It seems that the CDC and the media has caught up to what I have been writing about in BeeLine for the last month or so.
Covid cases and hospitalizations are surging to levels much higher than in the previous two summers.
Respiratory viruses don't typically spread easily in the summer months. The exception with Covid over the last two years has been a spike in cases across the Sunbelt as people sought refuge from the heat indoors.
Confirmed cases currently are three times (and more likely much higher due to home tests) the levels last year at this time. Hospitalizations are double what they were last year. Many of these are undoubtedly incidental infections in that the patient is in the hospital for something else. However, that would have also been the case last year.
Last week the CDC announced that more than 50% of the United States was in an area of "high-risk" based on its hospitalizations measures.
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| Source: https://twitter.com/JasonSalemi/status/1547699811092029447 |
The CDC then came out with a recommendation that all people in these "high risk" counties wear masks indoors.
It will be interesting to see how many state and local officials and businesses attempt to follow this guidance.
Are we going to see schools attempt to put masks on school children in a month?
How many people are going to buy what the CDC is trying to sell again?
The fact is that there continues to be no scientific study or evidence that supports the general use of masks to prevent the spread of Covid or other respiratory viruses.
That was the case before Covid ever appeared. It is the same 2-1/2 years later.
For example, University of Louisville researchers used CDC data in a recent study to attempt to support a hypothesis that statewide mask mandates and mask use were associated with lower COVID-19 case growth rates in the United States.
However, the researchers found no significant differences in case growth between mandate and non-mandate states during periods of low or high transmission.
Conclusions: Mask mandates and use are not associated with slower state-level COVID-19 spread during COVID- 19 growth surges. Containment requires future research and implementation of existing efficacious strategies.
I wrote over two years ago about the Canadian Dental Society research that was conducted in 2016 on the use of face masks in dental offices in the prevention of respiratory viruses.
That study found that face masks gave almost no protection to dental professionals from viruses. As you can imagine, there can be extensive generation of airborne material during the majority of dental procedures so this is an important issue for dental offices.
The study also addressed the question as to why face masks have been so universally accepted for so many years by medical professionals if they offered little protection. The answer given was that no one had really studied the issue in decades. It had just been accepted without question and it was not a high profile enough issue that involved big dollars that attracted much research. It was the medical equivalent of an urban myth.
Interestingly, as mask use mandates were increasingly used during the pandemic, the Canadian study was purged from the internet in that it did not fit the narrative.
So much for science.
If you want a real world look at how effective masks are at preventing the spread of Covid I suggest you look at the recent data from Japan.
There is no country that utilizes face masks more than Japan.
The use of face masks were heavily built into the culture of the Japanese in dealing with respiratory issues well before the appearance of Covid.
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| Source: https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2022/05/20/national/japan-outdoor-mask-advice/ |
How is Japan faring against Omicron right now?
Japan is reporting almost 200,000 cases per day. On a per capita basis that is over three times what the United States is reporting right now.
Japan has over 82% of every man, woman and child fully vaccinated and 69% boosted.
The latest surge in the U.S. is also surely going to result in more calls for boosters.
We will undoubtedly hear that if more people were boosted we would not be seeing this surge.
The United States does lag a number of other countries in booster uptake.
Compare per capita boosters administered in the United States to a range of other countries around the world--Gibraltar, Israel, U.K. South Korea, Australia, Germany, Portugal, etc.
Now compare cumulative Covid cases in the United States to these same countries.
The United States has reported fewer cumulative Covid cases per capita than all of the countries above that have had higher vaccination and booster uptake.
Does this suggest that the United States should be embarking on a massive booster campaign?
As I have stated from the beginning of the vaccination effort, there may be good reasons for those who are older and vulnerable to be vaccinated (and boosted) against Covid.
However, the risk/benefit equation of the vaccines for the young and healthy is far different.
The data on the vaccines also now seems clear that any efficacy is short-lived.
The vaccines may actually make you more vulnerable to the virus in the first couple of weeks after being administered before providing a protective benefit for several months and then quickly receding to marginal efficacy.
It is yet unclear what continual Covid vaccinations do to your natural immune system.
The suggestion in the data above is that boosters may hurt more than help over the long term.
Despite the data, you can be sure that the public health authorities are going to be promoting masks and boosters leading up to the Fall.
The reality is that they have nothing else to talk about in order to attempt to maintain relevance.
If they were honest, they would admit to the failure of their mask and vaccines guidance.
They will not do it.
They will compound their errors.
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