NHS England guidance promoting universal masking in healthcare settings was quietly dropped on June 1st as part of the government’s ‘Living with Covid’ plans. So how is it that some hospitals and clinics seem to be making their own policies, with some mask-free and others aggressively insisting on masking both staff and public?
The reason is that the new guidance made masking policies a matter for local discretion. As a result, national COVID-19 guidance can be trumped by so-called ‘local COVID-19 prevalence’. But how consistent are local responses? By what set of rules are decisions to reintroduce masks made? And, most importantly, who is responsible for determining the rules and making decisions?
A return to masking?
Early in October, mainstream news outlets were reporting on the ‘return of the mask’. Between the Mail and the Sun’s accounts, eight different NHS Trusts were reintroducing a range of Non Pharmaceutical Interventions (NPIs), prominent among which were mask mandates for patients and visitors.
In all cases, these measures were apparently being introduced as a result of ‘Covid’s resurgence’ with “surveillance data suggesting Covid is on the rise in England”.
Just a month on from these heavily publicised reintroductions of mask ‘requirements’, the picture had changed somewhat. Table 1 shows the current status of mask requirements for the public. In some cases, the trusts who saw the need for restrictions have relaxed them, but they remain in full force for others.
It is clear from the hotchpotch above that not all NHS Trusts are acting the same. Perhaps ‘local prevalence’ of COVID-19 can explain why we are seeing these differences? To test this hypothesis we can look at the infection ‘case’ rates in each of the domains covered by the Trusts, as documented in Table 2.
We should expect those Trusts imposing mask mandates to be in areas of above-average Covid prevalence. But, certainly at a high level, this appears not to be the case. Instead, there is no discernible pattern and, in fact, some discrepancies. For example, Barnsley, with continuing significant restrictions, has a catchment area with the lowest daily new cases per 100,000 people; while Swindon and its surrounding areas in Wiltshire, served by the Great Western Trust that has reduced its mask restrictions, has the highest rate!
Source for ‘Cases’: GOV.UK Coronavirus (Covid-19) in the UK https://www.covidlive.co.uk
If local mask ‘requirements’ aren’t stipulated in national guidance, and ‘local prevalence’ of COVID-19 doesn’t explain it either, what’s going on?
Essex: a case study
Draconian masking – and other NPI measures – remain in place within the East Suffolk & North Essex Foundation NHS Trust (ESNEFT). This body runs the major hospitals of Colchester and Ipswich as well as several smaller community hospitals in the surrounding areas. It is worth noting that within ESNEFT’s bailiwick lie some of the most deprived areas of the entire country which also have some of the highest suicide rates.
In addition to ESNEFT, three Trusts provide healthcare services in Essex. Each Trust runs multiple hospitals and covers specific geographic areas. How, in terms of mask mandates, does the ESNEFT Trust compare to the others? Table 3 documents the face covering requirements at the health establishments run by the other three Trusts operating in the county and reproduces the rules at ESNEFT.
The profile of a masking decision-maker
The man responsible for ESNEFT ratcheting the restrictions upwards is Giles Thorpe, Chief Nurse and Director of Infection Prevention & Control (IPC).
Doctor Thorpe is not a medical doctor, rather he is a “senior nurse leader” and an “honorary professor”, with a professional doctorate in health service management awarded by the University of Essex in September of this year. If you were uncharitable you might say he was an NHS bureaucrat. “Once you accept that some part of you might be racist, you may then need to accept your white privilege,” Thorpe is quoted as saying in an NHS website article entitled “From bystanders to activists”. Indeed, sensitivity to racism appears high on the agenda at ESNEFT. In 2019 Thorpe’s boss, Trust Chief Executive Nick Hulme, went on record to declare that the region his Trust provides health services to was “probably the most homophobic, racist, awful place in some senses to live in the country”; his track record as an actual administrator of health services meanwhile appears somewhat chequered.
When it comes to countering COVID-19, Dr. Thorpe is an earnest observer of infection rates within the Trust’s catchment and a firm proponent of NPIs in general, and masking in particular. For example:
● June 2021: In his first IPC annual report, without supplying any evidence to back up his assertion, Thorpe noted that “causes of COVID-19 outbreaks in the hospital wards” were, in part, due to “lack of offering patients to wear masks (sic), and lack of uptake by patients to wear a mask”;
● December 2021: just in time for New Year, ESNEFT suspended visiting rights for their health venues. Dr. Thorpe was quoted in the press as saying that “by keeping a close eye on community COVID-19 infection rates and the number of people in our hospitals with the virus, this is action we really need to take now”;
● January 2022: Due, according to Thorpe, to “a rise in positive coronavirus tests among pregnant people (sic)”, new rules restricting visits to maternity units in east Suffolk and north Essex were put in place;
● March 2022: Faced with rising infection rates, visitors were banned completely from ESNEFT venues, with Dr. Thorpe commenting that the Trust was “committed” to reinstating some ward visiting “as quickly and as safely as possible”;
● April 2022: Notwithstanding falling COVID-19 community infection rates, the Trust kept visiting restrictions in place, although Dr. Thorpe said: “We did manage to open some visiting for patients who have been in hospital for more than seven days before the Easter weekend.”
Given the lack of robust evidence to support mask-wearing, and the known harms, particularly in healthcare settings, the Smile Free campaign recently wrote to Dr. Thorpe, posing the following questions:
● What robust, real-world evidence are you drawing on to support the re-imposition of mask requirements?
● Do you believe that the evidence for masks significantly reducing viral transmission is sufficiently strong to justify insisting all staff, patients and visitors wear them?
● Given the wide range of potential physical, social and psychological harms associated with habitual masking, have you conducted a comprehensive risk/benefit assessment addressing the likely consequences of this policy decision?
● Including both the wholesale cost of the surgical masks, together with the salary of the monitors at the hospital entrances, how much is your Trust spending each year on implementing your mask requirement? Given the huge financial pressure the NHS is under, do you believe that this is optimal use of tax-payers money?
● It is admirable that you recognise the importance of “patient experience”. But what’s the likely impact of mass masking on the experience of a confused, elderly, hard-of-hearing person in one of your medical wards or a frightened child, in acute pain, attending your Accident & Emergency Department?
● It is admirable that you seek to give a voice to the “lesser heard groups” and to ensure that the “stay silent” groups are heard. But in re-imposing your mask requirement have you listened to your autistic patients, or those with histories of physical and/or sexual abuse, or those with recurrent panic attacks, many of whom suffer extreme levels of distress as a direct consequence of face coverings?
Dr. Thorpe replied, without answering any of the substantive questions. Confusingly, he said “we support and respect anyone’s decision to wear a face mask, or not, while they are in our hospitals”, while in the same email confirming universal masking had never gone away in “A&E, our urgent treatment centres, and assessment areas (and) areas where we treat immunocompromised patients”, and saying “we reintroduced mask wearing for visitors to our wards in September”.
No doubt Dr. Thorpe believes he’s doing the right thing. It’s just a shame that the 10,000 patients reportedly seen every day at ESNEFT are still being subjected to safety theatre with no evidential backing, going into a third year of the Covid saga, seemingly driven by a very small and unaccountable infection control team, if not in reality the whims of one man. If your local healthcare setting is still insisting on masks, find your ‘Giles Thorpe’ and ask him or her or they the same set of questions.
Perhaps we should not be surprised, because the over-valuation of masks goes to the very top of the NHS. As recently as October 4th, Dame Ruth May, Chief Nursing Officer and national lead for infection control at NHS England, was justifying mask advice to hospitals with “highly uncertain” computer modelling linked to Professor Neil Ferguson’s Imperial College that is literally labelled “Should not be used to inform clinical practice” on page one.
As Smile Free wrote in June when the NHS guidance changed, “two years after the imposition of masking in English hospitals, it is most regrettable that NHS England and the authors of this latest guidance (Professor Stephen Powis and Duncan Barton) could not simply have signalled a clean break and consigned this unprecedented, poorly-evidenced, and ultimately failed policy to history. Since they have chosen not to, by far the most likely outcome is that masking in English hospitals will now become a ‘postcode lottery’ based on the whims of local staff.“
And so it has come to pass.
Stop Press: A new RCT has concluded that N95 masks are no more effective at stopping transmission of the virus than ‘regular’ medical masks. The Brownstone Institute has more.
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This begs the question ‘what is the billionaire class’s business model?’
What is their motivation to deny the proles free movement and access to abundant energy? Why does farming nutritious food for all appall them?
Why is the economic elevation of those living in the developing world no longer considered a priority?
Consider their bottom line.
They are seeking to run the planet like a business and to reduce costs. Labour is normally the biggest cost in a business.
If they now have AI and robotics to do their donkey work they no longer see a human workforce and therefore human consumers as being necessary for their business model.
Listen to what they say openly:
Humans (created in God’s image) are problematic useless eaters, our exhalation of CO2 is considered bad for the planet, therefore we are the ‘carbon’ they wish to reduce.
what they want is to own the planet, for themselves and their heirs, they want the worlds population reduced so that there is more for them to own, the remaining population of normies will be there slaves, who will live out of site in ghetto towns, and who will be treated as battery farm animals, once useful life is deemed at an end they will be finished off hence the projects in Canada, and the tests on putting old people down during the covid years. Of course what the billionaire idiots don’t realise is, that once they have achieved their ownership of the earth, they will as humans have always done whose main motivation is greed and power, they will start to fight one another, as they demand and desire other territorys. The green zealots at the top of the tree are barbaric, greedy, misanthropes who are using politicians and people to do their bidding, but once done they will be disposed of just like any other no longer useful piece of trash.
Yes they really are seeking to steal the green from the goose. Why would they not do that when elected governments have put all the pieces (Globalisation) into place for them to do this?
Governments accommodate virtually every wish they desire. Establishment politicians careers and parallel earnings are often so interlinked with these people they are mere puppets.
We are in an age of full blown Corporatism, It is evil, it will distinguish our sovereignty our freedoms and our liberties. All establishment parties are fully signed up to the corporate agenda and as long as the majority of people continue to vote for them they will continue to do the bidding of the corporatists.
Excellent research, Mr Morrison. Thank you.
Sadly, it’s just yet more “Daily Sceptic publishing Climate Denial”, as Wikipedia puts it… someone bomb Wikipedia already, please.
‘Climate denier’ is another idiotic term used by half wits. They lose on science so they resort to name calling.
Yes there is a climate.
Yes it does indeed change.
Yes I do believe in the 4 seasons.
Yes I do believe in weather.
No I don’t believe that Co2 controls climate since no scientific proof exists for that assertion.
No I don’t believe that Co2 a trace chemical 400 parts per million which falls out of natural processes and which is mostly recycled, causes weather.
No I don’t believe that mankind’s output of 5% of Co2 has any impact whatsoever on anything.
No I don’t believe that a few temp stations in airports and along highways provides proof of hottest days evah.
Yes I believe in science, namely that natural cycles, solar activity, oceanic convection systems, and other many:many relationships result in local, regional climactic patterns.
Mr Alarmist—“Climate Change is real and happening now”
Mr Denier—–“Oh really so where can I see this climate change”?
Mr Alarmist—-“You can see it everywhere”
Mr Denier——“So can I see it from my bedroom window”?
Mr Alarmist—–“Yes”
Mr Denier——“What does it look like”?
Mr Alarmist—-“Well it doesn’t look like anything as such”
Mr Denier——“But didn’t you say I can see it everywhere”?
Mr Alarmist—-” Yes but I meant you can see it’s effects”
Mr Denier——“And what are those effects”?
Mr Alarmist—-“The effects are changes to the climate”
Mr Denier—– “When did the climate start changing”?
Mr Alarmist—-“Well it has always changed”
Mr Denier——” If it has always changed why not just say climate is real and happening now”? Why bother calling it climate change, when climate would suffice”?
I would love to see a story of the political classes doing something useful. The whole swamp needs draining
Never happen unfortunately.
It is the usual struggle to be the Leader of the World (or Bliar complex). They live to be surrounded by the adoring masses. Then they need to programme these adoring masses to adore, work, reproduce & die.
Only problem with this strategy is their are now so many of these would be ‘Bliars’ all striving for the top spot that they will end up fighting each other.
The proposed mandatory jab in Austria also revealed another ‘weakness’ in their plans, as they found they could not lock the unjabbed in their homes as planned, because they were the same 20% who kept the Country running!
Les rois du monde se battent entre eux
C’est qu’y a de la place, mais pour un pas pour deux
Et nous en bas leur guerre on la fera pas
On sait même pas pourquoi tout ça c’est jeux de rois
Roméo et Juliette, 2000
Davos coming soon, this years theme.”Rebuilding trust”, which is laughable I would no more trust someone who is a member or who attends the WEF, than I would Charles Manson.
Lol.
I used to think the James Bond film baddies were unrealistic and now I can see Ian Fleming was way ahead of the game.
I suppose we could point out that “Rebuilding trust” acknowledges, if nothing else, that trust has gone. Trust once lost is very difficult to regain.
‘Ben Pile estimates that both Bloomberg and Hohn are funding green organisations’
They are not, simply one link in the chain.
It is us, the long suffering taxpayers, who are funding all of this.
‘UK government revenue from energy taxes totalled over £38.1 billion in 2019′
Bloomberg and Hohn are simply leeching off the rest of us, via government ‘green levies’ and subsidies.
On a separate point, the government receives about £1200bn in receipts and spends about £950bn
You know where the rest goes.
Governments, typically, are rubbish at running anything. The government is the problem, not the solution.
There are very few problems in this country that could not be solved by a smaller public sector.
Picky point but the “green” in “green billionaires” should always be written in quotes.
Whenever I read about billionaires I am always reminded of Steve Sailer’s fictitious, ironic “NAABP” – “National Association for the Advancement of Billionaire People”. He is very cynical about their motives especially with regard to mass immigration. It’s a play on the NAACP – National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.
NAABP (National Association for Advancement of Billionaire People) buys Gang of Eight, by Steve Sailer – The Unz Review
The man-made climate change hoax and racket is about one thing only:
money and power for a different set of people.
Absolutely nothing else.
0.04%?
C’mon man!
From global warming to climate change to “climate and environment”.
If the policies are wrong because you got it wrong, don’t change policy, blur the lines, confuse the issue, obfuscate.
The dumb public won’t notice.
I quickly scanned the article before reading it, and when I do this I always see certain names and phrases sticking out. As my eyes scroll down up pops things like Ed Miliband, Net Zero, Collectivist, John Kerry , Guterres, “denier”, greenhouse gas, UNFCCC etc. ——-It is almost like my brain has a bit of software in it that identifies all the evil. Then sure enough as I read the article all the evil becomes clear. But then people like me are “the “deplorables”. We don’t accept being easily manipulated. We know that climate models are not science, We know that Polar Bears are not in trouble, We know that the data gets adjusted to fit in with a narrative. —–But ofcourse saying stuff likes that gets you into a spot of bother, or as Mark Twain pointed out, “It ain’t what you don’t know that gets you into trouble, it’s what you know for sure just ain’t so”. Many eminent people have lost their careers for “knowing it ain’t so”. ————-Some lost their life ——JFK
Climate change and net Zero only happens in rich Western countries where philanthropy, fake charities and foundations are allowed to abuse the lax and largely unregulated tax deductions that are given by western governments to all spending by these organizations. This can amount to from 20% up to 74%. This means that our taxes are funding most of what these organizations spend. These are oligarchy organizations influencing government policy which is supposed to be illegal. These organizations have set up such an impenetrable web of numbered tax free organizations, it is impossible to audit or regulate. The way to limit the power of these organizations is to remove or severely limit their abuses by altering the tax rules.