Comment: The Model Health Show is the #1 Health & Fitness Podcast on Apple Podcasts and has been featured in several mainstream outlets such as Forbes, ESPN, Dr.Oz, MSN and many more. What follows is an excellent video on mask efficacy, dangers of wearing masks, and how to boost immune function.
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CLINICAL EVIDENCE & SUPPLEMENTARY DATA
Demonstrating ineffectiveness of masks in surgery
- Disposable surgical face masks for preventing surgical wound infection in clean surgery.
- The evolution of the surgical mask: filtering efficiency versus effectiveness.
- Surgical face masks in modern operating rooms — a costly and unnecessary ritual?
- Wearing of Caps & Masks Not Necessary During Cardiac Catheterization.
- Masks-for-all for COVID-19 not based on sound data.
- One Virus Particle is Enough to Cause Infectious Disease
- Measles Virus Can Live for up to Two Hours in an Airspace
- Droplets and Aerosols in the Transmission of SARS-CoV-2.
- Closed environments facilitate secondary transmission of coronavirus
- Suggests airborne transmission is not driving the pandemic
- A cluster randomised trial of cloth masks compared with medical masks in healthcare workers.
- Unmasking the surgeons: the evidence base behind the use of facemasks in surgery.
- Surgical mask to prevent influenza transmission in households: a cluster randomized trial.
- Use of surgical face masks to reduce the incidence of the common cold.
- Systematic review of the efficacy of face masks and respirators against coronaviruses and other respiratory transmissible viruses for the community, healthcare workers and sick patients.
- N95 masks v. SARS-CoV-2 particle size
- Surgical Mask vs N95 Respirator for Preventing Influenza Among Health Care Workers.
- Effectiveness of N95 respirators versus surgical masks in protecting health care workers from acute respiratory infection
- The efficacy of medical masks and respirators against respiratory infection in healthcare workers.
(And demonstrate even more mask ineffectiveness upon further investigation)
Circulated articles state things like, "a cloth mask offers more protection than a surgical mask for people nearby." With data gathered from participants putting a mask on for a few moments and coughing 5 times to establish said effectiveness. Upon further review, the study itself noted, "both surgical and cotton masks seem to be ineffective in preventing the dissemination of SARS-CoV-2 from the coughs of patients with COVID-19 to the environment." Even though they came to that conclusion with what can easily be considered an inadequate amount of data (they've since retracted), what's even more alarming is that the scientists found when test subjects coughed into the masks, even more virus particles ended up on the OUTSIDE of the mask than on the inside of the mask. It may come as a surprise, but that's simply how viruses can travel in the real world.
Annals of Internal Medicine
Frequently referenced hamster study with the dubious headline, "Surgical Masks Can Reduce Spread of Covid-19 virus by up to 75%". To replicate "real-life situations" the lead researcher placed surgical masks between the cages of hamsters in an isolated facility. If this study replicates real-life situations to the researcher, we should all be seriously concerned by the type of social life he has.
Hong Kong University
Researchers at Texas A&M declare that face masks prevented more than 66,000 infections in New York City in less than a month. The study makes hasty assumptions of universal consistency in mask quality, mask fit, duration of time worn, assumptions that the wearers aren't touching their face, that their aerosols and droplets aren't being deflected and sprayed all over their face, hair, clothes, and creating clouds of droplets from above, below, and through the sides of the mask. And it's also assuming that the masks are effective in the first place, which the vast majority of real-world clinical trials show that they're not. Lastly, their graph demonstrates a downward trend in infections prior to mandatory masking and doesn't differentiate the effects from social distancing, shelter-in-place, etc.
PNAS
Sexual contact carries some risk for exposure to infection with severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 during the coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic.Demonstrating the physiological and psychological damage caused by mask usage
Annals of Internal Medicine
- The physiological impact of wearing an N95 mask during hemodialysis.
- Respiratory consequences of N95-type Mask usage in pregnant healthcare workers.
- Carbon dioxide re‐breathing with close fitting face respirator masks.
- Carbon dioxide rebreathing in respiratory protective devices.
- Surgical mask induced deoxygenation.
- Protective Facemask Impact on Human Thermoregulation.
- Amygdala Responsivity to High-Level Social Information from Unseen Faces.
- Rise in childhood mental health issues resulting from the social lockdown.
- Mental health issues in children amidst COVID-19 pandemic.
- Effects of wearing N95 and surgical facemasks on heart rate, thermal stress and subjective sensations.
- Immune cells become overactive when oxygen levels are deranged.
- Stress and the Human Immune System.
- The Developmental Origins of the Social Brain.
- Up to 650,000 people die of respiratory diseases linked to seasonal flu each year.
- SARS-CoV-2 mutation
- Comorbidities the rule in New York's COVID-19 deaths.
- Characteristics, Comorbidities, and Outcomes Among 5700 Patients Hospitalized With COVID-19 in the New York City Area.
- The State of US Health Burden of Diseases.
- Spotlight on World Obesity Rates.
- FDA clears IND application for natural killer cell-based COVID-19 therapy.
- People with low NK cell counts had much higher rates of severe infections from COVID-19.
- Immune response to a 30-minute walk.
- Sleep-deprivation reduces NK cell number and function.
- The impact of stressful life events on natural killer cells.
- Sleep deprivation effect on the immune system mirrors physical stress.
- The prevalence of stress in primary care.
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