Instead of moving on and returning to normalcy, health officials are doubling down on precautions to “limit the spread of RSV, the flu and COVID.”
This month, Santa Clara County decided that everyone — patients, caregivers and healthcare providers alike — must wear the all-too-familiar face masks in public patient care areas in hospitals, clinics and long-term care facilities. This guidance does not apply for a week or a month, but for the entire “winter period of the respiratory virus,” the Mercury News reported.
This mandate runs from November 1 to the end of March. That’s a whole five months of wearing a mask, despite declining COVID cases.
Marin County has jumped on the bandwagon and implemented a similar order. As if that weren’t enough, Alameda, San Mateo, Contra Costa and Sonoma counties aren’t far behind, requiring their health care workers to mask up in patient care areas starting this week.
Health officials are warning residents to stock up on rapid COVID tests. And it doesn’t end there. The federal government has scaled back the program offering free COVID testing under the Biden administration. Since September 25, consumers can request a shipment of four rapid at-home tests through the USPS site.
KTVU reported:
Dr. Peter Chin-Hong said KTVU’s medical professional doesn’t know what will happen during this flu season, so they are taking a precautionary approach.
Although not everyone in healthcare agrees.
“We’re over it,” a hospital employee, who asked to remain anonymous, told KTVU. “We still don’t know whether our patients come in with Covid, but I’m not afraid of it.”
Health officials across the state are also encouraging everyone over the age of six months to get the latest COVID 19 vaccine, the flu shot, and for vulnerable populations, the RSV vaccine.
Numerous studies have suggested that continued and long-term use of face masks can have health consequences.
In April, The Gateway Pundit reported on a German study showing that using a face mask during pregnancy can increase the risk of stillbirth, testicular dysfunction and cognitive decline in children.
When worn for long periods, face coverings may increase the risk of mild carbon dioxide (CO2) poisoning, according to a review of 43 previously published studies on CO2 exposure, mask wearing and pregnancy by German researchers.
Researchers in Germany found that elevated carbon dioxide levels in pregnant women were linked to an increased risk of birth defects.
The German researchers reviewed a study that found that even short-term exposure to CO2 concentrations as low as 0.3% caused brain damage, increased anxiety and impaired memory in both pregnant rats and young mice. Testicular cells and sperm were destroyed in another study when male mice were exposed for four hours to 2.5 percent CO2, the human equivalent of which is 0.5 percent. A third study found that stillbirths and birth defects occurred in pregnant rats exposed to 3 percent CO2 (equivalent to 0.8 percent for humans).
This is evident from a study by researchers at Jeonbuk National University South Korea, released in April and quietly being reshared, proposes ‘gold standard’ surgical N95 masks can expose users to dangerous levels of toxic chemicals.
A study by the NCBI, which falls under the National Institutes of Health, shows that masks do absolutely nothing to help prevent the spread of COVID-19 and that their use is actually harmful.
The study concludes (emphasis added):
The existing scientific evidence[s] questioning the safety and efficacy of wearing a face mask as a preventive intervention for COVID-19. The data suggests that both medical and non-medical face masks are ineffective at blocking human-to-human transmission of viral and infectious diseases such as SARS-CoV-2 and COVID-19, supporting the use of face masks. Wearing face masks has been shown to do this significant adverse physiological and psychological effects. These include hypoxia, hypercapnia, dyspnea, increased acidity and toxicity, activation of anxiety and stress responses, increase in stress hormones, immunosuppression, fatigue, headache, decline in cognitive performance, predisposition to viral and infectious diseases, chronic stress, anxiety and depression. Long-term effects of wearing a face mask can cause deterioration of health, development and progression of chronic diseases and premature death. Governments, policy makers and health organizations should make use of this [a] a good and scientifically based approach with regard to wearing face masks, when the latter is considered a preventive public health intervention.
Even the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons (AAPS) has released a statement challenging the effectiveness and ethics of mask mandates for respiratory viruses, including COVID-19. The AAPS argues that these mandates are not only ineffective at stopping the spread of respiratory viruses, but they also pose potential health risks and infringe on individuals’ rights to informed medical consent.
“Government recommendations and mandates regarding face coverings are contradictory, provided without evidence to the public as authoritative, are contrary to available data, and fail to address any potential harm from the use of coverings or masks,” the association added .
Questioning the effectiveness of masks in preventing the spread of respiratory viruses such as COVID-19, the AAPS cited a systemic review from Cochrane. The study found no clear evidence that medical or surgical masks were effective in reducing viral respiratory infections among healthcare workers compared to N95/P2 masks.
The AAPS statement also addressed the potential harm that can result from prolonged mask use. Based on more than 60 studies and reports, various points of interest were listed:
- Prolonged use of a mask is not a neutral event and can even cause damage. “Prolonged use of N95 and surgical masks by healthcare professionals during COVID-19 has caused adverse effects such as headaches, rashes, acne, skin damage and impaired cognition in the majority of respondents.”
- Findings show that wearing the N95 mask for 14 hours significantly negatively affected physiological, biochemical and perception parameters.
- There is a possibility that masks hinder the acquisition of speech and language in children. “Overall, the research to date shows that the visible articulations that babies normally see when others talk play a key role in the acquisition of communication skills. Research also shows that babies who lip read more have better language skills when they are older. If so, this suggests that masks are likely to hinder infants’ speech and language acquisition.”
- Experimental data have shown that “carbon dioxide levels in inhaled air increase on average to 13,000 to 13,750 ppm, regardless of whether children wear a surgical or FFP2 mask. This is well above the 2,000 ppm level considered acceptable and above the 1,000 ppm normal for air in enclosed spaces. This estimate is rather on the low side, because we only measured this after a short time without physical exertion.”
- Society needs facial recognition as a fundamental part of interaction and communication. Studies in individuals with age-related macular degeneration (AMD) have shown that “poor facial perception in AMD is an important domain contributing to impaired social interactions and quality of life.” Non-profit voluntary masking contributes to social alienation.