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 journals
The 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 the Research Department at North Zealand Hospital, Professor Christian Torp-Pedersen.
However, the Professor does not wish to disclose the journals’ reasoning.
“We cannot start discussing what they are dissatisfied with, because in that case we must also explain what the study showed – and we do not want to discuss that until it is published,” explains Christian Torp-Pedersen.
The study was initiated at the end of April, following a grant of DKK 5m [£600,000] from the Salling Foundations [owner of the Salling Group, Denmark’s largest retailer]. It involved as many as 6,000 Danes, half of whom had to wear face masks in public over a long period of time. The other half was selected as the control group.
A large proportion of the test participants were employees of the Salling Group’s supermarkets: Bilka, Føtex and Netto.
The study and its size are unique, and the purpose was once and for all to try to clarify the extent to which the use of face masks in public spaces provides protection against coronavirus infections.
One of the co-authors, Henrik Ullum, tweeted yesterday they are “very unhappy”.
It wouldn’t be the first time politics has trumped science amongst those who are supposed to be its guardians. Professor Sunetra Gupta said in September that she was having unusual difficulty getting anything on herd immunity published, and Dr Gabriela Gomes has said the same thing.
I think we can be fairly confident that this mask study – the largest ever carried out – doesn’t say what the pro-maskers would like. On October 18th, Alex Berenson revealed on Twitter that one of the study’s lead investigators, Professor Thomas Benfield, had said the study would be published “as soon as a journal is brave enough to accept the paper”.
No courage would be required if the study confirmed Covid orthodoxy. Watch this space.
Mask Creep
Molly Kingsley, one of the three founders of UsForThem, has written a piece for Lockdown Sceptics today about the harm mandatory masking is doing to schools – particularly in those schools that over-interpret the Government’s advice and insist that children wear masks in the classroom – and the strange absent of any public debate about this. The Government didn’t allow the House of Commons to debate mandatory masking before ramming it through with a Statutory Instrument, and the House of Lords has failed to step into the breach.
I am increasingly despondent. Many who believe there should have been more rigorous analysis of this, the most intrusive non-pharmaceutical public health intervention of our times, speak as if the argument has been lost, or believe there are more important battles to fight. Alas, there are many battles ahead. But for children, this is a critical one, particularly for children with special needs. It is a debate we must have even when those around us tell us we should be ashamed to do so.
This is an excellent piece by a mother of two young children who has been red-pilled by the transformation of our democratic Government into a public health dictatorship.
Worth reading in full.
Case Counting: Government Quietly Starts Double Counting Positives
“Case” numbers are all over the place at the moment. After hitting a high on Wednesday of 26,688 reported, they were back down to 21,242 yesterday. By specimen date there still appears to be no overall growing trend since October 12th, except for a bizarre tower on October 19th. As ever with “cases”, what these positive test results actually mean and how they relate to clinical cases of the disease COVID-19 is difficult to unravel.
One issue is whether “cases” now include repeat positive tests for the same individual, conducted for example as they await the all-clear. Previously they did not, but it was revealed this week that as of Thursday October 15th the Government has begun to include duplicates as long as they are from different survey weeks. This means that each person who tests positive and is then tested again each week will continue to add new “cases” to the counter for as long as the test (at what sensitivity they don’t say) continues to find some virus fragments to trigger it. Here’s the relevant part of the revised methodology statement.
People tested and people testing positive
For both pillars 1 and 2, data for England is provided by the NHS and PHE and the number of confirmed cases are collated to give the total number of confirmed cases over the reporting period. More details about the data sources and methodology for pillar 1 and pillar 2 can be found in the section Coronavirus (COVID-19) testing in the UK.
From October 15th, the methodology for people tested and people testing positive has changed.
Previously, the number of people newly tested and newly testing positive was reported, where the figures were de-duplicated over the entirety of the pandemic so an individual would only appear once. This meant someone tested in March and again in September would only be counted in the March counts. This was progressively becoming less meaningful the longer the duration of the pandemic and meant that it was not appropriate to calculate a positivity rate from this data.
Figures are now reported as people tested and people testing positive at least once in the reporting week. People tested or testing positive are only counted once over the 7-day reporting period (Thursday to Wednesday), with a positive test being prioritised over a negative test. A person can be counted within more than one 7-day reporting period. If someone was tested more than once in different reporting weeks, they would be included in the count for all reporting weeks they were tested in.
For example, if a person was tested on Thursday and Friday of the same week, they would only be counted once in the reporting week. However, if someone was tested on Tuesday and Friday of the same week, that individual would be counted in 2 reporting periods, as the 2 tests fall into different 7-day reporting periods. If a person is tested under both pillar 1 and pillar 2 in the same reporting week, then only the pillar they were first tested under is counted, unless they were tested in both pillars on the same day, in which case, they are counted under pillar 2.
Is this what lies behind the increase in week beginning October 15th? It’s unclear whether this change will affect daily case data, as reported on the Government’s coronavirus dashboard, or just the weekly statistics released by NHS Test and Trace. The way the Government introduced this major change without proper announcement or explanation is very poor and doesn’t exactly help us understand the course of the epidemic. As far as we are aware, this is the third methodological change the Government has made when it comes to calculating cases and the positivity rate since July 2nd.
To be fair to NHS Test and Trace, this change may be intended to eliminate the problem in calculating the positivity rate that Dr Clare Craig spotted in tab 5 of the dataset in the press release that accompanied Chris Whitty and Patrick Vallance’s presentation on September 30th. A note in tab 5 stated: “The number of people tested in a given week will exclude some people who have been tested in a previous week, so may not be an accurate denominator to use. For example, someone testing negative for the first time in week 1 will be counted in the ‘people tested’ figure for that week. If that same person tests negative again in week 4, they will not be counted in the ‘people tested’ figure for week 4.” As Clare pointed out, if NHS Test and Trace wasn’t including repeat negative testers in the weekly test results – people who’ve tested negative before – that meant the denominator was being artificially deflated and the positivity rate artificially inflated. So what this new change may mean is that repeat testers who’ve tested negative in the previous week are now included in the denominator when it comes to calculating the positivity rate. But when NHS Test and Trace made this change it also decided to include repeat testers who’ve tested positive in the previous week when it comes to calculating “cases”, thereby increasing the number of positive “cases” in the weekly releases. We’ve asked Clare about this and she confirmed this reading. As she said, the most honest way of reporting this would be to only include first positives in the daily and weekly testing data and to keep all the negatives in the denominator when calculating the positivity rate.
Meanwhile, the latest update from the Royal College of General Practitioners shows that patients under investigation for COVID-19 dropped considerably in the North West in the week ending October 18th. This is yet another indication that the autumn epidemic in and around Manchester peaked well ahead of its Tier 3 restrictions coming into effect.
Needless to say, these are not the figures of an epidemic “increasing exponentially ” and in need of authoritarian intervention.
Stop Press: Check out this Facebook video by Luke Pompey. He gets a Covid test in the post, breaks the swab stick in half without taking any swabs, posts it back to the NHS then gets a positive result in the mail a few days later.
Sweden Liberates its Elderly and Takes Another Step Back to Normality
Faced with a small rise in Covid cases, what does Sweden do? Not clamp down hard, as we have, but abolish all remaining restrictions on the elderly, declaring they’ve suffered enough. Fraser Nelson in the Telegraph has more.
Sweden has rejected lockdown and face masks, but infections there are on the rise again. Yesterday, its public health agency published a report noting this – and pointing out that the elderly are at the gravest risk. In any other country, you could guess what would come next: a crackdown or curfew, a ban on socialising, a “rule of six”, no more seeing grandchildren. But what the officials had to say next was – to British ears – astonishing.
The elderly, they said, have suffered enough. They have spent months being advised to avoid public transport, shopping malls and other parts of everyday life. And the result? Loneliness. Misery. This is more than unpleasant: it quickly translates into depression, mental health issues and mortality. “We cannot only think about infection control,” said Lena Hallengren, Sweden’s health minister, “we also need to think about public health.” An important distinction: focus on Covid to the exclusion of other conditions and you risk lives.
Sweden is perhaps the first country in the world to make this case so clearly: isolation kills too. We now know much more about the virus, said Ms Hallengren, but we also know more about the side effects of lockdown – and even in Sweden’s case (where restrictions were voluntary) these effects are severe. Her 21-page report found a “decline in mental health” that was “likely to worsen the longer the recommendations remain in place”. So restrictions for the over-70s have been abolished forthwith, even with Covid rising (albeit slowly). And all this in the name of public health, not the economy.
This may sound at odds with the Great Barrington Declaration strategy of focused protection of the vulnerable. But in fact it’s the endpoint of it: to reach a level of population immunity in a relatively short space of time that allows restrictions on the high-risk to be lifted. Sweden may well still see the usual rise in respiratory disease this winter, but its public health officials have evidently concluded it is unlikely to include a large new deadly wave of Covid. The evidence to date suggests they’re right. Once again, Sweden pioneers a different way. Let’s hope this time we learn from them.
Stop Press: Sweden is also allowing large gatherings to take place, provided the total number is 300 or below.
Vaccines Unlikely to Prevent Infection
Seasoned sceptic Barry Norris on the Argonautica blog has written an incisive and well-researched piece on the widespread misconceptions of what the Covid vaccines are likely to achieve. Surprisingly, it’s not to prevent infection or reduce the risk of death or serious illness.
It is a common misconception that an approved vaccine will provide “silver bullet” immunity, a scenario based more on a Hollywood film narrative than reality5 because no Covid vaccine trial protocol6 defines its “success” as:
– Providing immunity from infection from the SARS-COV-2 virus
– Reducing mortality risk from the COVID-19 disease7
– Providing immunity from COVID-19 disease symptomsInstead trial “success” is defined as an amelioration of COVID-19 symptoms in 50-60% of volunteers, who are healthy adults likely to be at risk only from a mild or asymptomatic infection and thus not even a population group facing significant mortality risk from COVID-19.8 These dud Covid vaccines aspire to be buckshot not silver bullets: if they are the answer, what was the question?
Early stage trials have generally demonstrated an antibody response to inoculation with uncomfortable but so far generally tolerable side-effects in healthy adults (although both Astra9 and J&J10 trials were on hold whilst safety data was investigated).11 But the duration of the antibody responses is (as yet) unknown and it has not yet been proven whether the antibodies will offer any protection from the SARS-CoV-2 virus infection or the onset of the COVID-19 disease.12 Moderna recently admitted in the recent rehash of their Phase 1 data “no correlate of protection for SARS-COV-2 has been established”.13 In fact, no vaccine trial has yet presented any data providing any evidence of sterilising immunity which would be considered the gold standard for any vaccine. In a rare interview where senior management has been asked what constituted “success”, the Head of Biopharmaceutical R&D at Astra Zeneca Mene Pangalos confirmed that the vaccine “doesn’t need to cure you of SARS-COV-2”.14
You might think that “success” in all vaccine trials would involve a primary endpoint of a statistically significant reduction in infection from the specific SARS-COV-2 virus amongst the inoculated group versus the placebo group. This is not the case. The primary endpoints are focused on safety and the efficacy of the vaccine in ameliorating the onset of the COVID-19 disease as measured by the severity of symptoms (asymptomatic infections are not even counted toward the primary endpoint but only towards secondary, more speculative endpoints). The vaccines are therefore primarily measuring their effectiveness as a treatment of the COVID-19 disease rather than immunising the inoculated against infection from the SARS-COV-2 virus. This is a subtle but extremely important nuance. An analogy would be a vaccine that delays or mitigates the onset of the AIDS disease but does nothing to protect from being infected by the HIV virus. Hence the stated clinical aim of the vaccines is not to prevent transmission of the virus.
One question this raises is should the vaccines actually be called “vaccines”? Google’s Oxford Languages definition of vaccine is “a substance used to stimulate the production of antibodies and provide immunity against one or several diseases, prepared from the causative agent of a disease, its products, or a synthetic substitute, treated to act as an antigen without inducing the disease”. If the Covid “vaccines” aren’t going to “provide immunity” they’re not really vaccines, are they? More like prophylactics – the leaky condom variety.
Worth reading in full.
Freshers’ Covid
A reader writes to tell us about what life is like for her daughter in her second year of university in the north of England, where there is an outbreak of SARS-CoV-2.
Going to the campus testing centre for a test is becoming a virtual rite of passage at the first sign of a sore throat or a sniffle, along with the obligatory posting of the test result on Snapchat. In my daughter’s house of four occupants, three of them developed flu-like symptoms over the course of last week and by Saturday all three of them had been for tests. (The fourth thinks she had “the virus” earlier this year.) All three tests came back positive so all four of them have had to self-isolate for 10 days. One felt ill enough to spend last weekend in bed but is now much better. The other two, including my daughter, felt a bit headachy and grotty for a few days but are now fine, except that all three of them lost their sense of taste and smell – oddly, this only happened after they had the test. They’re complaining bitterly about this as they can’t taste their food, as well as panicking in case it’s permanent (since there’s so much fear porn about this on the internet). I agree it’s a vexing symptom and I hope they recover from it soon, but it isn’t life-threatening. They seem to have forgotten how ill they were with “freshers’ flu” last year – it persisted for weeks and nobody escaped it, along with viral conjunctivitis, chest and sinus infections, even a case of glandular fever in my daughter’s hall. And yet the university’s student “cases” are rising steadily as the vogue for getting tested intensifies, and most of them seem to be fine except for many of them having this loss of taste and smell.
James Delingpole Interviews Dr Mike Yeadon
James Delingpole has interviewed Lockdown Sceptics contributor Dr Mike Yeadon for the latest episode of the Delingpod. This is a must listen. You can either listen to it on YouTube here or on Podbean here.
Round-Up
- “Wales lockdown: Supermarkets told to sell only essential items” – From BBC News. Even more extreme than the original lockdown, and supermarkets have complained the definition of essential is unclear
- “The triumph of China’s Covid spin offers a terrifying glimpse of the West’s future” – Solid piece from Sherelle Jacobs in the Telegraph excoriating Western countries for buying Beijing’s lockdown and track-and-trace propaganda and pointing to Sweden as the only country to attempt a better alternative
- “Sunetra Gupta and the COVID-19 culture war” – Carefully balanced and sceptical long read in New Frame
- “Revealed: A company so small it doesn’t have to file full accounts was given £387million for Operation Moonshot – as £1.3bn High Court challenge lucrative Test and Trace contracts is launched” – Good scoop from the Mail
- “Revealed – the 83-year-old who spoke for a nation: Ex-housekeeper Maureen from Barnsley who said she ‘doesn’t give a sod’ about Tier 3 survived Covid, is not a fan of Matt Hancock and laughs off calls for her to be PM” – More from the nation’s new lockdown sceptic hero in the Mail
- “Europe’s long Covid: things aren’t getting better any time soon” – Dismal but probably accurate piece from Kate Andrews in the Spectator, unless our leaders can see the Swedish light
- “Contact-tracing apps: there’s no evidence they’re helping stop COVID-19” – An unsurprising but important finding from Allison Gardner in the Conversation
- “Update on The Coronavirus Act 2020 is Null and Void!” – New details of Robin Tilbrook and Kevin Corbett’s legal action against the Government
- “Scousers will lead the new peasants’ revolt against the lockdown scam” – Sean Walsh in Conservatives Global spies growing resistance in his home town of Liverpool
- “Study helps explain declines in death rates from COVID-19” – A new study of New York hospitals reported in the Medical Xpress identifies a number of reasons mortality rates are declining
- “Google Mobility Data Suggests Sweden ‘Socially Distanced’ Less Than Other Countries” – Ryan McMaken at the Mises Institute does his bit for busting the myths lockdown zealots spin about Sweden to justify writing it off
- “Reports of Sweden’s deaths highly exaggerated” – George Dance with an excellent fact check of the anti-Sweden camp
- “Four Newborn Babies Die In Australia After Being Denied Heart Surgery Due To COVID Travel Rules” – Shocking example of the skewed health priorities of lockdown in Summit News
- “Rishi Sunak provides extra £13bn to keep businesses alive” – The Chancellor introduces extra measures just weeks after setting out his Winter budget. Where’s the money coming from? Anxiety levels at the UK Debt Management Office must be off the charts
- “Rishi Sunak’s Tier 2 U-turn has exposed his first major mistake” – Good analysis from Ben Kelly in the Telegraph on how Sunak’s new splurges expose the Government’s miscalculations of the true costs of lockdown
- “What the Woke Terror shares with the French Revolution” – Matthew Crawford in UnHerd on how modern wokery shares the paranoia, emotivism and religious caricature of 18th century radicals
- “USA Today Refused To Publish Hunter Biden Scandal Op-Ed, So Here It Is” – Political censorship exposed by Glenn Reynolds in PJ Media
- “There’s No Justification for Another Lockdown” – Triggernometry interview with Ivor Cummins
- “Oct 20th Shocking Data – Endemic Virus versus Damaging Lockdowns” – And the latest YouTube video from Ivor Cummins
- “Care staff ordered to work in one home only” – Report from the Telegraph on a new measure that in theory should prevent spread in care homes – but are there enough staff to make it work? The sector doesn’t think so, warning it is already dangerously understaffed
- “‘Structural racism’ has no place in the national debate on tackling COVID-19” – Good piece by Rakib Ehsan in the Telegraph
- “PM criticises trace efforts amid warnings of 90,000 coronavirus cases a day” – Does this mean Matt Hancock’s for the chop? We can but hope
- “£2bn lost to criminals in furlough cash fraud” – Shocking story on the front page of today’s Times. We are becoming a banana republic
- Desmond Swayne MP on the Insanity of the Continuing Restrictions
Theme Tunes Suggested by Readers
Just one today: “World of Tiers” by Hawkwind.
Love in the Time of Covid
We have created some Lockdown Sceptics Forums, including a dating forum called “Love in a Covid Climate” that has attracted a bit of attention. We have a team of moderators in place to remove spam and deal with the trolls, but sometimes it takes a little while so please bear with us. You have to register to use the Forums, but that should just be a one-time thing. Any problems, email the Lockdown Sceptics webmaster Ian Rons here.
Sharing stories: Some of you have asked how to link to particular stories on Lockdown Sceptics. The answer used to be to first click on “Latest News”, then click on the links that came up beside the headline of each story. But we’ve changed that so the link now comes up beside the headline whether you’ve clicked on “Latest News” or you’re just on the Lockdown Sceptics home page. Please do share the stories with your friends and on social media.
Woke Gobbledegook
We’ve decided to create a permanent slot down here for woke gobbledegook. Today, it’s the plans of the Scottish Government to force all teachers to subscribe to the radical Left notion of “intersectionality” or be out on their ear. Steerpike, the Spectator‘s gossip columnist, has the details.
This year, the General Teaching Council for Scotland (GTCS) has been consulting on new ‘Professional Standards’ for teachers, which will come into force in August 2021. In June, the GTCS approved a final draft of the new standards, which it has now published online and asked for feedback.
As part of its powers, the GTCS is able to strike off teachers who do not meet its professional standards, and they are a benchmark of competence for all new teachers joining the profession. In other words, any teachers who do not subscribe to them will not be teaching for very long.
Rather worryingly then, Mr S has spotted that the teaching body has decided to adopt a left-wing political framework for its new standards.
The GTCS lists three professional values that all teachers will be expected to have in Scotland in 2021: ‘trust and respect’, ‘integrity’, and ‘social justice’.
Some of the qualities the GTCS describes as belonging to social justice are innocuous enough. It is hard to object to the idea, for example, that teachers should promote the health and wellbeing of students in their care.
Other qualities are more controversial. If the standards are enacted, it will become compulsory for teachers in 2021 to be: “Committing to social justice through fair, transparent, inclusive, and sustainable policies and practices in relation to protected characteristics… and intersectionality.”
Exactly how teachers are meant to demonstrate their commitment to ‘intersectionality’ (a rather nebulous strand of identity politics that stresses the importance of competing levels of privilege) in their day to day practice, as the standards command, is beyond Mr Steerpike’s imagination.
Thinking of becoming a teacher in Scotland? Forget about the three Rs. You need to read Kimberlé Williams Crenshaw, the inventor of this dotty theory.
“Mask Exempt” Lanyards
We’ve created a one-stop shop down here for people who want to buy (or make) a “Mask Exempt” lanyard/card. You can print out and laminate a fairly standard one for free here and it has the advantage of not explicitly claiming you have a disability. But if you have no qualms about that (or you are disabled), you can buy a lanyard from Amazon saying you do have a disability/medical exemption here (takes a while to arrive). The Government has instructions on how to download an official “Mask Exempt” notice to put on your phone here. You can get a “Hidden Disability” tag from ebay here and an “exempt” card with lanyard for just £1.99 from Etsy here. And, finally, if you feel obliged to wear a mask but want to signal your disapproval of having to do so, you can get a “sexy world” mask with the Swedish flag on it here.
Don’t forget to sign the petition on the UK Government’s petitions website calling for an end to mandatory face masks in shops here.
A reader has started a website that contains some useful guidance about how you can claim legal exemption.
And here’s an excellent piece about the ineffectiveness of masks by a Roger W. Koops, who has a doctorate in organic chemistry.
The Great Barrington Declaration
The Great Barrington Declaration, a petition started by Professor Martin Kulldorff, Professor Sunetra Gupta and Professor Jay Bhattacharya calling for a strategy of “Focused Protection” (protect the elderly and the vulnerable and let everyone else get on with life), was launched last week and the lockdown zealots have been doing their best to discredit it. If you Googled it on Tuesday, the top hits were three smear pieces from the Guardian, including: “Herd immunity letter signed by fake experts including ‘Dr Johnny Bananas’.” (Freddie Sayers at UnHerd warned us about this hit job the day before it appeared.) On the bright side, Google UK has stopped shadow banning it, so the actual Declaration now tops the search results – and Toby’s Spectator piece about the attempt to suppress it is among the top hits – although discussion of it has been censored by Reddit. The reason the zealots hate it, of course, is that it gives the lie to their claim that “the science” only supports their strategy. These three scientists are every bit as eminent – more eminent – than the pro-lockdown fanatics so expect no let up in the attacks. (Wikipedia has also done a smear job.)
You can find it here. Please sign it. Now over 600,000 signatures.
Judicial Reviews Against the Government
There are now so many JRs being brought against the Government and its ministers, we thought we’d include them all in one place down here.
First, there’s the Simon Dolan case. You can see all the latest updates and contribute to that cause here.
Then there’s the Robin Tilbrook case. You can read about that and contribute here.
Then there’s John’s Campaign which is focused specifically on care homes. Find out more about that here.
There’s the GoodLawProject’s Judicial Review of the Government’s award of lucrative PPE contracts to various private companies. You can find out more about that here and contribute to the crowdfunder here.
The Night Time Industries Association has instructed lawyers to JR any further restrictions on restaurants, pubs and bars.
And last but not least there’s the Free Speech Union‘s challenge to Ofcom over its ‘coronavirus guidance’. You can read about that and make a donation here.
Samaritans
If you are struggling to cope, please call Samaritans for free on 116 123 (UK and ROI), email jo@samaritans.org or visit the Samaritans website to find details of your nearest branch. Samaritans is available round the clock, every single day of the year, providing a safe place for anyone struggling to cope, whoever they are, however they feel, whatever life has done to them.
Shameless Begging Bit
Thanks as always to those of you who made a donation in the past 24 hours to pay for the upkeep of this site. Doing these daily updates is hard work (although we have help from lots of people, mainly in the form of readers sending us stories and links). If you feel like donating, please click here. And if you want to flag up any stories or links we should include in future updates, email us here. (Don’t assume we’ll pick them up in the comments.)
Special thanks to graphic designer and Lockdown Sceptics reader Claire Whitten for designing our new logo. We think it’s ace. Find her work here.
And Finally…
Toby in his Spectator column this week has had enough of the profligacy and politicking of the devolved administrations during this pandemic as they have indulged in heavily subsidised lockdowns which seem designed to make the Westminster Government look bad.
The actions of Welsh First Minister Mark Drakeford are scarcely any more explicable. His decision had nothing to do with rising case numbers, hospital admissions or deaths. Daily cases by specimen date plateaued in Wales last week, as have the number of COVID-19 patients in critical care. Daily deaths from Covid peaked at 11 on October 7th and haven’t climbed above single digits since. The cumulative death toll in Wales is 1,722, which is about 4% of the total in England.
No, the reason the Welsh Labour leader has imposed these draconian restrictions is to ratchet up the pressure on Boris and make it more difficult for him to avoid imposing a two-week ‘circuit breaker’, thereby enhancing the standing of Keir Starmer, who called for one last week. Drakeford can afford to play politics with his own people’s livelihoods because he knows that Boris — the man he’s doing his best to embarrass — will have to pick up the pieces.
Toby says he hasn’t “quite given up on unionism” and still thinks “we’re better off together”, though worries “what will become of Scotland and Wales if we were to part”. Indeed. Personally I find it bizarre to think we’d no longer be Great Britain or the United Kingdom. Talk about a shock to the system! I’m more inclined to say we should be strict with our separatists in the time-honoured tradition of America and Spain and not even countenance secession. But Toby is more charitable and thinks we should give them an ultimatum: “The English can’t continue bankrolling you if you’re just going to set fire to the money in a misguided effort to make yourselves look better than us. Either you abandon this sophomoric pretence of independence and throw in your lot with us or you become separate sovereign states, entirely responsible for your own affairs.”
Worth reading in full.
To join in with the discussion please make a donation to The Daily Sceptic.
Profanity and abuse will be removed and may lead to a permanent ban.
Me!
You!
Us!
Ice scream!
Hello all
Amazing Debate on Lockdown Ideology versus Scientific Approach – Unmissable!!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qgn4B2Iq2cg
Ivor Cummins
Wow – this one really covers the reality – excellent debate, and finally we are seeing it televised on mainstream!
Yikes, has the monster from Trinity on this clip named his own lab after himself? https://ryan-lab.org/tomas-ryan/ His ‘lab’ is funded by the Jacobs Foundation, ERC, SFI, and The Florey Institute of Neuroscience and Mental Health, which right on its landing page is pushing ‘long-term neurological consequnces of Covid-19 – they call it the ‘Silent Wave’. https://www.florey.edu.au/ Ridiculously unscientific response from me: This Ryan guy is straight-up a psychopath. ‘The Ryan Lab investigates the fundamental neuroscience of memory. We employ a multi-disciplinary and collaborative approach in order to understand how memories are encoded, stored, and retrieved in the brain. To this end we utilize a wide range of experimental techniques including optogenetics, engram cell labelling, mouse transgenics, pharmacology, electrophysiology, in vivo calcium imaging, and behavioural analysis. The central question we aim to address is how is memory coded in the brain as information? At the most fundamental level, memory is information that is encoded into the brain through a process of learning. We refer to the specific change in the brain that accounts for a particular learned piece of information as a memory engram. Memory engrams must exist somewhere in our brains and the scientific challenge is firstly to find them and secondly to… Read more »
I just commented on a Facebook post saying that he cannot be human.
Interesting that he’s a neuroscientist. Not sure how that qualifies him to comment on dealing with a virus at all!
On the other hand, he’s probably an expert in the effects of PsyOp.
Dr John Lee a hero and voice of sense and reason — thank you so much for posting this.
“Never give in. Never, never, never.”
– Winston Churchill
I found this rallying cry came to me first thing this morning, hopefully a positive tone for my fellow sceptics to give you a boost today.
Yours is infinitely better. 🙂
Haha I only arrived here by chance both today and yesterday!
One of my favourites, from another inspirational leader:
“ What? Over? Did you say ‘over’? Nothing is over until we decide it is! Was it over when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor? Hell no!…
It ain’t over now, ’cause when the goin’ gets tough, the tough get goin’. Who’s with me? Let’s go! Come on!…”
Come on, that’s not acceptable! Who said that?
Donald Trump or was it Joe Biden?
Was it over when the Japs smashed through the Maginot Line? Hello no!
Thankyou, DB. Feeling low today so a bit of positivity is very welcome.
Best of British to you Suze!
as I moved from kitchen to desk look what happened! More diversions……
I like 4th
All hail Kommissar Cherepakha, Saviour of the Welsh Nation.
God, we’re doomed.
What’s with the Russophobia? (cherepakha is Russian for tortoise).
Russophobia?
I love Russia and all things Russian (would love to visit there one day).
It’s Stalinism I hate. Particularly the Welsh kind.
Same here: I’m reading ‘Dr Zhivago’ and Helen Rappaport’s ‘Four Sisters’; her account of the lives of the ill fated Romanov Grand Duchesses.
I ‘m also a fan of Amazon Prime’s extensive collection of Russian dramas, one of the best of which is ‘Ladoga’, a compelling account of the struggle to maintain the food convoys during the siege of Leningrad.
Fascinating, and a real eye opener.And as for hardship: unbelievable suffering and deprivation combined with a gritty courage.
I did visit Russia when it was still Soviet.
They had to pretend to go along with all sorts of silly rituals to please the regime but were quite happy to tell westerners that they knew it was all nonsense.
The resemblance is striking.
I’d much rather have the tortoise.
Listening to Drakeford, it seems like he’s been in a bunker & has come out thinking we’re still in March, talking about shopping only for essentials! Hasn’t covid been 24th on cause of death in Wales for September? No challenge to this at all?
I escaped over the border yesterday from Gwynedd. I left a ghost town. Personally I felt more in danger of being savage by a sheep than covid.
Thanks to all who came to help us with our first day of activity in London yesterday. It was greatly appreciated.
Great day, David. Scepticism on the South Bank ! 😉
Thanks for getting it going.
Thanks a million for coming!
Experiments to Determine Mode of Spread of Influenza (1919)
Quote from the study:
“Perhaps, if we have learned anything, it is that we are not quite sure what we know about this disease”
They couldnt experimentally prove how the disease was transmitted. This article is worth a read:
https://medium.com/microbial-instincts/spread-of-spanish-flu-was-never-experimentally-confirmed-9f91b37c4dd8
(Thank you to whoever posted this link yesterday)
Does anyone know of a study that has proved human to human transition by way of coughing, sneezing or handling something that an infected person has touched, for cold or flu viruses?
There probably aren’t any.
Its starting to look that way, more assumptions peddled as fact
Well now…
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-21773604
Just search for Jonathan Nguyen Van Tam. Some of the papers look a bit dodge but plenty of references to masks, sanitiser and ‘social distancing’. All from the man sponsored by GSK. Says it all really…
Eight is my lucky number!
Please, please, please update the website so all links in the comments open in a new browser tab. I’ve lost my position in the comments so many times due to links navigating away from this site. It’s driving me nuts.
Can’t you right click the link and open in a new tab?
can always click with the scrolling wheel, that does it automatically
Thank you! Learn something new everyday… though am embarrassed I hadn’t worked that out sooner.
Holding down [Ctrl]-key when left-clicking is another option (always use that one for some reason…).
Yep, but that doesn’t work too well on my phone. 🙁
I live in the north. I’m in lockdown, need to get my exersise somehow
Yeah, I know, but I still left click by force of habit. 🙁
Not from an Android you can’t.
Another FOI request answer about PCR tests and what justifications that the councils hold for implementing local restrictions came back.
Answer is the same as all the others – nothing to do with us, ask higher up as big boys making us do it.
The Danish paper on masks is a test case. If it doesn’t get through I don’t see how anything other than revolution will solve our problems.
I don’t think we will ever have another revolution in a 1st world country. Why? Because you have to believe in something bigger than yourself and/or some sort of afterlife to risk sacrificing your own life for an idea. As a civilisation we are now too selfish, too atheistic and too decadent. We can talk about it but there are not enough people of the right type to form a critical mass to actually do anything.
Does anyone know which journal they are trying to publish this in? Mrs Beefheart knows a friend who’s husbands brother works for a major science journal and he’d be able to keep an eye on who is reviewing it and what their affiliations are etc.
Apparently, he really loves science and is against the censorship of it.
Bum. He works for a different one.
Nadine Dorries, MP for Mid-Bedfordshire and one of the first MPs to get Covid-19, said during a Commons debate that she no longer has antibodies to SARS-CoV-2 and so is no longer immune to Covid-19. She then claimed herd immunity cannot be achieved without a vaccine. How can politicians get away with making ill-founded statements like that? Leaving aside the issue of T-cell immunity, of which she appears to know nothing, how can a vaccine confer immunity if recovery from the disease does not? Is this woman seriously proposing that people are vaccinated every 12 weeks? A better informed and unbiased MSM would take this woman apart.
List or not?
Even more frighteningly, she is apparently a qualified former nurse.
She was in the wrong business then and clearly she still is.
She needs to listen to Mike Yeadon on the Delingpod for reassurance, and a quick lesson in how immunity works.
One of the things that struck me whilst listening to Yeadon on the Delingpod was he repeated assertion that Patrick Valance is making assertion that he must know are wrong.
Yes, he does seem to have a bee in his bonnet about Vallance.
Surprising that the devil deals in such shoddy goods.
He’s not wrong. GSK is the worlds leading vaccine manufacturer. Shingrix was developed on Vallance’s watch. It relies on T cell immunity. He certainly knows how it works.
Only someone trying to undermine Yeadon would put it that way. Yeadon is rightly outraged that Vallance allows so much disinformation to be pumped out by SAGE and Government and that Vallance himself misleads the public.
Listen to this video – about all the many people that are making statements they must know to be false and what the world’s (decent) lawyers intend to do about it, making use of the best law that exists where it exists. (derived from English law btw)
German lawyers/medics telling it as it is. They were the first group of professionals to speak out, recognising what is going on now from their own nation’s awful history and determined to stop it this time if they can. They’ve been holding formal hearings now for several months, and are now starting to report their findings.
https://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2020/10/17/coronavirus-fraud-biggest-crime-against-humanity.aspx (video and article)
https://worlddoctorsalliance.com/blog/crimes-against-humanity-the-german-corona-investigation/
https://www.worlddoctorsalliance.com/
Top link already unavailable, I’m afraid. . .
Top link put into wayback machine (internet archive) gets the bewildering result “This URL has been excluded from the Wayback Machine.” ???
I have never seen that before.
The other link is also unavailable and the Wayback Machine claims not to have archived it.Seen that before but not the excluded one
I got the transcript from
https://www.ageofautism.com/2020/10/reiner-fuellmich-crimes-against-humanity-transcript.html
thanks to aomone here (I read faster than I watch videos)
That still seems to work
Kerrrrrrchinggggg!
Given that there are 2 year olds now who have spent 25% of their life without seeing an adult face umasked other than their parents, what effect does this have on their psychological development?
That’s a coincidence. I was just listening to the answer to your question right now on Last American Vagabond. I’ll post up a video highlighting this when I find the correct link.
Here, about 2 and a half minutes long. A speech from a spinal surgeon & certified medical doctor of 40 years. One of America’s Frontline Doctors.
https://twitter.com/o_rips/status/1317900848379260928
Excellent link. Thank you.
I’m getting all these from the Last American Vagabond. Excellent source of information.
Subscribe via the website:
https://www.thelastamericanvagabond.com/
And even worse, 2 year olds who haven’t been allowed to socialise with other children for 25% of their lives.
Again:Child abuse.
And one year olds: half their lives.
Again:Child abuse.
It worries me too. Yesterday I was in the street (bare-faced) behind a stationary woman in a mask on her phone with a baby in a stroller. The baby was alert, 6-8 months old, sitting up and spotted me walking towards them. As I overtook them, I gave the baby a wide smile and said ‘hello’ in that exaggerated sing song way you do with babies. The baby’s reaction was extraordinary. It was as though the on-switch had been flicked, happy, grinning, body rocking up and down, arms waving up and down, squealing, direct eye contact. I was saddened to think of all the other similar incidental interactions the baby must have missed in the last few months. I can’t help worrying about the potential long term adverse effects on development.
I think anxiety and stress levels in toddlers have been increased. I only have anecdotal evidence from several parents, that problems with behaviour and managing emotions have got worse.
Our 3 year old’s personality changed radically during lockdown. He was a lively and active boy. Within weeks was whimpering in corners or laying on the floor staring at the ceiling. Seeing a child suffer is so painful.
He is a bit better now but not fully recovered.
Hate this government.
I keep thinking this too -what are the government doing to our children
The medical journals still have enormous prestige, and yes peer review and all of that…
However, those prestigious journals all have their origins in the pre-Internet age when sources of information were few, when the flow of that information was relatively controlled, when information was expensive, and when the analysis and processing of that information took a long time.
So I say, out with this study if no journal is ready to publish within a reasonable time period..The public interest demands that it go out as soon as possible Peer review will take place in the open forum of the Web with potentially millions of people qualified in relevant disciplines subjecting the study to critique.
It will stand or fall in public.
We are now at a stage in this farce where several elements in the official narrative have attained the status of religious doctrine – one of these is of course masks.
If one of these elements fall, then I suspect they all will, which is why none can be allowed to fail.
In normal circumstances (remember them?), medical journals would be fighting amongst themselves to get such an important, indeed epochal, study. But that of course before they all ‘woke’ up!
I reckon this site would publish it.
They could self publish but then the powers that be would simply say “it’s not peer reviewed” and ignore it. If it get published in a top ranked medical journal that is much harder. I would guess the study shows that masks are actually harmful and help the spread so they think it is important and want the study to change policy.
Yes, your post is correct. But time is a factor too. It really does need to be put out there. And as Calchas says, it will then go through online peer review.
What is unacceptable is that this study is kept under wraps for weeks, or even indefinitely.
Even if it is pro-mask (very unlikely I guess) it still needs to be put on public view.
Like you, I’m guessing that it indicates that masks are actively harmful. If so, the authors have an even greater duty to ensure that their work is published, and quickly.
I remember a dietician crowing that an ongoing study would “prove beyond all doubt” the harms of low carb diets.
The study never got published. One can only assume it proved the Wrong Thing and was binned.
See also, studies on the harms of statins.
Meanwhile many garbage papers do get into print because they back whatever agenda is required
This thing about ‘peer reviewed’ always strikes me as a bit of a red herring, as if it confers legitimacy to an article by itself. All a ‘peer review’ does, is to say that a paper is written up in a way that is fit for publication. It makes no comment on its accuracy. My OH often does peer reviews for papers in the area of geology in which he is an acknowledged expert. He basically checks that it is of a high enough standard for printing, not that the findings and conclusions are correct. So he checks things like all references quoted in the text are listed at the end, all the figures and their captions are in agreement with what is in the text. He makes sure that the writing is not garbage, that there are no needless repetitions etc. Basically, he is editing as someone who knows what the article is about. He may then go on to suggest improvements, says where the arguments etc are weak and could be strengthened, and very occasionally, will challenge the methodology or the results when the subject matter is well known to him and he suspects that the authors have… Read more »
Broadly that’s what I understood by peer review. Does the article possess the basic quality and legitimacy to be published? I imagined (silly me) that journal articles were meant to float evidence-based new and novel ideas, for others to confirm or rebut, not necessarily to be definitive work.
Currently we are supposed to accept that an experiment involving two hamster cages with a piece of cloth between them constitutes science in support of mask wearing, but that a study involving up to 6,000 people with and without masks does not come up to the standard.
It stinks.
So if there is conclusive evidence that we should not be wearing masks (please!), would all the businesses that are making them be able to claim furlough or compensation payments? Maybe that’s what Govts are afraid of. Destroying our Covid economy.
Defund the journals
In 2006, an outbreak of a common-or-garden, common-cold coronavirus killed 8% of residents in a care home who showed symptoms:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2095096/
The actual subject of the study was something different (cross-reactivity on PCR testing!). They found the death rate utterly unremarkable.
shopping report . hardly anyone unmasked. I was unmasked . no one gave a toss. Nice conversations with shop staff . Aldi, B&M, Pound Shop all models of behaviour . Staff clearly wearing masks just to keep management happy .
Biggest laugh , Getting money and used machine outside bank. Staff arriving . Saw one girl, masked , ring the bell to be admitted and someone (also masked) came to open the door for her and scanned her temperature. Wtf!! So who scanned the first person to arrive.
As i left another staff member arrived .. I almost suggested that she shouldgo to the nearby greggs, warm her hand on the counter, then warm her forehead … She could then have the day off
Yes, but then she would have to be tested and added to our world-bleating (sic!) test and trace system.
And she and her family and friends imprisoned for two weeks. Ooops!!! they doing that to all of us come 6pm anyway
They think.
So not hot Greggs but cold icepack.
Took my watch to a local jewellers have the battery replaced yesterday. Had to knock on the door to be let in by a masked assistant (on reflection he could have been a robber)! I was asked to put my watch in a torpedo shaped metal box which then sterilised it. Jeez! I was then told to return for it 20 minutes when it was handed to me in a plastic bag.
Should have gone to the market, they’d have done it in a couple of minutes.
…
personally I think it very important to question decrees made by a small number of people in a democracy. Unfortunately this idea is now derided by so many I can only conclude they have been brainwashed.
We have had the first death in Oxfordshire since July. I’m in Oxford now it’s like a scene from a Sci Fi movie.
What exactly has the chief medical bod of the county requested? Fucking requested to go into tier 2.
Noooooo!
Its about the big bag of money to the Council from the generous government
Can anyone find out how this 1 death compares to death rates from dying from other things in Oxfordshire?
https://www.lifesitenews.com/news/suicides-higher-than-covid-19-deaths-amid-school-lockdown-cdc-chief-warns
The ‘chief medical bod of the county’ presumably lives in Oxfordshire somewhere. At least his/her local community now know what sort of twat he/she is.
I don’t know what sort of medicine they teach local CMOs but whatever it is certainly replaces all common sense.
Is Jimmy Saville still on top of the pops?
Yep introducing Gary Glitter and Rolf Harris
(BBC by thy works shell we know thee)
Good news everyone. I’ve made it the actual 1984 again not the Orwellian 1984 we are now in. Men can have perms. Women can have fanny hair. Liverpudlians can steal Italian sportswear (though Sergio Tachinni is now Chinese owned).. John Wayne is big leggy hip hop be bop lost in music.. you can meet people, snog, drink, slow dance with your hands on a girf’s bottom.. be optimistic about the future.. and even have sex. We even still make stuff. House prices and rents are also less than a quarter of what they are now.
sorry if a comment vanished.. edited and messed it up…
You’ve definitely travelled back in time as this post has been posited twice. Enjoy the 80s. I loved them.
Time travel is the only holiday option remaining.
I hated the 1980s. Each to his own. The 2020s are a bit shit so far as well.
Ah those were the days!
4 million unemployed, sink estates.
Apart from the mullets and the huge shoulder pads, we’ll all be travelling back in time soon – which would at least improve pop music somewhat!
The BBC will pay you £80 to take a fake PCR test and anyone who offers their nasal snot for free should bear this in mind.
As for masks, watch out for declining blood oxygen levels due to self-inhalation of CO2 emissions. Anything less than 94% SpO2 for a protracted period and you may eventually figure in the statistics. (As a Covid death, naturally).
Me and Mrs- Two-Six are off in our van for a week or so. I will save this for reading later once we are re-located into a nice field with views in the deepest Somerset countryside.
40 bottles of beer, six bottles of wine, a bottle of fizz for celebrations of our great escape from zombie LA LA land and a bottle of gin.
This should help a bit with the sanity levels. So will my 500 watt solar powered sound system. The bass is monstrous…Two subs under the seats, its like a night-club in there.
Fuck the crazies!
Have a good time Two-six. I’m off for a night at a Premier Inn in Ulverston with my lovely wife. Not quite up to your break but anything is welcome these days.
Gotta love a Premier Inn breakfast – book that in advance now btw!! They run out of tables if you just turn up.
Why are you only taking half rations?
One has to be des
Have a good one- looks like we might make it to Dorset too. Enjoy!!!
Jesus, I hope no poor locals have to put up with the noise from your sound system.
I have seen said van and sound system and concur, it is like a night club!! Have a great time away. Catch up when you get back.
Love Somerset. Have a great time. Wave to us over in Gulag Wales. You can see Pembrokeshire from Lynmouth, just into Devon, on a clear day.
Be interesting to know what it’s like down there.
Here in Suffolk, another low covid area, most people wear muzzles in shops then immediately take them off in the street.
I drive around the countryside and villages and walk on various paths and commons. Lots of other walkers, with and without dogs, and almost all unmuzzled. The odd moron in a car though.
List of Mask studies.
https://www.thelastamericanvagabond.com/person-dies-covid-vaccine-trial-more-experts-speak-out-efficacy-of-masks-lockdowns/
Dozens of them, collected at the end of the Video Source links section.
Thanks for those links. Details of previous studies into masks seem to have ‘disappeared’ from search engines. I am ex NHS and I am certain that there has never been a single study that shows masks to be of any use to the public. In fact, most wear them wrongly, never wash or replace them and they are a breeding ground for bacteria. They are a visible sign of compliance and I bet people would wear kiss me quick hats if advised to do so. I am beginning to despair. Watching the very elderly shuffling about wearing masks is heartbreaking and for kids to grow up seeing muzzled faces as ‘normal’ is outrageous.
If it wasn’t for media hysteria and government imposed restrictions no one would have noticed we were in a pandemic. We don’t see dead bodies piling up, huge numbers becoming I’ll and no one knows anyone with Covid. Compulsory masks and everyone wearing masks deceives people into thinking we are in a pandemic.
A friend of mine recently realised his gungy cough might be a result of prolonged face nappy-wearing ……
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/18500410/
https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/deaths/bulletins/monthlymortalityanalysisenglandandwales/september2020
Covid accounted for 1.7% of all deaths in England in Sept. Only the 19th most common cause. This is what businesses are getting closed down for and why they are putting up two fingers to anyone desperately needing cancer treatment. 1.7%. Let that sink in.
Just for perusal:
https://blog.nomorefakenews.com/2020/10/22/the-virus-that-isnt-there-genetic-sequencing-and-the-magic-trick/
Very interesting read!
This fits with what Kary Mullis (inventor of pcr test) says in this video
https://www.bitchute.com/video/d7eF5vDATxBq/
Dripford has said the lockdown has been timed to coincide with half term. Conwy CBC schools have been in half term THIS week. So My daughters will be off school for three weeks in total, plus a week if online lessons.
Also school is insisting mask exempt pupils wear a lanyard. They have to produce evidence to get a lanyard, which in my daughters case is her inhaler and prescription.
Drakefords police state.
Not legal.
How can I show that I am not required to wear a face covering?Whether somebody has a reasonable excuse not to wear a face covering will not always be obvious. Disabilities and impairments are not always visible to others, such as neurodevelopmental conditions, and respect and understanding should be shown to those who have good reasons not to wear face coverings.
Those who have an age, health or disability reason for not wearing a face covering should not be routinely asked to give any written evidence of this. You do not need to seek advice or request a letter from a medical professional about your reason for not wearing a face covering.
Some people may feel more comfortable showing something that says they do not have to wear a face covering. This could be in the form of an exemption card, badge or even a home-made sign. A number of organisations have created cards that can be downloaded from their websites and printed, including the Welsh Government.
Carrying an exemption card is a personal choice and is not necessary in law.
https://gov.wales/face-coverings-guidance-public
Tell the school to “Cachau bant”
Twll tin iddyn nhw i gyd.
Just on a personal note. In my case I have a heart issue and am waiting for heart surgery to replace a valve and repair my aorta. I normally have regular x rays and ultrasound scans every six months, along with a review by the consultant to check that things have not got dramatically worse. At my last review in February I was told that it was getting to the point that the operation needed to be done and that another CT scan was necessary to check with a further review in August. The scan was scheduled at a hospital near me in one Health Board and the review/surgery would be at the Cardiac Unit in another Health Board . Both are in Wales Both appointments were subsequently cancelled. About 4 weeks ago I wrote to the Chief Executive’s of both Health Boards asking what was happening as it appeared that I was no longer being monitored. I think my exact phrase was ‘I seem to be the equivalent of a bomb about to explode but no one is now measuring how much time is left on the fuse’ Replies have now been received. The heart unit tells me to… Read more »
Outrageous. There will be a reckoning
Crimes against humanity
(Wouldn’t be surprised if these were the twats that were dancing)
We so need a Nuremburg trial – with similar penalties for the guilty!
Apparently Nuremburg is twinned with Glasgow, so perhaps they should be held there?
Very fitting as that is the bastion of the SNP.
So long as they’re held I don’t care where they do it.
Can I act as Albert Pierpoint
Write to Peter Hitchens.
Medical Journals Refuse To Publish Landmark Danish Study.
I’m not surprised at this but forgive me for stating the obvious which no doubt the study will confirm:
*When we exhale we get rid of Carbon dioxide and pathogens.
* If we cover our mouth and face we restrict our oxygen intake and increase our carbon dioxide and pathogen intake which our bodies need to expel to maintain our health.
Am I missing something here?