Mask-wearing had no discernible impact on the spread of COVID-19 in Europe during winter 2020-21 and may actually have increased mortality, a study has found.
The peer-reviewed study by Professor Beny Spira from the Department of Microbiology at the University of São Paulo, published in the journal Cureus, looked at the correlation between the rate of mask-wearing in the population and the number of reported infections and deaths from October 2020 to March 2021 in 35 European countries. All European countries, including Western and Eastern Europe, with more than one million inhabitants were included, encompassing a total of 602 million people. All the countries experienced a peak of COVID-19 infections during the six months – the winter 2020-21 wave.
The results are shown in the graphs above, where a positive correlation can be seen in the case of both infections and deaths, i.e., greater mask-wearing went hand-in-hand with more infections and deaths, the opposite of the intended effect of masks. In the case of reported infections the correlation was not statistically significant, so may have been by chance. In the case of deaths it was statistically significant, particularly in Western Europe, opening up the possibility that wearing masks actually made things worse.
Professor Spira addresses some possible limitations of the study.
It could be argued that some confounding factors could have influenced these results. One of these factors could have been different vaccination rates among the studied countries. However, this is unlikely given the fact that at the end of the period analysed in this study (March 31st 2021), vaccination rollout was still at its beginning, with only three countries displaying vaccination rates higher than 20%: the UK (48%), Serbia (35%), and Hungary (30%), with all doses counted individually. It could also be claimed that the rise in infection levels prompted mask usage resulting in higher levels of masking in countries with already higher transmission rates. While this assertion is certainly true for some countries, several others with high infection rates, such as France, Germany, Italy, Portugal, and Spain had strict mask mandates in place since the first semester of 2020. In addition, during the six-month period covered by this study, all countries underwent a peak in COVID-19 infections, thus all of them endured similar pressures that might have potentially influenced the level of mask usage.
Professor Spira notes the findings are in line with the results of most randomised controlled trials before and during the pandemic, which found the “role of masks in preventing respiratory viral transmission was small, null, or inconclusive”. Despite this lack of evidence, masks were widely mandated.
Mask mandates were implemented in almost all world countries and in most places where masks were not obligatory, their use in public spaces was recommended. Accordingly, the World Health Organisation (WHO) as well as other public institutions, such as the IHME, from which the data on mask compliance used in this study were obtained, strongly recommend the use of masks as a tool to curb COVID-19 transmission. These mandates and recommendations took place despite the fact that most randomised controlled trials carried out before and during the COVID-19 pandemic concluded that the role of masks in preventing respiratory viral transmission was small, null, or inconclusive.
Mask proponents appear to have been led astray by population-based studies from 2020, where, the study notes, ‘mask effectiveness’ was invariably measured against a background of falling infections.
Conversely, ecological studies, performed during the first months of the pandemic, comparing countries, states, and provinces before and after the implementation of mask mandates almost unanimously concluded that masks reduced COVID-19 propagation. However, mask mandates were normally implemented after the peak of COVID-19 cases in the first wave, which might have given the impression that the drop in the number of cases was caused by the increment in mask usage. For instance, the peak of cases in Germany’s first wave occurred in the first week of April 2020, while masks became mandatory in all of Germany’s federal states between the 20th and 29th of April, at a time when the propagation of COVID-19 was already declining. Furthermore, the mask mandate was still in place in the subsequent autumn-winter wave of 2020-2021, but it did not help preventing the outburst of cases and deaths in Germany that was several-fold more severe than in the first wave.
The study concludes that the lack of negative correlations between mask usage and COVID-19 reported infections and deaths suggest that “the widespread use of masks at a time when an effective intervention was most needed, i.e., during the strong 2020-2021 autumn-winter peak, was not able to reduce COVID-19 transmission”. It adds that the moderate positive correlation between mask usage and deaths in Western Europe suggests the practice “may have had harmful unintended consequences” – though cautions that no cause-effect conclusions can be drawn from the observational analysis.
The study is worth reading in full.
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Killing Farming Is Killing Humanity
leaflet to print at home and deliver to neighbours or forward to politicians, media, friends online.
“Tory capitulation to the soft-Left orthodoxy has ruined Britain”
The late George Carlin used to talk about ‘where interests converge’. That there didn’t need to be a formal conspiracy driving us towards a totalitarian future, because the people driving it went to the same university, same country club, their children went to the same schools, and so on. They didn’t need it writing down. They knew what was good for them, and they didn’t rock the boat.
This in my mind is what has happened to parliament and our MP’s. Far too many people with the same outlook on life and all things. The Labour party in government is likely to bring this to a whole new level. No longer the Union man off the steel-works shop floor, arguing with the landowners and bankers. The Commons are full of people who have went to the same Universities, read the same subject, go to the same dinner parties and gained their work experience in local councils, Think Tanks, NGO’s and charities.
“‘Disbelief’ as under-manned Royal Navy seeks to re-deploy officers to diversity and inclusion team”
Disbelief, really.? Its exactly what I would have expected from something that has lost its connection with core values, and its true mission. Its very sad.
Here’s a little video of when our Navy was filled with courageous recruits.
https://youtu.be/gFeUO1R3-eg?t=161
“The SNP’s Covid reckoning”
Its not the language. I can overlook the language. It is the utterly narcissistic way that they treated the entire situation, and the opportunism of using it for other ends that should hang them. It was nothing more than a game that they were playing. However it was one that required the deaths of real people who were doing nothing more than being caught up in a gigantic game of ‘who’s got the biggest dick’..?
“Britain halts aid to UN agency after claims staff helped Hamas attacks”
Article behind paywall.
Britain, Italy, Canada and Australia followed the United States in withdrawing financial support for the UNWRA for Palestinian refugees. [Plus Germany and Finland so far. Ireland following international law and maintaining payments pending investigations.]
https://www.politico.eu/article/italy-canada-australia-united-states-funding-unrwa-united-nations-hamas-israel/
-while 400,000+ people literally starve. Its payback for the ICJ interim decision.
As Max Blumenthal notes:
https://twitter.com/MaxBlumenthal/status/1751110691103113456
“2003: GW Bush justifies invading Iraq with testimony by Ibn al-Shaykh Al-Libi, who was tortured into confession by CIA-trained Egyptian security services.
2024: Biden [and Sunak et al] justifies cutting UN aid to Gaza with testimony by Palestinian detainees tortured into confession by Israeli security services.”
And as posted elsewhere: ‘So an allegation that 7 people from 30,000 employees derived from intelligence ( confessions) made under torture from prisoners and without any court ruling or evidence presented is now acted upon by western nations. Hypocrites to the procedures of law. As the west always says, wait for a court to prove allegations especially when its against politicians for corruption etc. All this the day after an adverse IJC finding against Israel’ [which has wanted UNWRA out of Palestine for years] How convenient.
Do Sunak and all those other soulless hegemonic puppets realise that they could eventually be done for complicity in genocide?
#Notinmyname
“they could eventually be done for complicity in genocide”
Quite the opposite, I think we can safely conclude they know it will never happen.
The same people just presided over the killing of swathes of their own electorate without consequence other than the odd embarrassing headline.
Dr Mark Trozzi, professor, ER specialist & covid warrior, has his licence revoked in Canada, an egregious political decision that has nothing to do with patient care.
https://drtrozzi.substack.com/p/unrepentant-cpso-revokes-dr-trozzis
In reaching its decision, the Tribunal rejected Supreme Court cases, dating from 1939, which hold that Canadians enjoy an absolute constitutional right to express minority opinions on any subject. This allowed the Tribunal to rule that the College has a right to regulate the expression of its members in the name of the public interest.
The Tribunal’s ruling also rested on the prior discipline hearing decision, where the Tribunal found that Dr. Trozzi had caused harm by spreading misinformation, even though expert witnesses for the College failed to tender evidence that Dr. Trozzi’s statements had caused harm to a patient or a member of the public.
In support of its ruling, the Tribunal also rejected a 41-page report Dr. Trozzi submitted in 2021 in which he defended himself against the College’s initial allegations, citing 29 references from mainstream sources such as Lancet, the New England Journal of Medicine, Public Health Ontario and Statistics Canada. This was done without mentioning that the College’s main expert witness, Dr. Andrew Gardam, had admitted on cross-examination during the discipline hearing that he had never attempted to refute the Trozzi report.
“‘Weakened’ Ukraine can’t launch offensive against Russia and must focus on defence, say US officials”
Good idea because this (labelled ‘fake’ by Russian authorities, ring any bells?) is what it is like for Russian families:
‘The Russian government has turned its backs on soldiers and their families.
We’re being betrayed and exterminated by our own people. […] We were f*cked over and you’ll be f*cked over. All this time, all they showed us was lazy stability, reliability, and safety. We remember how the president promised that reservists wouldn’t be called up, that only professional volunteers would fight in the special military operation. And then they sent our loved ones to Ukraine. The promises proved empty. Many will never return. Mobilization turned out to be a terrible mistake. We were punished for our law-abidingness. Behind the smokescreen of stability, our men pay with blood, and we pay with our health and tears.
The president has declared 2024 to be the Year of the Family. It’s ironic, given that wives are crying without their husbands, children are growing up without fathers, and many have already become orphans. Meanwhile, a satanist cannibal who re-offended after his first prison sentence will be released again in six months, having atoned for his serial murders by fighting in the special military operation. Our president does have a sense of humor after all! Apparently, our motherland is being liberated for the very best of society: killers, drunks, migrants, and outrageously wealthy officials and their children (speaking of whom, why aren’t they in the trenches?).’
The Way Home December 2023
“The ICJ has been captured by antisemitic propaganda”
Article behind a paywall but anyway – was under the impression that the whole right to self defence thing wasn’t part of international law for an occupying force which Isreal is identified as being with regard to Gaza, the West Bank, Golan Heights and the southern part of Lebanon. This has been discussed many times by numerous geopolitical experts over the years and particularly in the last few months. It appears to be a particularly West-centric viewpoint which ignores both existing law and the overwhelming view of world opinion, especially the Global South. Don’t exactly know what the complaint is anyway as Israel and it’s supporters – as expected – have completely ignored any and all measures the ICJ have stipulated. If you’re above the law, why complain about it?
What’s probably getting them rattled isn’t the ICJ interim decision per se, but the consequences of it on the global ‘street’: As Dr Razmy Baroud, editor in chief of the Palestine Chronicle has noted in a very thoughtful piece:
We should no longer submit to the direct accusation that boycotting Israel is an act of antisemitism. To the contrary, boycotting Israel now has some serious and legitimate legal basis in international law.
https://www.palestinechronicle.com/as-we-celebrate-gaza-is-disappointed-with-icj-ruling-this-is-why/
Given the following views:
Legally, the Israelis are occupiers.
Ideologically, all the non-Jews are occupiers.
Which one is consistent with the response of the Israeli regime?
International law?
That’s just fiction. Only when it suits.
Morning All
I was looking for some commentary to send to my brother on Chemtrails – he had never heard the term. I thought the DS is bound to have written about this, given its nefarious anti-democratic nature and related denials by the MSM, but nothing at all popped up on entering “chemtrails” into the Search Box.
DS Team – not sure if you agree that this would be a good topic for a researched article.
Morning Michael,
A good place to start is Dane Wigington’s website: https://www.geoengineeringwatch.org/
He has been following this for a very long time. If you search for geoengineering online you’ll come across various articles purporting to be about ‘combating climate change’ or similar. Anyway, hope this helps.
Thanks Aethelred – that looks ideal.
Chemtrails seems to be one of those baffling so-called “conspiracy theories” because the evidence is pretty clear – I’ve seen with my own eyes on numerous occasions one or two planes creating a latticework of clouds in beautiful clear skies. I don’t live anywhere near a flight path and most days you wouldn’t see any planes in the sky at all. And yet, there seems to be a resistance to looking at it from sceptical sites. For example, the word “chemtrail” doesn’t appear on the Conservative Woman website when you put it in the search bar. I doubt the DS will cover it but thanks for raising what I consider to be an important issue.
Thanks for that insight, DS99.
“Curiouser and curiouser” – Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland.
“The Party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command.” – George Orwell, from 1984.
Morning Mike I also have become interested in Chemtrails which I previously dismissed , due to having too much other stuff to digest ! We now live near the Welsh border & you can see criss cross patterns which are like layered waffles amongst the clouds ! Something is taking place & it won’t be for the best !!…
Evening, Freddy – totally agree with you.
Bah! Germany could have signed that declaration. 3 times nothing is…?
So says the DT. The rag that gleefully supported one of the biggest socialist coups in history in 2020. Too little too late. The ship has sailed.
Electric car acceleration ‘makes crashes more likely’: The other side of the coin is that the other side is not aware of it, and may assume that there is enough time to nip across the gap, etc.