Today we are going to talk about a topic that deserves attention. We should be able to have an open discussion about this without conflict. Unfortunately, this has become a very politicized, and polarized topic. We really need to ask questions, and begin to think for ourselves. My goal is to not make anyone right, or wrong, but to have people make an educated, empowered decision for themselves.

Interpreting the data

The research that people go to, so they can prove masks to be effective is in epidemiology. Epidemiology is observational based research. It can only prove correlation, not causation. Real world clinical trials are when you have a control group, and experimental group. with these groups you run a trial to prove causation. The problem that we see when using epidemiology during these times is that it leaves room for massive biases in the studies because everything is politicized. For example, There was a study that showed masks reduce spread of covid by 75%. The participants that were supposed to mimic real life situations were hamsters that were injected with covid 19, and put in separate cages with a hole. Some of the time, the whole was covered by a mask, and other times it wasn’t. Then they came to the conclusion I mentioned before. This study is laughable because it does not actually simulate real life. We are not hamsters in cages separated by holes. When we look at real world clinical trials not a single one proves that masks are effective. That’s is the data we need to rely on because it can prove causation.

The problem with masks

Masks have many side effects that we need to discuss. They provide a false sense of security. They are actually designed to protect other people from you, not the other way around. Also, our face gives us a ton of information on who we are, and let’s us know that other people are safe. Kids need to interact and see other peoples facial expressions for proper brain development. Check out this article which goes deep into that: https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2018.02584/full. Another problem is that our eyes can also be a place for viruses to enter. Furthermore, the when highly thermal sensitive nature of the face gets blocked, negative things can happen. “The use of protective facemasks (PFMs) negatively impacts respiratory and dermal mechanisms of human thermoregulation through impairment of convection, evaporation, and radiation processes.” Was a quote from this study: https://academic.oup.com/annweh/article/56/1/102/166254.

Ineffectiveness of different masks

Cloth masks-

In this study: https://bmjopen.bmj.com/content/5/4/e006577.long, it shows they have a 97% penetration rate, and reduction in air filtration, and moisture retention may increase risk of infection. They say cloth masks should not be recommended.

Medical masks

In this study it shows medical masks are not proven to have benefit in cold transmission, and are much more likely to have a headache while wearing a mask. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/19216002/

In this study, it show that medical masks are ineffective at preventing influenza. “In various sensitivity analyses, we did not identify any trend in the results suggesting effectiveness of facemasks.” https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/21103330/

N95 mask

This research shows that there is no statistically significant difference between the N95, and the medical mask. “we found no significant difference between N95 respirators and surgical masks.” https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4868605/

In this study, it shows that N95 masks are less that 1% more effective than medical masks. “Influenza infection occurred in 50 nurses (23.6%) in the surgical mask group and in 48 (22.9%) in the N95 respirator group.” https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/184819

What can we actually do?

We have found that natural killer cells are very effective at killing covid. Patients with low NK cells have a much more severe infection according to this study: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7194824/. Researchers quote ” Specifically, CD8⁺ lymphocytes and NK cells were significantly reduced in cases of severe infection compared to patients with mild infection and healthy individuals.” There are a number of things that reduce or natural killer cells, making us more susceptible. Some of them are stress, sleep deprivation, and chronic disease. This is an article that show how stress reduces natural killer cells: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/smi.2460070110. Another article points to sleep deprivation reducing NK cells: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/25929826/. Researchers quote: “Reduction of sleep time triggers a stress response, leading to augmented levels of glucocorticoids and adrenaline. These hormones regulate components of the innate immune system such as natural killer (NK) and NKT cells.” Making sure we get enough sleep is key. Another thing we can do is start taking walks. Walks have been proven to improve immune parameters, such as NK cells. This is a study pointing to that: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/15632669/ researchers quote: “Walking caused modest and short-lived changes in immune parameters, most notably for neutrophil and natural killer blood cell counts.” Sunlight and vitamin D has also been proven to be effective for covid. Check out this research: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7319635/. Researchers quote “Evidence is presented suggesting a direct correlation between sunlight exposure and reduced mortality.” Here’s another one on vitamin d:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7256612/  Researcher quote: “we believe that vitamin D deficiency is an easily modifiable risk factor of ARIs and should be actively corrected through inexpensive, safe and readily-available vitamin D supplements. ” I hope this was helpful, and gave you more of an understanding about masks.