Is There Really Strong Evidence for Wearing Masks?

Is There Really Strong Evidence for Wearing Masks? By Joseph Mercola
Posted on June 21, 2020


Here is the best summary we’ve seen of the science and scientific literature pertaining to face masks. From Joseph Mercola at lewrockwell.com:
During the COVID-19 pandemic, there has been conflicting advice about wearing face masks or face coverings, even within the same public health agencies. For example, some medical organizations claim that wearing a mask only protects others from you if you are carrying the virus, but urge you to wear one if you are in close contact with a COVID-19 patient — which infers that a mask could protect you from an infected person.
The advice raises several questions. First, many people can be carrying the virus and not know it because they are asymptomatic and have not been tested. How would these people know to wear a mask? Secondly, if a mask is indicated if you are in close contact with a COVID-19 patient, then that would indicate that a mask does protect you from others and not just others from you. So, which is the truth?
There is another element to the conflicting advice. Some medical experts claim that wearing a face mask is harmful to the wearer. Not only does it not protect you, they say, but it can limit your oxygen and even redirect harmful pathogens that you may be carrying back into your airway. As COVID-19 lockdowns end and people are getting out in the public again, what does the evidence say about wearing masks?



https://youtu.be/_IrYyhufDwI

Advice From WHO and CDC About Face Masks Differs
 

Plague: One Scientist&... Mikovits, Judy Buy New $1.99 (as of 05:16 EDT - Details) The World Health Organization, founded in 1948,¹ consists of more than 7,000 people from more than 150 countries.² Its staff includes medical doctors, public health specialists, scientists, epidemiologists and experts in health statistics, economics and emergency relief.³ When it comes to masks for COVID-19, this body of experts does not cast masks as the panacea. Originally, the WHO listed these guidelines as to who should wear masks:⁴

• If you are healthy, you only need to wear a mask if you are taking care of a person with COVID-19.
  
• Wear a mask if you are coughing or sneezing.
  
• Masks are effective only when used in combination with frequent hand-cleaning with alcohol-based hand rub or soap and water.
  
• If you wear a mask, then you must know how to use it and dispose of it properly.
  

The WHO changed its mind, though, and modified its recommendations June 5, 2020,⁵ to advise the general public to wear a mask in specific situations when social distancing isn’t possible. Otherwise, “… there is no direct evidence (from studies on COVID- 19 and in healthy people in the community) on the effectiveness of universal masking of healthy people in the community to prevent infection with respiratory viruses, including COVID-19.”
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is the U.S.’s leading health agency, administered under the Department of Health and Human Services. When it comes to battling COVID-19, its advice is not the same as WHO’s. Pointing out that people can carry the virus with no symptoms or before symptoms like coughing and sneezing surface, it wrote on its website April 3, 2020:⁶

“This means that the virus can spread between people interacting in close proximity … CDC recommends wearing cloth face coverings in public settings where other social distancing measures are difficult to maintain (e.g., grocery stores and pharmacies) especially in areas of significant community-based transmission …

CDC is additionally advising the use of simple cloth face coverings to slow the spread of the virus and help people who may have the virus and do not know it from transmitting it to others.”

By May 22, 2020, the CDC had added a yellow-highlighted banner to its page, saying, “A cloth face covering may not protect the wearer, but it may keep the wearer from spreading the virus to others.”⁷
Many medical and political leaders support wearing masks. Dr. Anthony Fauci, the high-profile medical member of the White House coronavirus task force and director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, has endorsed them.⁸ So has former acting CDC director Dr. Richard Besser.<sup>9


MORE HERE: https://www.lewrockwell.com/2020/06/joseph-mercola/is-there-really-strong-evidence-for-wearing-masks/


Thanks to: https://www.lewrockwell.com</sup>