Pro-mask crusader Professor Trish Greenhalgh recently plumbed new depths of distortion and misinformation in her relentless mission to force humankind to hide their faces behind strips of cloth or plastic. In a nine-minute interview with Rachel Burden on BBC Radio 5 Live on January 4th 2023, Greenhalgh (Professor of Primary Health Care Sciences at the University of Oxford) starkly revealed much that is awry with the official wear-a-mask narrative. Indeed, the untruths were so blatant that the official ‘fact checkers’ intervened.
To convey the flavour of Greenhalgh’s warped take on the science of masks in reducing viral transmission, here is a transcript of part of the interview:
Rachel Burden: What is the evidence that masks reduce spread, because this is a thing that a lot of our listeners have a real problem with?
Trish Greenhalgh: It’s got to reduce spread, hasn’t it… there’s absolutely no doubt that the virus can’t get through the holes in the mask.
RB: Can you point to scientific data to show this?
TG: Yes, absolutely… there are many studies that show if people are wearing a mask, if I’m wearing a mask and you’re wearing a mask, the chance of me passing on the virus to you goes down dramatically to about 2% of what it was if neither of us was wearing a mask. So the idea that masks don’t work is a sort of meme; it’s disinformation. … Over time, [mask wearing] is going to bring the virus under control very quickly.
If you go back to when we introduced mask mandates first – I think it was back in June/July 2020 – cases were going up very, very rapidly and then the mask mandate brought them under control, oh, within weeks, within a couple of weeks.
RB: Did it? Was it just the mask mandate? Was it not other factors at play?
TG: Of course it was other factors at play. This is a mathematical thing… you have to feed all that data into a computer… the science is really clear… [If you’re wearing a mask] you’re much less likely to catch the virus from the air.
Let us highlight, and respond to, a few hotspots in her distorted rhetoric:
1. “It’s got to reduce spread, hasn’t it“
This seems to be based on a perverse kind of reasoning, one that assumes that if something sounds plausible it must be true. With regards to COVID-19, Greenhalgh’s thought process seems to follow the sequence of: (a) SARS-CoV-2 is a respiratory virus spread via the breath; (b) we breathe through the nose and mouth; (c) masks provide a physical barrier that covers the nose and mouth; (d) therefore mask wearing must reduce viral transmission. This bears little resemblance to the scientific method, an approach based on the generation of specific and testable predictions (hypotheses) followed by relevant data collection that will either support, or refute, the prediction.
Greenhalgh offered clues as to her own version of science back in 2020 when she asserted that the rigorous search for empirical evidence was the “enemy of good policy“. In her science-lite world, she seems to be championing an approach we have witnessed all too often during the Covid era: implement a policy that – for ulterior reasons – is desirable to those in power, and then, as an afterthought, try to find evidence to support it.
2. “there’s absolutely no doubt that the virus can’t get through the holes in the mask“
Really? Greenhalgh’s claim is akin to suggesting that a tennis net can prevent grains of sand falling through it.
The SARS-CoV-2 virus is spread mainly via microscopic particles that are far too small for cloth and plastic (surgical) masks to act as an effective barrier. Despite concerted attempts to censor their views, expert scientists have asserted that the type of masks worn by the general public in the community contain perforations that are far too big to act as a viral blockade and therefore “offer zero protection”. Furthermore, one study concluded that cloth face coverings can amplify the spread of infectious particles by acting as a “microniser“, transforming large droplets – which would ordinarily fall to the ground close to the person – into smaller, truly airborne ones.
3. “there are many studies that show if people are wearing a mask, if I’m wearing a mask and you’re wearing a mask, the chance of me passing on the virus to you goes down dramatically to about 2% of what it was if neither of us was wearing a mask“
Computer-modelling alert! We can all recall the catastrophic legacy of epidemiologist Professor Neil Ferguson and his wildly inaccurate predictions that COVID-19 would kill 2.2 million Americans and 500,000 British citizens – astrological prophecies that spooked Western governments into unprecedented restrictions that caused huge collateral damage. It seems that Greenhalgh is relying on similar computer modelling methods to justify her extreme pro-mask views.
Resorting to modelling to predict what will happen within complex human systems is problematic in many ways. One of the major flaws is its sensitivity to initial assumptions, which then leads to circular reasoning. So if one starts with the (highly dubious) premise that masks act as an effective viral barrier and feed this into a computer model as a given, it is inevitable that the ‘prediction’ will be that face coverings will provide significant benefits – 98% protection in Greenhalgh’s fantasy world.
Dame Ruth May (England’s Chief Nursing Officer) makes the same error in her recent attempt to defend masking in hospital settings. What Greenhalgh and May conveniently ignore is the wealth of more robust scientific evidence that concludes that masks achieve no meaningful reduction in the levels of viral transmission.
4. “So the idea that masks don’t work is a sort of meme; it’s disinformation“
Oh the irony! An abundance of empirical evidence now testifies to the ineffectiveness of masking healthy people. For example, there are: randomised controlled trials (here, here and here); real-world studies (here, here, here and here); and comprehensive literature reviews (here, here and here). Only in Greenhalgh’s surreal world could this established body of knowledge be seen as a disinformation meme.
5. “If you go back to when we introduced mask mandates first – I think it was back in June/July 2020 – cases were going up very, very rapidly and then the mask mandate brought them under control, oh, within weeks, within a couple of weeks“
This is the whopper of all whoppers. Indeed, this assertion was so blatantly untrue that it was corrected by the official ‘fact checkers’ – one of the rare occasions that these guardians of the official narrative have challenged one of their own.
As succinctly described by Dr. David Paton (Professor of Economics at Nottingham University), when the mask mandate of July 24th 2020 was introduced, Covid cases were rising slowly, only to sharply accelerate about five weeks later – so the reality could not be more at odds with Greenhalgh’s version.
6. “This is a mathematical thing… you have to feed all that data into a computer… the science is really clear“
A further reference to the surreal world of computer modelling (see point 3, above).
Why would Professor Greenhalgh, a healthcare expert, espouse such glaring distortions about the effectiveness of masks in preventing viral transmission? Is she a victim of the relentless fear propagation, orchestrated by the behavioural-science ‘nudgers’, to the extent that her terror of infection has compromised her scientific faculties? Or has her affinity with collectivist ideology – promoting top-down control of the populace – led her to conclude that, though ineffectual, mass-masking (a powerful weapon for levering compliance with the state’s diktats) can be justified for the long-term greater good? Perhaps time will reveal the true reason why she craves for us all to mask up.
Finally – given the glaring inaccuracies – I submitted a formal complaint to the BBC, requesting that the Radio 5-Live presenter (Rachel Burden) should draw Greenhalgh’s misinformation to the attention of her listeners so as to put the record straight. Alas, the BBC has declined to do so; some things never change.
Dr. Gary Sidley is a retired NHS consultant clinical psychologist and a co-founder of the Smile Free campaign.
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In this case then, I’m a professor!
If someone can be so stupid and hold such a position then mankind stands no chance!
I was just about to say is this another academic who bought their title somewhere online?🤔 Well that NHS manager imposter did wing it for years didn’t he so nothing would surprise me! These people ought to thoroughly ashamed.
Mind you, going by that picture, if you can convince people you’re a woman looking like that then I guess convincing people you’re a professor by talking out of your arse shouldn’t be that difficult.😯
She’s definitely a sinner Mogs.
I must admit that thought had crossed my mind too! She/he/whatever reminds me of the nuttiest nutty professor in any child’s comic book!
That’s why masks work so well for her; she talks and breathes out of her arse!
The article and the picture remind me of Stanley Green of Oxford Street, from the era when doom-mongers acting individually churned out flyers on Roneo machines in the their parents’ house in Northholt. Nowadays they are a global force and own entire news organisations, and churn out press releases on PowerPoint in their corporate offices in London.
She looks like she’s auditioning for a part in Dr Who 🙂
As a Cyberman!
I’m so pleased we can see her mouth!
I’d rather not see any of her!
Clue in the title: “Professor of Primary Health Care Sciences”. The more elaborate and vague the title, the less substance to the qualification.
What exactly is a, ‘health care science’ and how many of them are there? Are there secondary and tertiary ones?
She has letters after her name : Q.U.A.C.K.(Bombay Failed).
I’m really wondering how all these professors and experts who keep polluting the airwaves with theit babbling managed to avoid seondary school mathematics. Assuming there’s a chance of 2% that two mask wearing people meeting each other leads to an infection being passed on, it follows that the chance that an infection was passed on goes beyond 50% on the 35th meeting of two masked people and beyond 90% on the 114th.
Challenge: Try measuring the time until you have encountered 114 strangers in close proximity on the London Underground with a stopwatch. You’ll have to be quick for this.
You trump ‘Ms Professor Gobshite’ with your logic. Here take an honoury Professorship from me. You earned it!😁🏅🎓
I feel duly honoured (wouldn’t want to be a professor, though). Here’s a perl oneliner calculating these percentages:
perl -e ‘$p = 100 – $ARGV[0]; print(100 * (1 – ($p ** $_ / 100 ** $_)), “\n”) for 1 .. $ARGV[1]’
It needs two arguments, the infection probability and the number of meetings. It’ll then print the infection probabilities for up to that many meetings.
Oh, a Knighthood at least. They gave one of those to Whitty, after all.
Mask didn’t work in the 1918 Spanish flu epidemic! One hundred years later, and we seem to think they will now?
It’s like trying to stop ping pong balls with a builders scaffolding!
But this virus was ‘novel’.
Made extra large so it can’t fit through a gauze.
Accumulated moisture in the mask after about 15 minutes creates a hygroscopic gradient between inner and outer surfaces, that produces a pathway for particles to move from inner to outer, and from outer to inner surfaces.
This is easy to confirm with any material because if it gets damp one side, it will become damp to the touch on the other. (Why babies’ nappies have imperméable membranes – masks don’t.)
If water molecules – which are comparatively large – can transit the fabric, then they can take smaller virus and bacteria with them.
Masks then become sources of infection. Your traveller on the London Underground is collecting and accumulating viruses, which he will inhale, and will shed into the atmosphere or if he touches the mask or somebody else does, may lead to contact transfer.
In fact it was for this reason they were originally discouraged… until they were encouraged or mandated.
The point I was trying to make is that even if we just take Greenalgh’s statements at face value, the outcome is masks don’t help: If you’re infected, you will pass the infection on and if you’re not, you’ll get infected. Recapping some more Corona-lore: Every infected person infecting one other person means R0 = 1, exponential growth, collapse of the health system, giant Matt-Hancocks roaming the countryside etc. What she said really means My cherished health-talisman is useless even when interpreted in the way most favourable to her statements.
Did Trish used to be Trev?
Damn! I’ve been rumbled. 🧔♀️
From now on, I want to be known as Loretta.
An’ where’s the foetus gonna gestate?
In a box!
I’ll set ’em up, you knock ’em down.
BTW, you’re not an LA5 Bell are you?
“Now don’t think you can get wround me like that”
She has form. Here’s one of her gems (I’m a runner and she’s responsible for people leaping back from me, terrified, when I passed them in 2020…). Trish Greenhalgh Takes Disinformation To A National Audience via GMB – Citizen Journalists (citizenjournos.com)
I hope she doesn’t get paid for all that tripe and misinformation she churns out. No wonder health care is deteriorating.
I see her as more of a Pat than a Trish.
Definitely more of a Butcher type.
“Oh, Pat Pat Pat ”
Rubbing his furrowed brow
(Mike Reid)
Hardly worth bothering about. He will have bigger and more pressing matters on his mind in three months time than face coverings. He will come crying to you like a baby asking for help. Really that is where we are moving and we shouldn’t waste time on the utterances of such simps.
We were denuded before but now we have spots on our arses. Honesty this is all absurd given the effort that many people have put into fighying this nonsense since 2020. But everyone still loves it The people I work with talk in glowing terms about the clotshot. Trust me it is already breaking. You will be one of the few left alive looking after the injured saps. Perfect weapon – injure one person and take another two off the battlefield.
Utterly stupid. My local GP Surgery (I actually managed to get a face-to-face appointment!) has just gone back to demanding that their patients wear masks. When offered one by the receptionist I said (very politely) “No thanks – I don’t wear masks”. She then told me I couldn’t be admitted to the waiting room. No problem, I replied, quite happy to wait out here in Reception; but if all the people in there are wearing their magic masks why should it matter that I’m not – unless of course the masks don’t work…
Needless to say she said nothing.
The magic words are “I’m exempt”, which cannot be challenged; much as though the jobsworths would like to try 🤣
You may not be aware but in our dumbed down age, the title ‘professor’ basically just means you teach at a university. As far back as May 2006, the Independent reported on the drop in standards:
“In a bid to boost its worldwide appeal, Warwick University is breaking with tradition and, as in the US, giving all its academic staff the title of ‘professor’.”
Greengagh’s inability to speak intelligibly shows just how much further standards have deteriorated in the intervening years.
Warwick University has fully bought into the whole totalitarian control agenda – the whole campus is cash free…. Won’t be going to the Arts Centre again. Shame as that is the closest venue for any Dave Gorman gigs….
“Why would Professor Greenhalgh, a healthcare expert, espouse such glaring distortions…?”.
Why ask us? why not ask her?
Is that the Monica Lewinsky design he’s wearing? just asking.
Rather a complaint to the BBC, perhaps a strong letter (from a solicitor?) to her faculty head or similar pointing out the blatant factual errors she made, and that a professor should not confuse her own biases with scientific endeavour, inviting him/her to publicly ‘correct the record’. It won’t happen of course, but it provides one more piece of evidence of collusion, which must place him/her in a difficult, even compromised position. Basically, who’s ass (s)he save.
Greenhalgh also refers to women as cervix-havers and thinks some women have penises so I struggle to take anything she says seriously. Total crackpot.
’… “there are many studies that show if people are wearing a mask, if I’m wearing a mask and you’re wearing a mask, the chance of me passing on the virus to you goes down dramatically to about 2% of what it was if neither of us was wearing a mask“‘
Well that is relative risk reduction of an insignificant absolute risk unless very, very close contact with someone.
But.
Isn’t the essence of infection control ‘single barrier’ that is a barrier has to be 100% effective? Therefore if A wears a mask, B need not. If both A and B must wear masks, that is tacit admission a mask is not effective, and 2% failure is significant when dealing with infection.
Any safety system must be 100% otherwise it is not safe, and induces sense of false security.
Well that is relative risk reduction of an insignificant absolute risk unless very, very close contact with someone.
Such as travel on the victoria line around 5pm — you’ll end up having to pull strange people’s children out of your pockets all the time. To everyone who knows what I’m referring to: This is comparable to the traffic on the streets in Hong Kong for hours on end every single day.
IF you wore a fresh mask throughout the day (repeated replacements) then perhaps it might help in some respects (if it does indeed stop particles through the mesh). But then after every removal you should be very conscious of where that mask goes, in the bin, certainly NOT in your pocket – that would be ridiculous spreading all those contaminants everywhere – yet countless people did it. Since wearing a mask is simply not practical in every day living I’d wager they actually made things worse and increased the spread of infection. Put that in your pipe and smoke it Prof Trish.
From what I can glean covid virus is 1000 times smaller than a bacteria, these surgical mask are just that , for surgeons, to stop them spreading bacteria into open wounds, they don’t stop much virus though!
I think the Radio 5-Live presenter, Rachel Burden, was a bit dubious of Green-laughs comments anyway so I’m sure she’d like to contest the she-idiots ramblings. Sadly BBC producers wouldn’t want that. Not in The Narrative(tm) old chap.
Look, I’ve found an exact likeness of her!
I think Bender’s more attractive.