When we breed pseudoscience, chaos, hysteria and bureaucratic policy, the creation is an obscene and illogical product. Masking children, the least susceptible population to COVID-19 and highly unlikely to serve as a reservoir for transmission, is proving to be more damaging than protective. I dropped my son off at school last week and there was a hybrid of masked children being delivered, for a day of indoctrination, by their unmasked parents. The educators demonstrated inconsistent masking practices with most masks not covering the nares and some masks below the chin so the children can understand instruction. A sea of mask-free older children, that share the same building with the younger, masked children, entered in droves. The explanation is that children that are older than 12 are eligible to receive the vaccination, so masks are unnecessary for this age group. Current data demonstrates that only 50.36% of Michigan residents have been fully vaccinated. We know that severe COVID cases and mortality primarily effect the elderly population, with few exceptions, and this is the group that is likely to be more heavily vaccinated than young children in middle or high school. Therefore, we can assume that more than half of the unmasked children in the 12-18 year age group are likely unvaccinated (I would contend, appropriately unvaccinated). Aren’t we in the midst of the most deadly pandemic in history? As some people insist, mask-wearing is an essential practice; if that is the case, then mask etiquette, mask quality and hand hygiene practices should be standardized and strictly enforced. If masking works (which the research does not support), it needs to be consistent, universal and performed appropriately. It is of no utility to muzzle children in school, then have them remove their mask to visit the grocery store, restaurants or their friends’ houses. This review is the best evidence that I have seen citing all of the randomized controlled trials (RCTs) regarding efficacy (or lack thereof) of mask wearing practices in an attempt to prevent aerosolized viral illness.
As I have pointed out in a previous blog post, Communicating Fear, children have a minuscule risk of mortality from COVID-19. Further complicating these statistics is the concept of “dying of” or “dying with” COVID. I have first-hand knowledge that hospitals have reported suicide, motorcycle accidents and car accidents as COVID deaths, if the patient tested positive and perished as a result of their injuries. The federal government subsidized hospitals handsomely for diagnosing and treating COVID patients or reporting COVID deaths. Hospital systems were actively searching for this disease in order to receive significant government financial support. Interestingly, there are >6,000 hospitals in the United States and 417 health systems. If we reasonably assume that the overwhelming majority of the hospitals are within the 417 health systems, this equates to approximately $23,980,815/system for 2020. It is unlikely that these funds were distributed evenly as the larger systems with higher volumes were more likely to produce higher positive PCR results (true positives AND false positives). Testing every patient that enters the hospital for COVID with a testing method known for high false-positivity rates, it became a race for the winning lottery ticket. It is no coincidence that the American Hospital Association is one of the largest lobbying groups in Washington and has been for over two decades.
Remote learning, social distancing, quarantine and religious masking rituals MAY (but most likely not) have reduced some disease transmission, but certainly wreaked havoc in the arena of mental health (here, here, here). Additionally, non-verbal social queues, important for any human interaction, are negatively affected (here and here). Chronic masking for many hours a day is an additional social experiment with unknown long-term effects. There is a significant negative psychological impact to wearing masks, but it is unclear as to the long-term physiological effect. One could reasonably assume that altering the local CO2 concentration during ventilation would have a negative impact. Hypoxia and hypercapnia do have known consequences to the tissues, most sensitive to decreases in oxygen concentration is the nervous system. The review article posted above provides a comprehensive list of the RCTs available for masking, but I recommend you also watch this video for a visual.
To better understand the deception, we must examine the original articles research articles about the safety and efficacy of the vaccine. Here is a summary and review of the three original studies that were granted EUA status:
Pfizer (click on hyperlink for study)
This trial enrolled 43,448 subjects, 21,720 in the treatment group (receiving the COVID-19 vaccine injection) and 21,728 in the placebo group (saline injection). Each group would receive two injections, 21 days apart. Final two-month follow-up was completed for 37,706 people (86% trial completion rate). All of the subjects enrolled in the study had no prior serologic detectable antibodies, which they deemed as a COVID-naive individuals with no prior exposure. It is unlikely that ALL seronegative individuals would produce a negative PCR test due the level of sensitivity that PCR testing in the presence of small amounts of ribonucleic acids. The other caveat to this particular study was that the criteria they used to detect confirmed COVID-19 cases was through symptomatic manifestation of disease, not asymptomatic detection of the virus in an otherwise healthy individual (which is how hospitals are reporting their numbers). In this study, 8 patients in the treatment arm developed symptomatic COVID symptoms (0.04%); the placebo arm showed a total of 162 symptomatic COVID symptoms (0.8% chance of developing symptomatic COVID symptoms WITHOUT the vaccine). However, this ratio (1 – 0.04/0.8) demonstrates a 95% reduction in the treatment versus placebo group. This type of reporting is abhorrent and we need to understand absolute risk in this particular setting. COVID-19 has a 0.8% chance of causing symptoms in unvaccinated individuals. There is a 99.2% chance of any person, unwilling to receive the vaccine, that will demonstrate no symptoms over any given 2-month period (given the pathogenicity stays constant). Additionally, this study mentioned that there were 10 severe COVID cases seen in this study; 1 in the treatment group (0.005%) and 9 in the placebo group (0.05%). Of the number of cases in the placebo group (9/162), 5.5% of the cases were severe. Overall, in the placebo group, there is a 0.04% (9/18,846) chance of developing severe covid symptoms. 94.5% of cases are mild in symptomatology. Conversely, 12% (1/8) of the vaccinated individuals demonstrated severe COVID symptoms (this was obviously not a highlight of this article as the design method and data analytics was performed by Pfizer, not a third party).
Moderna(click on hyperlink for study)
This study included 30,420 subjects, 15,210 each in the treatment and placebo groups. Similarly to the Pfizer study, this study is evaluating “clinical signs indicative” of disease. They are not performing serial testing to identify asymptomatic cases. Overall, there were 196 symptomatic individuals, 185 in the placebo group (1.2%) and 11 in the treatment group (.07%). With this scenario (1 – 0.07/1.2), this demonstrated a 94.1% reduction in risk, although the absolute risk in this study demonstrated a very low risk in each group also. Thirty cases of severe COVID were reported, all in the placebo group (16% risk of severe disease, therefore 84% chance of mild illness in placebo group). One death was also reported in the placebo group (0.5% risk of mortality).
J&J/Janssen (click on hyperlink for study)
This study included 39,321 participants, 19,630 in the treatment group and 19,691 in the placebo group. Prior to initiation of the study 9.6% or the patients were seropositive (had COVID illness resulting in a previous immune response). Like the two other studies, this study also was only identifying patients with symptomatic disease, but specifically moderate to severe cases. There were 464 moderate to severe COVID cases amongst all subjects in the study population, 116 in the treatment group (0.6%) and 348 in the placebo group (1.8%). This demonstrated a 66.9% (1 – 0.6/1.76) protection with the vaccine. Mild and asymptomatic symptoms were not reported in this study, which makes it useless when comparing its overall efficacy to the other formulations.
The ongoing hysteria surrounding this virus continues to boggle my mind. Vaccination mandates to maintain employment is disgustingly poor policy and could actually be more harmful than helpful. If the brilliant scientists were able to create a useful vaccine in 6 months, with a technology we’ve never used before, when will be seeing cures to cancer? We’ve loaded much more time and funding toward cancer research; cancer has killed far more people than COVID ever will. We also see that natural immunity outperforms vaccine-associated immunity to the more virulent strains, which is great news! Our bodies have impressive capabilities if adequately fueled and allowed to perform as designed. If we are interested in saving people’s lives, we would put as much effort and resources in preventing diabetes, heart disease, obesity, high blood pressure, etc. Reversal of these disease states and education on maintenance would save countless lives and provide people freedom from the Medicine Machine. Constant monitoring, accountability techniques, support groups, sleep hygiene and stress reduction modalities are all important in restoring good health. It is time for us to recognize that medicine is failing the masses and we now time to rethink health and healthy living.
Integrated Health Care 