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COVID-19

“I want to apologize for advocating for the use of masks” – Spread of respiratory illnesses not slowed down by mask use

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7 minute read

The Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews has released a comprehensive study of Physical interventions to interrupt or reduce the spread of respiratory viruses.  

The study examines the effectiveness of masks and of following a hand hygiene program in reducing the likelihood of acquiring respiratory virus infections such as COVID-19.

British Health Researcher Dr. John Campbell shares the disappointing results in this presentation:

From Dr. John Campbell

 

From the Cochrane Library

What did we do?
We searched for randomised controlled studies that looked at physical measures to stop people acquiring a respiratory virus infection.

We were interested in how many people in the studies caught a respiratory virus infection, and whether the physical measures had any unwanted effects.

What did we find?
We identified 78 relevant studies. They took place in low‐, middle‐, and high‐income countries worldwide: in hospitals, schools, homes, offices, childcare centres, and communities during non‐epidemic influenza periods, the global H1N1 influenza pandemic in 2009, epidemic influenza seasons up to 2016, and during the COVID‐19 pandemic. We identified five ongoing, unpublished studies; two of them evaluate masks in COVID‐19. Five trials were funded by government and pharmaceutical companies, and nine trials were funded by pharmaceutical companies.

We assessed the effects of:

· medical or surgical masks;

· N95/P2 respirators (close‐fitting masks that filter the air breathed in, more commonly used by healthcare workers than the general public); and

· hand hygiene (hand‐washing and using hand sanitiser).

We obtained the following results:

Medical or surgical masks

Ten studies took place in the community, and two studies in healthcare workers. Compared with wearing no mask in the community studies only, wearing a mask may make little to no difference in how many people caught a flu‐like illness/COVID‐like illness (9 studies; 276,917 people); and probably makes little or no difference in how many people have flu/COVID confirmed by a laboratory test (6 studies; 13,919 people). Unwanted effects were rarely reported; discomfort was mentioned.

N95/P2 respirators

Four studies were in healthcare workers, and one small study was in the community. Compared with wearing medical or surgical masks, wearing N95/P2 respirators probably makes little to no difference in how many people have confirmed flu (5 studies; 8407 people); and may make little to no difference in how many people catch a flu‐like illness (5 studies; 8407 people), or respiratory illness (3 studies; 7799 people). Unwanted effects were not well‐reported; discomfort was mentioned.

Hand hygiene

Following a hand hygiene programme may reduce the number of people who catch a respiratory or flu‐like illness, or have confirmed flu, compared with people not following such a programme (19 studies; 71,210 people), although this effect was not confirmed as statistically significant reduction when ILI and laboratory‐confirmed ILI were analysed separately. Few studies measured unwanted effects; skin irritation in people using hand sanitiser was mentioned.

 


Dr. John Campbells presentation notes with links:

RCTs did not show a clear reduction in respiratory viral infection with the use of medical/surgical masks.

There were no clear differences between the use of medical/surgical masks compared with N95/P2 respirators in healthcare workers, when used in routine care to reduce respiratory viral infection.

Do physical measures such as hand-washing or wearing masks stop or slow down the spread of respiratory viruses?

https://www.cochranelibrary.com/cdsr/…

Evidence published up to October 2022.

Background Influenza (H1N1) caused by the H1N1pdm09 virus in 2009

Severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) in 2003 Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19)

Update of a Cochrane Review last published in 2020.

We include results from studies from the current COVID-19 pandemic.

Main results 11 new RCTs and cluster-RCTs n = 610,872

Bringing the total number of RCTs to 78

Medical/surgical masks compared to no masks

Wearing masks in the community probably makes little or no difference to the outcome of influenza‐like illness

wearing a mask may make little to no difference in how many people caught a flu-like illness/COVID-like illness

Risk ratio (RR) 0.95, (0.84 to 1.09) 9 trials, n = 276,917 participants

Moderate-certainty evidence.

Wearing masks in the community probably makes little or no difference to the outcome of laboratory-confirmed influenza/SARS-CoV-2 RR 1.01, (CI 0.72 to 1.42)

6 trials, n = 13,919 Moderate-certainty evidence

Harms were rarely measured and poorly reported (very low-certainty evidence).

N95/P2 respirators compared to medical/surgical masks

We pooled trials comparing N95/P2 respirators with medical/surgical masks

We are very uncertain on the effects of N95/P2 respirators compared with medical/surgical masks on the outcome of clinical respiratory illness

Compared with wearing medical or surgical masks, wearing N95/P2 respirators probably makes little to no difference in how many people have confirmed flu and may make little to no difference in how many people catch a flu-like illness, or respiratory illness.

Confirmed influenza RR 0.70, (0.45 to 1.10) N = 7,779 Very low-certainty evidence

Influenza like illness N95/P2 respirators compared with medical/surgical masks may be effective for ILI RR 0.82 N= 8,407 Low-certainty evidence

The use of a N95/P2 respirators compared to medical/surgical masks

Probably makes little or no difference for laboratory-confirmed influenza infection RR 1.10 N = 8,407 Moderate-certainty evidence

Restricting pooling to healthcare workers made no difference to the overall findings.

Harms were poorly measured and reported

Discomfort wearing medical/surgical masks or N95/P2 respirators was mentioned in several studies

Very low-certainty evidence

One new RCT Medical/surgical masks were non-inferior to N95 respirators N = 1,009 healthcare workers in four countries, providing direct care to COVID-19 patients.

After 15 years as a TV reporter with Global and CBC and as news director of RDTV in Red Deer, Duane set out on his own 2008 as a visual storyteller. During this period, he became fascinated with a burgeoning online world and how it could better serve local communities. This fascination led to Todayville, launched in 2016.

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armed forces

Judge dismisses Canadian military personnel’s lawsuit against COVID shot mandate

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From LifeSiteNews

By Anthony Murdoch

Associate Judge Catherine Coughlan rejected a lawsuit from more than 300 past and current members of the Canadian military who lost their jobs or were put on leave for not taking the experimental, dangerous COVID shots.

A Canadian federal judge has thrown out a lawsuit filed on behalf of some 330 past and current members of the nation’s military who lost their jobs or were placed on leave for refusing the experimental COVID shots, because she alleged that their lawsuit lacked “evidence” that the jabs were harmful.

The Canadian Armed Forces (CAF) members had sought some $1.3 million in damages from the government for having their charter rights violated due to the military’s 2021 COVID mandates, according to their lawsuit.

In a November 13 ruling, Edmonton-based Associate Judge Catherine Coughlan ruled in favor of the Trudeau government, and thus military’s COVID jab mandate, to strike down the case. Coughlan remarked that the plaintiffs’ case lacked “material facts” along with “evidence” and was filled with “vexatious language.”

READ: Canadian father files $35 million lawsuit against Pfizer over son’s jab-related death

“The only indications of bad faith are found when the pleadings baldly assert that, among other claims, Canada failed to carry out safety and efficacy testing for the vaccines, and that the Directives were premature and ‘promoted the fraudulent use of the biologics’,” she wrote, overlooking reports of thousands of injuries due to the shots in Canada alone.

As a result of the lawsuit being tossed, all plaintiffs are now on the hook to pay some $5,040 out of pocket in legal costs.

As reported by LifeSiteNews in June, documents obtained by LifeSiteNews show that the number of jab injuries in the CAF rose over 800 percent in 2021, with the most being credited to Moderna’s experimental COVID shot.

The CAF members’ lawsuit was filed in June of 2023 and overall sought some $1 million in damages, along with an extra $350,000 in general damages. The lawsuit also had a condition that there be a declaration made that mandating the COVID shots for military members was a violation of their charter rights.

READ: Israeli boy featured in COVID vaccine campaign dies of heart attack at age 8

Under the CAF’s mandate, hundreds of military members were fired, or one could say, purged for not getting the COVID shots. This is in addition to the thousands of public servants fired for not agreeing to take the COVID shots.

The CAF eventually ended its COVID mandate in October 2022, which was months after the federal mandate was lifted, but members are still “strongly encouraged” to take the experimental shot.

The federal government under Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced that its federal COVID shot workplace mandate would be dropped in June 2022, as would the mandate requiring domestic travelers have the shot to board planes and trains.

In November of 2023, a CAF member who spoke to LifeSiteNews under the condition of anonymity observed that the military considers members who refuse the COVID jab “a piece of garbage.”

READ: COVID shots have 200-times higher risk of brain clots than other jabs: new report

In March, LifeSiteNews reported on large personnel losses causing the CAF to consider dropping its remaining requirements altogether.

Although Canada has a Vaccine Injury Support Program (VISP) program, active members of the CAF, as well as veterans, are not eligible for the civilian program. According to Christensen, this leaves many COVID jab-injured CAF members and veterans with no recourse other than Veterans Affairs Canada.

COVID shot mandates, which came from provincial governments with the support of Trudeau’s federal government, split Canadian society. The mRNA shots themselves have been linked to a multitude of negative and often severe side effects, such as heart diseases, stroke, and death, including in children.

The shots also have connections to cell lines derived from aborted babies. As a result, many Catholics and other Christians refused to take them.

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Brownstone Institute

The Most Devastating Report So Far

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From the Brownstone Institute

By Jay BhattacharyaJayanta Bhattacharya 

The House report on HHS Covid propaganda is devastating. The Biden administration spent almost $1 billion to push falsehoods about Covid vaccines, boosters, and masks on the American people. If a pharma company had run the campaign, it would have been fined out of existence.

HHS engaged a PR firm, the Fors Marsh Group (FMG), for the propaganda campaign. The main goal was to increase Covid vax uptake. The strategy: 1. Exaggerate Covid mortality risk 2. Downplay the fact that there was no good evidence that the Covid vax stops transmission.

The propaganda campaign extended beyond vax uptake and included exaggerating mask efficacy and pushing for social distancing and school closures.

Ultimately, since the messaging did not match reality, the campaign collapsed public trust in public health.

The PR firm (FMG) drew most of its faulty science from the CDC’s “guidance,” which ignored the FDA’s findings on the vaccine’s limitations, as well as scientific findings from other countries that contradicted CDC groupthink.

The report details the CDC’s mask flip-flopping through the years. It’s especially infuriating to recall the CDC’s weird, anti-scientific, anti-human focus on masking toddlers with cloth masks into 2022.

President Biden’s Covid advisor Ashish K. Jha waited until Dec. 2022 (right after leaving government service) to tell the country that “[t]here is no study in the world that shows that masks work that well.” What took him so long?

In 2021, former CDC director, Rochelle Walensky rewrote CDC guidance on social distancing at the behest of the national teachers’ union, guaranteeing that schools would remain closed to in-person learning for many months.

During this period, the PR firm FMG put out ads telling parents that schools would close unless kids masked up, stayed away from friends, and got Covid-vaccinated.

In March 2021, even as the CDC told the American people that the vaxxed did not need to mask, the PR firm ran ads saying that masks were still needed, even for the vaxxed. “It’s not time to ease up” we were told, in the absence of evidence any of that did any good.

In 2021, to support the Biden/Harris administration’s push for vax mandates, the PR firm pushed the false idea that the vax stopped Covid transmission. When people started getting “breakthrough” infections, public trust in public health collapsed.

Later, when the FDA approved the vax for 12 to 15-year-old kids, the PR firm told parents that schools could open in fall 2021 only if they got their kids vaccinated. These ads never mentioned side effects like myocarditis due to the vax.

HHS has scrubbed the propaganda ads from this era from its web pages. It’s easy to see why. They are embarrassing. They tell kids, in effect, that they should treat other kids like biohazards unless they are vaccinated.

When the Delta variant arrived, the PR firm doubled down on fear-mongering, masking, and social distancing.

In September 2021, CDC director Walensky overruled the agency’s external experts to recommend the booster to all adults rather than just the elderly. The director’s action was “highly unusual” and went beyond the FDA’s approval of the booster for only the elderly.

The PR campaign and the CDC persistently overestimated the mortality risk of Covid infection in kids to scare parents into vaccinating their children with the Covid vax.

In Aug. 2021, the military imposed its Covid vax mandate, leading to 8,300 servicemen being discharged. Since 2023, the DOD has been trying to get the discharged servicemen to reenlist. What harm has been done to American national security by the vax mandate?

The Biden/Harris administration imposed the OSHA, CMS, and military vax mandates, even though the CDC knew that the Delta variant evaded vaccine immunity. The PR campaign studiously avoided informing Americans about waning vaccine efficacy in the face of variants.

The propaganda campaign hired celebrities and influencers to “persuade” children to get the Covid vax.

I think if a celebrity is paid to advertise a faulty product, that celebrity should be partially liable if the product harms some people.

In the absence of evidence, the propaganda campaign ran ads telling parents that the vaccine would prevent their kids from getting Long Covid.

With the collapse in public trust in the CDC, parents have begun to question all CDC advice. Predictably, the HHS propaganda campaign has led to a decline in the uptake of routine childhood vaccines.

The report makes several recommendations, including formally defining the CDC’s core mission to focus on disease prevention, forcing HHS propaganda to abide by the FDA’s product labeling rules, and revamping the process of evaluating vaccine safety.

Probably the most important recommendation: HHS should never again adopt a policy of silencing dissenting scientists in an attempt to create an illusion of consensus in favor of CDC groupthink.

You can find a copy of the full House report here. The HHS must take its findings seriously if there is any hope for public health to regain public.

Author

Jay Bhattacharya

Dr. Jay Bhattacharya is a physician, epidemiologist and health economist. He is Professor at Stanford Medical School, a Research Associate at the National Bureau of Economics Research, a Senior Fellow at the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research, a Faculty Member at the Stanford Freeman Spogli Institute, and a Fellow at the Academy of Science and Freedom. His research focuses on the economics of health care around the world with a particular emphasis on the health and well-being of vulnerable populations. Co-Author of the Great Barrington Declaration.

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