at me like I have three heads... it was wildly used in the USA , even in prenatal vitamins from 1949 to 1970.... so, I have never had the FDA on a pedestal. Thank you for your explanations.
My wife was likely DES exposed in utero. She's not sure because the OB's office who took care of her mom burned down and all records were lost. I mention that in an upcoming article.. DES is yet another reason we doctors should be more humble before acting like we are 100% sure we know everything.
Thank you. I would add HRT.. the marketing of that starting on the 60s was outrageously sexist, “ your husband likes you to be in a good mood” and then the likes of Lauten Hutton promoted it as the solution to hormone fluctuations with false claims to its benefits... same with Birth Control pills...much higher levels of estrogen and progesterone than actually “ needed.” Oh and say what? They cause cancer? The retractions or corrections are lame at best... this is where I wish Doctors would say “ the FDA was wrong, we were ill advised”,,, etc.NEVER HAPPENS.
We moved here in the thick of covid mandates and the inability to “read” faces had a huge impact. For a while I thought this was the most unfriendly unwelcoming community I had ever seen. Trying to fit in by casual bantering at the grocery store was met with cold silent stares. It got to the point where I dreaded going out in public until my wife said to watch for small signes such as the smile lines in the corners of the eyes, people were smiling back under those masks!
Thanks Nick. Matt Strauss, the "Unlikely Medical Officer of Health" who I interviewed and posted as a podcast on Pairodocs said it best. "I never made a new friend while I was wearing a mask".
Welcome, Nick! My wife and I are hardcore CFA's as well, albeit we were here a couple years prior to masking. The place is full of friendly people, but masks or not, they love to remind outsiders that they are - and will forever remain - outsiders.
Interesting. I do think it can be an issue for certain people who have marginal respiratory health for some reason. My mother-in-law definitely minded masking on a recent airplane trip and I had to get her to take off the N95 (her friend had given it to her to "stay safe", even though she had already had COVID by then) and put on a very light mask, and sneak it down a bit. Then she was fine. I suspect her O2 was indeed getting low.
I've read pre 2020 studies on masks, pre politics, which found that older surgeons masking had measurable drops - in oxygen I think. I'm late 60s and hated masks, they made me breathless and begin to panic, and only when trying to find out why did I find - on the internet, obvs couldn't see a dr - that I had nasal valve collapse on one side, and partial nasal valve collapse on the other. So breathing is a bit of a problem all the time. Loads of older people must have an element of this, especially those with small noses.
We also applied stupid "zero liability" driven anti-risk policies in eliminating nuts from schools. Kids instead bring crappier snack food, AND, the school nut bans did NOT help the kids. In fact, allergies are best served by contact, not by total withdrawal.
We are medicalising and infantilising society, demanding medical intervention on small risks, which individuals could have perfectly handled on their own.
I am not a medical professional, but due to health issues, have gone down many health related rabbit holes. I have learned a bit.
My lungs are, apparently, healthy. Good lung capacity. I have sung for years.
I wore masks as little as possible. They were never comfortable. In our Eastern Ontario heat, it was worse.
I went for a haircut. Mask required. During the cut, the hairdresser caught the elastic of the mask (the blue surgical type)and it fell off. My lips were blue. The hairdresser asked me not to replace the mask!
Funny thing, is that later on I tried removing a layer of the same mask (to create a sneaky, breathable mask), and found a HAIR from my haircut inside!
So, tell me again how this stops a virus?
This is my favourite series on masking, and the articles get better and better. You have a great way of combining good science with real life stories. I'm so glad I found your work. Please don't stop.
Thanks, and thanks for tweaking me to the 2 videos I used - they were perfect to demonstrate what I wanted to get across.
I am copying the link to this article, and sending it to so many people. It should be obvious that wearing a mask where no one is sick, is a ridiculous practice. It is analogous to opening an umbrella when it is not raining... irrespective of whether "it works" or not, if there were someone really infectious. When you add all the harms you describe in the article, it should be obvious that forcing people to wear a mask is a crime.
That could be a good protest technique, go out in public with an umbrella, or maybe double life preservers. People may get a few honks of support, from those who've seen the JP Sears videos.
Love JP's stuff!
The entire article is excellent. But it's quite possible the last one was the most important:
"*Not everything that can be counted counts, and not everything that counts can be counted*"
So saving!!
> Particularly for the hearing impaired, the “age of masking” has been an age of “what they hell did that person just say?”
While I do not lip read, I need to see peoples lips moving in order to understand what they are saying because of my hearing impairment.
As for the children, we're going to have 2+ years of kids who will not properly learn how to judge faces and emotions. The effects are going to be profoundly negative when these individuals grow into unempathic adults.
I like the content and style. It reassures me in some fundamental way to see reason being applied to the response to SARSCOV2 when that faculty has been so conspicuously absent for so long. It helps relieve some of the depression that results from recognizing how terribly humanity failed the test presented by this virus.
Small point: I thought oxytocin was the "love hormone".
Good pickup! Thanks. I shouldn't write at 2AM ...
And I agree with you. I lost a great deal of faith in humanity since COVID appeared. And I didn't have a surplus in the first place. I try to remember there are good people out there, and I try to preferentially associate with them as much as possible. Also, I think many, many normal people are not on board with The Overlords. It's just that most won't raise their head above the parapet.
Where would the Stalinist purges, the Great Leap Forward, the Final Solution and the Killing Fields have been without such compliance? I tend to agree with Völva: it's evolution's fault.
Great essay, and this last sentence ((entire paragraph, really) truly resonates with me. I believe that for evolutionary reasons the majority of people are genetically prone to following rather than leading, but if enough of us do raise our heads ( I do this with all patients I assume it’s safe or worthwhile- not everyone’s mind can be accessed - to do so with) even those “followers” may start to change their perception of “what everyone is doing” and start to follow a new trend, one of reason. Thank you for writing!
That's an interesting idea, and suggests that nature has selected for an amount of disagreeable people (guilty, as I suspect both of you are as well) high enough to interrupt sociecidal group behaviours, but not high enough to entirely prevent group cohesiveness. I would expect that amount could be determined and would be stable. Also makes me think of the Margaret Mead principle ("Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it's the only thing that ever has.") that we see operating currently with such terrible effect in wokeness and COVID hysteria. However, another "small group" is coming together now (Hi!) and it's going to be really interesting and fun to see what happens when we really get going.
Very well said!
You've elegantly summarized my thoughts. I find that those I know - patients, friends etc - that are highest in agreeableness, are the most gullible ones, and the ones least likely to think independent thoughts, or even want to think that anything other than the official narrative might be going on.
Yes seatbelts have some minimal efficacy in reducing certain types of injuries. However, seatbelt laws did NOT drive a reduction in injuries. The vast reduction in injuries from the 70s and 80s were achieved through better vehicle construction.
I just did a course at work where the pyramid of corrective measures places "elimination of risk" before "engineering to reduce risk". This is a faulty approach. It is MUCH MUCH more efficient at a population level to engineer better cars, than to "mandate" seatbelts.
I personally never wear mine, except if I'm planning to have an accident oddly enough. I've had 4 risky accidents, but not huge ones, and oddly enough, all on those extremely rare times I was belted in. I suspect risk compensation at work here. Maybe I actually drive better when I don't have that false sense of security provided by a "seatbelt".
It's the same statistics with cyclists. Helmeted cyclists have more accidents. More risk compensation.
Yes, risk compensation is called the Peltzman effect. It's probably an issue with harm reduction programs for drug use as well - something I plan to write about in the future.
Some people joke that the best safety device you could put in a car (anti-Peltzman-effect) is a 6-inch spike in the steering wheel that points at the driver. Nobody would speed, tailgate, run a red light, etc...
Wish I knew about this blog earlier... great stuff. I'm in Nova Scotia as well and I was appalled at the mask and vaccine mandates. I was put on a month and half unpaid leave for resisting the vax mondate. I was forced under financial duress to get it, and I don't feel we were able to give full informed consent without long term testing.
The misinformation of "98% effective" gave people like Strang the green light to implement mandates with the backing of ineffectual politicians who desperately needed to look as though they were taking action. The totali-terrorized public fell right in line, shaming and stigmatizing the unvaxxed... calling them dangerous racists and misogynists.
It has been a strange and sad time for those with their eyes open. Sadly many folks who get their "information" from mainstream news still see Strang/the government/draconian policies as saviours that prevented tens of thousands of deaths. The evidence from places like Sweden and other countries without the same draconian policies is lost in the noise of the constant government propaganda bombardment.
I just found out about your conference in October... Great to hear NS will be associated (if just in a small way) for open discussion, science and dissent rather than kowtowing to officials.
We are not a majority, but we are significant... More and more critical minds are coming out of the closet, but unfortunately most Bluenosers tend to follow the crowd and don't want to rock the boat.
Thank you!
Great article Chris! Wonderful work. Such a strange time.....I call it clown world.
Thank you you “two”! Great measured piece👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻 1) Milk of Amnesia!! My gastroenterologist called it “ Michael Jackson Juice” once 😂2) regarding masks, what would you say about Asthmatics ?? And, I read that that Canada is mandating a Booster every 9 months???? Say it ain’t so!!
I have definitely noticed that people who are short-of-breath for any reason really mind wearing a mask. This has to impact asthmatics if they are in a flare.
My prediction (for what it's worth). Our healthcare system is collapsing under the weight of bureaucracy, and for lack of people who actually do patient care. They lost ~2-3% of staff during vax mandate #1. There are MANY of us (?5%-10%, maybe more) who will not get a booster even if it means losing our job. What is left of our healthcare system would completely implode. Despite the ineptitude of MOH's and politicians, even the simplest bean counters can read those tea leaves. I don't think they'll do it for that reason. But I've been wrong before when I predicted rules could not be more ridiculous.
Thank you! I simply cannot imagine that a government would schedule regular vaccines for a population when there are so many adverse effects being reported and who knows what is yet to come? A generation riddled with infertility/auto immune disorders, etc. I’m 70 and am a DES baby... they loaded my mother up with because she had slight spotting... the the DES proves to be worthless. So many reproductive cancers and infertility... I have two children , but 7 pregnancies and one preemie death. I say “damaged hormone receptors “ to a ob/gyn, they look at me like I have three heads... it was wildly used in the USA , even in prenatal vitamins from 1949 to 1970.... so, I have never had the FDA on a pedestal. Thank you for your explanations.
My wife was likely DES exposed in utero. She's not sure because the OB's office who took care of her mom burned down and all records were lost. I mention that in an upcoming article.. DES is yet another reason we doctors should be more humble before acting like we are 100% sure we know everything.
Thank you. I would add HRT.. the marketing of that starting on the 60s was outrageously sexist, “ your husband likes you to be in a good mood” and then the likes of Lauten Hutton promoted it as the solution to hormone fluctuations with false claims to its benefits... same with Birth Control pills...much higher levels of estrogen and progesterone than actually “ needed.” Oh and say what? They cause cancer? The retractions or corrections are lame at best... this is where I wish Doctors would say “ the FDA was wrong, we were ill advised”,,, etc.NEVER HAPPENS.
Excellent. Thanks for posting.
Don't forget the dental and eye conditions that arose because of masks.
We moved here in the thick of covid mandates and the inability to “read” faces had a huge impact. For a while I thought this was the most unfriendly unwelcoming community I had ever seen. Trying to fit in by casual bantering at the grocery store was met with cold silent stares. It got to the point where I dreaded going out in public until my wife said to watch for small signes such as the smile lines in the corners of the eyes, people were smiling back under those masks!
Another great read, thank you!
Thanks Nick. Matt Strauss, the "Unlikely Medical Officer of Health" who I interviewed and posted as a podcast on Pairodocs said it best. "I never made a new friend while I was wearing a mask".
Welcome, Nick! My wife and I are hardcore CFA's as well, albeit we were here a couple years prior to masking. The place is full of friendly people, but masks or not, they love to remind outsiders that they are - and will forever remain - outsiders.
A German veterinary colleague wore PPF2/n95 mask during the working day.
As an experiment she checked her oxygenation levels using pulse oximetry and found a 4% drop in oxygenation levels.
Interesting. I do think it can be an issue for certain people who have marginal respiratory health for some reason. My mother-in-law definitely minded masking on a recent airplane trip and I had to get her to take off the N95 (her friend had given it to her to "stay safe", even though she had already had COVID by then) and put on a very light mask, and sneak it down a bit. Then she was fine. I suspect her O2 was indeed getting low.
I've read pre 2020 studies on masks, pre politics, which found that older surgeons masking had measurable drops - in oxygen I think. I'm late 60s and hated masks, they made me breathless and begin to panic, and only when trying to find out why did I find - on the internet, obvs couldn't see a dr - that I had nasal valve collapse on one side, and partial nasal valve collapse on the other. So breathing is a bit of a problem all the time. Loads of older people must have an element of this, especially those with small noses.
Great article Chris! Wonderful work. Such a strange time.....I call it clown world.