How Masks Make You Sick Instead of Protecting You

By Dr. Joseph Mercola

Story at a glance:

Using Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) data, no significant differences were found in COVID-19 case growth between states with or without mask mandates, during periods of low or high transmission.The widespread use of masks did not reduce COVID-19 transmission in Europe, and a moderate positive correlation was found between mask usage and deaths in Western Europe.An update to a CDC study on school mask mandates, using nearly six times more data, found no significant relationship between mask mandates in U.S. schools and COVID-19 case rates.In Kansas, counties with a mask mandate had significantly higher COVID-19 case fatality rates than counties without a mask mandate.One way masks cause harm may be the “Foegen effect” — the idea that deep re-inhalation of droplets and virions caught on facemasks might make COVID-19 infection more likely or more severe.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, 80% of U.S. states mandated masks to slow the spread of SARS-CoV-2, but accumulating research shows mask mandates and use do not lower the spread of the virus.

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Mask mandates didn’t lower COVID-19 cases

Using CDC data, researchers with the University of Louisville calculated total COVID-19 case growth and mask use for the U.S. No significant differences were found in case growth between mandated and non-mandated states during periods of low or high transmission.

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Similarly dismal results from mask mandates were demonstrated in Europe. A study published in Cureus analyzed data from 35 European countries, including morbidity, mortality and mask usage, over a six-month period.

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“When the data were analyzed, the study also revealed that the widespread use of masks did not reduce COVID-19 transmission. Worse, a moderate positive correlation was found between mask usage and deaths in Western Europe, which “suggests that the universal use of masks may have had harmful unintended consequences.”

Mask mandates in schools didn’t reduce COVID-19 cases

As part of the government-sponsored propaganda campaign, a widely cited CDC study, published in October 2021, reported that counties without school mask mandates had larger increases in COVID-19 case rates in children after the start of school compared with counties that had school mask mandates.

The study was used to support school mask mandates, but a team of researchers revisited the research, incorporating a larger sample size and longer study period.

The updated study, published in May, used nearly six times more data compared to the original study and found no significant relationship between mask mandates in U.S. schools and COVID-19 case rates.

According to the researchers:

“We failed to establish a relationship between school masking and pediatric cases using the same methods but a larger, more nationally diverse population over a longer interval.

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On Twitter, surgeon and public policy researcher, Dr. Marty Makary pointed out that the CDC’s original study appeared to include cherry-picked data and the agency refused to publish an update using the more extensive data:

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It should be noted that a previous CDC study found mask requirements for students had little effect on COVID-19 incidence in Georgia schools, while improved ventilation, such as opening a window, reduced cases more than mask mandates for staff and teachers.

The Foegen Effect: Mask mandates increased COVID-19 deaths

A profoundly important study was conducted by German physician Dr. Zacharias Fögen to find out whether mandatory mask use influenced the COVID-19 case fatality rate in Kansas from Aug. 1, 2020, to Oct. 15, 2020.

He chose the state of Kansas because, while it issued a mask mandate, counties were allowed to either opt-in or out of it.

His analysis revealed that counties with a mask mandate had significantly higher case fatality rates than counties without a mask mandate.

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That threat, he explained, may be something called the “Foegen effect” — the idea that deep re-inhalation of droplets and virions caught on facemasks might make COVID-19 infection more likely or more severe.

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Furthermore, these virions bypass the multilayer squamous epithelial wall that they cannot pass into in vitro and most likely cannot pass into in vivo. Therefore, the only probable way for the virions to enter the blood vessels is through the alveoli.”

Wearing masks could be related to Long COVID

Fögen explained that wearing masks could end up increasing your overall viral load because, instead of exhaling virions from your respiratory tract and ridding your body of them, those virions are caught in the mask and returned.

This might also have the effect of increasing the number of virions that pass through the mask, such that it becomes more than the number that would have been shed without a mask.

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Clear risks of prolonged mask use

Two expert reports spoke out against the use of masks for children in 2021. The first, a psychology report, stated that masks are likely to be causing psychological harm to children and interfering with development.

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The second report focused on health, safety and well-being, noting potential permanent physical damage to the lungs caused by fibrosis from inhalation of fibrous nanoparticles.

“There are real and significant dangers of respiratory infection, oral health deterioration and of lung injury, such as pneumothorax, owing to moisture buildup and also exposure to potentially harmful levels of an asphyxiant gas (carbon dioxide [CO2]) which can cause serious injury to health,” the authors explained.

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The German Federal Environmental Office set a limit of CO2 for closed rooms of 2,000 ppm, or 0.2% by volume. If you’re wearing a facemask, the CO2 cannot escape as it usually does and instead becomes trapped in the mask.

In a study published in JAMA Pediatrics, researchers analyzed the CO2 content of inhaled air among children wearing two types of masks, as well as wearing no mask.

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CO2 in inhaled air under surgical and filtering facepiece masks came in between 13,120 ppm and 13,910 ppm, “which is higher than what is already deemed unacceptable by the German Federal Environmental Office by a factor of 6,” the researchers noted.

Also important, this level was reached after only three minutes, while children wear masks at school for a mean of 270 minutes at a time. Even the child who had the lowest measured CO2 level had a measurement three-fold greater than the closed room CO2 limit of 0.2%.

However, younger children appeared to have the highest CO2 values; a level of 25,000 ppm was measured from a 7-year-old wearing a facemask.

Bacterial infection risk, problems with social learning

The full consequences of prolonged mask use are only beginning to be understood. The University of Louisville researchers noted, however, that using a mask for more than four hours per day “promotes facial alkalinization and inadvertently encourages dehydration, which in turn can enhance barrier breakdown and bacterial infection risk.”

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Via https://childrenshealthdefense.org/defender/masks-sick-foegen-effect-covid-transmission-cola/