On lockdownsceptics front page, it was mentioned that a government document on 23rd June stated:
It is important to know that the evidence of the benefit of using a face covering to protect others is weak and the effect is likely to be small
The document is now dated 15th October and no longer contains this statement. Instead, there is a statement:
There is growing evidence that wearing a face covering in an enclosed space helps protect individuals and those around them from COVID-19.
The current document is here:
https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/5ef2889986650c12970e9b57/working-safely-during-covid-19-close-contact-151020.pdf
The original document can be currently found here:
http://www.hull.gov.uk/sites/hull/files/media/Keeping%20workers%20and%20customers%20safe%20during%20Covid-19%20restaurants%2C%20pubs%20and%20bars.pdf
The official view seems to have changed in a version dated 23rd July, the day before masks became mandatory. I have not found a copy of that one.
According to my reading of the weekly deaths, the pandemic finished on 12th June. At this date, the weekly deaths returned to within the minimum/maximum band for 2010-2019. The weekly deaths from 26 June to 7 August remained average and within the normal band until mid-September. There was no perceivable change in deaths due to respiratory causes during this period.
The mandating of face masks was thus introduced while there was no apparent problem. Furthermore, they have been proven to be manifestly ineffective against both covid-19 and respiratory illnesses.
So why do they want us to wear them? Is it really just control/dehumanising?
I've sent in an FOI request to the Welsh govt, asking what scientific advice they were following, bearing in mind the Welsh CMO said in July the evidence for masks was "quite weak" - and also what risk assessments they did to satisfy themselves it was safe for the general public to wear face coverings.
''Everyone, regardless of philosophical beliefs about psyche, consciousness, or soul, reads the body — and above all the human face — as the expression of an interior that is doing the expressing. When a beloved one smiles, we do not normally occupy ourselves with analyzing the structural features of muscle and bone “explaining” the smile. We explain it with reference to an inner world we share. If we did not do this kind of thing moment by moment, day in and day out, we would find ourselves adrift in society, unable to weave our own meaningful activity into the larger fabric of the world in which we live.''
"There is growing evidence" should be substantiated with some straight forward academic studies. Otherwise, it means nothing.
This study came out on the 24th of July, around the time when masks were mandated.
Clearly, the "heavy droplets" theory that we've been fed for a few moths is refuted here:
https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanres/article/PIIS2213-2600(20)30323-4/fulltext
As far as I'm concerned, as long as exemptions are still an option for me and my daughter, the rest of the world can do whatever they please.
I am getting an attack of the (spread)sheets, so here is a chart for you:
Here, I have shown all the deaths due to respiratory causes compared with the last ten years. They are from the latest ONS weekly data but presented as daily figures.
ONS include some covid-19 deaths among the respiratory causes, but that makes no difference to the essential point: the implementation of mandatory masks has demonstrably no effect.
