Evidence that Masks could possibly Kill You
11 Nations with Disparate Mask use and Disparate Average Weekly Excess Death
Alert: Error was found in the data analysis of this Substack. Correction coming soon.
A big concern with wearing masks is bacterial superconcentration. It’s normal to have some amount of bacteria in your mouth, nose, and throat — but extended mask use can triple the amount of bacteria you are normally exposed to.
It is thought that most deaths during the 1918 Spanish Flu — the worst pandemic of the 20th century — did not actually come from Spanish Flu, but rather from secondary bacterial infection such as bacterial pneumonia.
One of the measures taken back then was that they wore a lot of masks. Coincidence?
Back in April of 2022, at least one dozen universities reinstated mask mandates. The issue keeps popping up. The physics of pores in cloth masks and even surgical masks, and especially the gap between mask and face, indicate that masks should not work well against aerosolized viral particles.
Even though physics predicts that masks will not slow the spread of COVID-19, and no good evidence has shown that they can, masks could still lead to bacterial superconcentration, which could possibly increase mortality.
When 11 nations with a wide disparity in mask use in 2020 were re-examined for average weekly excess death, the 3 nations that were consistently-low in mask use (<25%) faired much better than the 8 nations with consistently-high mask use (>75%):
Your eyes aren’t deceiving you. The 8 nations which were consistently-high mask users had over 11 times the average weekly percent excess death than the 3 nations which were consistently-low mask users.
The error bars are each 95% confidence bounds, indicating a highly significant increase in excess death in the group which wore masks a lot. Here are the notes showing that the median weekly excess death rate was 45 times higher among high mask-users:
[click image to enlarge it]
The red and green cells show the mean weekly percent excess death in the two groups. The yellow cells were consistently-high mask using nations which only had monthly percent excess death at OurWorldInData. The orange cells were consistently-high mask using nations which did not have data in the series used here.
Alert: Error was found in the data analysis of this Substack. Correction coming soon.
Reference
[weekly percent excess death] — OWID. https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/excess-mortality-p-scores-average-baseline-by-age
[universities go back to masks] — At least a dozen U.S. universities reinstate mask mandates as Covid cases rise. https://www.cnbc.com/2022/04/26/covid-cases-us-universities-reinstate-mask-mandates.html
[high and low mask users in 2020] — Badillo-Goicoechea E, Chang TH, Kim E, LaRocca S, Morris K, Deng X, Chiu S, Bradford A, Garcia A, Kern C, Cobb C, Kreuter F, Stuart EA. Global trends and predictors of face mask usage during the COVID-19 pandemic. BMC Public Health. 2021 Nov 15;21(1):2099. doi: 10.1186/s12889-021-12175-9. PMID: 34781917; PMCID: PMC8667772. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8667772/
[most Spanish Flu deaths were not even from the Spanish Flu] — Morens DM, Taubenberger JK, Fauci AS. Predominant role of bacterial pneumonia as a cause of death in pandemic influenza: implications for pandemic influenza preparedness. J Infect Dis. 2008 Oct 1;198(7):962-70. doi: 10.1086/591708. PMID: 18710327; PMCID: PMC2599911. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2599911/
[Extended mask use more than triples the concentration of bacteria on the inside of the mask] — Zhiqing L, Yongyun C, Wenxiang C, Mengning Y, Yuanqing M, Zhenan Z, Haishan W, Jie Z, Kerong D, Huiwu L, Fengxiang L, Zanjing Z. Surgical masks as source of bacterial contamination during operative procedures. J Orthop Translat. 2018 Jun 27;14:57-62. doi: 10.1016/j.jot.2018.06.002. PMID: 30035033; PMCID: PMC6037910. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6037910/
[Extended mask use more the triples the bacterial concentration on the face] — Marín-Nieto J, Reino-Perez C, Santillana-Cernuda G, Díaz-Bernal JM, Luque-Aranda R, García-Basterra I. FACE MASK CONTAMINATION DURING COVID-19 PANDEMIA. A STUDY ON PATIENTS RECEIVING INTRAVITREAL INJECTIONS. Retina. 2021 Nov 1;41(11):2215-2220. doi: 10.1097/IAE.0000000000003202. PMID: 33965993. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33965993/
Alert: Error was found in the data analysis of this Substack. Correction coming soon.