MISES WIRE

Stephen Rowland
* Chungnam National University Visiting Prof
* Mises Institute Korea Visiting Scholar

Whenever I take a walk in my neighborhood in South Korea, I like to take off my face mask when it’s not too windy.  Breathing clean, fresh air and getting some natural Vitamin D from the sun is healthy.  Usually, I have a trash bag to pick up the numerous cigarette butts and other things on the ground.  Sometimes I get a thanks or kind word.  I don’t speak Korean well, but I understand enough of what people say.  Occasionally I hear something about wearing my mask even though we are outside, and most people are pretty far away from me.  Korea, like many countries in Asia, was always a place where you would occasionally see sick people wearing masks, but we started the mask-wearing mandate bandwagon quite quickly in early 2020 because of the virus of “unknown origin.”  It’s been over 2 years since we began wearing masks everywhere outside our houses. I am longing for the day when all masking, is back to a voluntary action in Korea, as is already the case in many places around the world.

Masks are simply not very helpful in stopping a virus, they are better suited to a sterile environment in which users know how to properly secure them.  The guidelines from various health agencies, like the WHO, used to state that 100% masking of the public was not a good solution to a pandemic, then that suddenly changed in 2020.

Perhaps the biggest liar and charlatan in the COVID regime, at least in the USA, is Dr. Fauci.  It has been shown in emails as well as on 60 Minutes in 2020 that he didn’t feel any need for everyone to wear masks.

He mentioned Asian countries doing it and said it wasn’t necessary for healthy people, but it might give some a feeling of safety.  He later said the Public Health ™ community was concerned with saving masks for medical professionals.

If masks were really so effective, then wearing masks at the beginning would have stopped the spread and prevented the medical professionals from needing them.

The fact that mask mandates don’t make much difference is becoming more mainstream of late. Bloomberg ran an article with this opinion:

“Experts associated with The Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy (CIDRAP) at the University of Minnesota have laid out a more complex analysis: Given the current understanding that the virus is transmitted in fine aerosol particles, it’s likely an infectious dose could easily get through and around loose-fitting cloth or surgical masks.”

They go on to state that proper masking that could be effective would require properly fitting N95 masks by a trained populace or nothing works. Instead, some people who are very concerned will wear N95 regardless of mandates, others will wear useless ones (cloth, handkerchiefs, ill-fitting medical grade) if they are forced to wear something.  Once again proving that people will only do the bare minimum when forced, thus causing some to feel Dr. Fauci’s feeling of safety, but nothing tangible.

Even The Atlantic magazine, which is far from a right-wing outlet says a certain sector of society has a problem with quitting the lockdown/paranoia response to this virus, even after 2 years.  The Science ™ is a god to many of the panic-prone people, yet when actual science shows that unmasking outside, for example, is perfectly safe, they still want to close playgrounds, beaches, and schools.

I’m using articles from The Atlantic to show that it is not only a right-wing, Trump-supporting media that is finally sharing the ideas that have been around in my section of the internet since 2020. In one article, you can see that mask mandates are illogical and inconsistent, not to mention often ignored.  Sitting quietly in the library studying requires masking, but at a concert or worship service, where you would likely be breathing harder or singing, you don’t need to mask up in Washington, D.C.  The fact that children, who are at a low risk of severe sickness, are almost 100% required to wear them in schools is irrational.  Since schools aren’t “super spreaders,” and children are far less likely to die of COVID, we must consider the increased burden to young people when they wear masks. Children must see their teacher’s face as she pronounces words or learn to read body language on adults and peers alike.  Children are also not likely wearing the masks properly, so it is all just theater and not for practical reasons.  Children have been affected differently by the virus, and it is likely that they are missing out on naturally getting other sicknesses that would strengthen their immune systems by being separated from their peers and adults.  Getting sick is a part of life, and kids need to build up their natural immunity, not just get a bunch of chemicals injected into them.

Finally, The Atlantic discusses masks in schools.  This article brings something I mentioned earlier, the WHO’s guidance on masks for children.  In general, children are not recommended to wear masks for reasons I mentioned, i.e., speech and social development, proper fitting, and also that children should not wear them while running around.  It seems pretty obvious that they compromise your ability to breathe, but that doesn’t stop gyms from being on the list of places you must wear a mask in Korea.  As I said before, you must wear a mask everywhere here, but I was going to a quiet, outside basketball court to work out before the winter and I was pretty comfortable not wearing a mask there.  The Atlantic article goes on to discuss some CDC studies that show that masking has minimal, if any, of the desired effects. CNN medical analyst Leana Wen recently said that cloth masks are not doing anything to prevent the spread of Omicron. That much was obvious from the start.

I won’t get into the lockdowns too much, or the vaccines as that is possible another article, but I’d like to share charts of data regarding the ineffectiveness of masks and lockdowns. There were great charts by @AlexBerenson on Twitter, but he was suspended for sharing forbidden facts.  I will, instead, direct you to a quiz that puts together some of Alex’s charts from 2020 showing the lockdown or mask mandate areas of the USA and the world vs areas that did not have such rules.  See if you can get a passing grade here.

Just one quick point about lockdowns.  In the USA, the lockdowns are likely responsible for more deaths than COVID itself, due to missed cancer screenings, an increase of “deaths of despair,” from substance abuse or suicide, an increased number of children in poverty (43-66 million) and childhood deaths to name a few.  This comes from a list that was collected in 2020 that explains it, and there are likely to be more terrible and unintended outcomes that can be added since then.

In conclusion, masking should not be seen as a panacea in this pandemic, and it must be voluntary, or people will “follow the rules” ineffectively and there will be no benefit.  A cute cloth mask from Etsy, or my personal favorite, a bike-riding neck gaiter, have negligible effects on the spread but they are acceptable to the mandates and contribute to the theatrical desires of the government. Government always wishes to be seen as the protector of the people.  The problem is that government only knows how to use force.  If ideas are good, they do not require force, hence they do not require government.  The best way to protect people is through spreading knowledge, but the government and their friends in corporate media want to suppress any information that takes away from their power and control.  We need more personal freedom to find information and for people to take responsibility for their actions.

태그 : #건강 #큰정부 #범죄

썸네일 출처 : https://www.reuters.com/world/us/new-york-state-mask-mandate-struck-down-by-judge-congressman-2022-01-25/