Day: 23 October 2020

Medical Journals Refuse To Publish Landmark Danish Mask Study Three leading medical journals have refused to publish the results of the first major scientific investigation into the effects of wearing masks on the spread of COVID-19. The authors of the long-awaited "gold-standard" randomised controlled trial have admitted their findings are "controversial" and are keeping them secret until their paper has been peer-reviewed and published. The Danish newspaper Berlingske has the details. Professor: Large Danish mask study rejected by three top journalsThe researchers behind a large and unique Danish study on the effect of wearing a mask are having great difficulty in getting their research results published. One of the participating professors in the study admits that the still secret research result could be perceived as 'controversial'.For weeks, the media and researchers around the world have been waiting with increasing impatience for the publication of a large Danish study on the effect – or lack thereof – of wearing a mask in a public space during the corona pandemic.Now one of the researchers who has been involved in the study has said that the finished research result has been rejected by at least three of the world's leading medical journals.These include the Lancet, the New England Journal of Medicine and the American Medical Association's journal JAMA."They all said no," says the Chief Physician in ...

As a lockdown-sceptical teacher of Philosophy, I tell my students daily that I am currently seeking what I call a ‘Greta in reverse’: a youthful person, ideally of innocent and appealing countenance, who would be willing to face the media and to lead a student strike not against school, but rather demanding the right to be educated, in school, maskless, and face to face, should a second corona-related closure of our educational establishments be proposed.    Since, however, I was never wildly enamoured of the original Greta, who seemed to me strong in irate accusation but depressingly weak in argument and positive proposals, I am aware that my alternative activist – let’s call her Gerta – will need, in the interim, to hone her intellect so that she is armed against the arguments that will be advanced against her.  And if her studies in Philosophy are to serve any practical purpose, it must surely be their aim so to equip her.  Examples are the life-blood of Philosophy, and the silver lining to the dark cloud of lockdown, from my perspective, has been that it has offered a wealth of instances of dire logic and related philosophical failings, from which teacher and student alike may learn and profit. For the benefit of fellow teachers; for any parents who may be nurturing potential ...