This present note (immediately below) was previously published in the

October and November 2020 issues of Catholic Candle

We usually focus directly on Faith and morals.  However, sometimes issues in society have a severe indirect impact on Faith and morals and should be addressed.  Below, we examine one of those issues which has a severe indirect impact on Faith and morals, viz., the overblown corona-scare.  We put COVID-19 in perspective, to help readers face this challenge in which Providence has lovingly placed us, for the glory of God and for our good.

In our current corona-crazy world, people are acting strangely because they are frightened by (supposed) imminent death from COVID-19, or they are intimidated by abusive governmental lockdown and mask-wearing orders.  People have been bludgeoned into letting go of their humanity and are fearfully acting as if their fellow man was a threatening virus-culture rather than a fellow child of God and fellow soldier in the Church Militant.

Lastly, another reason to examine the abusive mask mandates is because they are a prominent example showing (for anyone who needs further proof) that the mainstream media and the liberal “deep state” establishment (which is entrenched in the government), are unreliable as sources of the truth concerning what is going on in the world.  It is Catholic Candle’s hope that this present article is a helpful reminder to our readers that they should distrust the mainstream media and entrenched liberals in government because they lie and “spin” the truth.

This article was up to date when it was written in October and November, 2020.  The article mostly uses evidence from the U.S. because there is so much of it available.  However, the evidence we have from other countries supports the theses of this article.  Such support makes sense because human nature is the same in all countries, COVID-19 is (apparently) the same everywhere, and the effects of mask-wearing are the same.

Face masks present grave health risks & are to control people, not a virus

We previously saw the COVID-19 scare is overblown.[1]  We also saw that lockdowns don’t work, and that their real purpose is to control the population, not the virus.[2]

In this present article, we will see that:

1.    masking everybody is not effective to protect people from COVID-19;

2.    it is a health hazard for healthy people to wear masks; and

3.    the real purpose of imposing masks is to dehumanize and control the population.

Below, we examine each of these points.

1.   Masking everybody is not effective to protect people from COVID-19.

Before we examine medical studies and medical authorities, let’s start by using common sense.

➢  If masking everybody in a pandemic is such a good idea, why has it never been done before, in the history of the world?  Masks are not new and are “low tech”.  They have been available for thousands of years.

➢  If masking everybody is such a good idea, why is it promoted and required by those who are most hostile to God and to the worship of God (viz., liberals)?  In other words, if God’s enemies promote it, why would we suppose it is good?

➢  If it is such a good idea, why is it that those who promote masking everybody “even if it only saves one life” (as they say), are the same people who promote murdering innocent babies (abortion and infanticide) and killing the elderly (euthanasia)?

 

➢  If everybody should wear a mask because simply breathing near someone can infect him with a virus, why do the (supposedly more reliable) COVID-19 tests require sticking a long rod/swab up your nose, into your skull (popularly called a “brain-poke”) in order to get a good test sample?  Why couldn’t the test be done by breathing into a bottle or onto a swab or at most supplying a drop of saliva?

➢  If masking everybody is such a good idea, why is it promoted through emotion but not reason?  For example, when Georgia opened back up (after a briefer and less-abusive lockdown than in many other states) the liberals attacked the state and called it “Georgia’s Experiment in Human Sacrifice”.[3]

➢  The liberals and mainstream media continually talk about following “science” but their position is not supported by science and they don’t cite any supporting science.

Masking everybody is not supported by any science.

There are no studies showing that masking everybody works to prevent viral infection.  The closest thing we could find is a hamster study.  This study is a non-peer-reviewed study of hamsters in Asia, in which a fan blew air from COVID-infected hamsters into a cage of healthy hamsters.  The study concluded that there was a reduction in infection of healthy hamsters when there was a cloth barrier erected between the cages, preventing the continual blowing of the air – day and night, for weeks – from the infected hamsters, into the cage of healthy hamsters.  The researchers concluded that this study “implied” that masking everybody would help humans.[4]

The fact, of course, is that the hamsters were not wearing masks and the study does not show what the mainstream media says it does.  The study merely indicates what we already know: erecting a barrier/wall to separate sick animals from healthy ones is a good thing and that it is a bad idea to blow the air from sick animals – for weeks at a time, day and night – into the living space of healthy animals.  That study’s result is neither surprising nor particularly helpful.  The liberals and mainstream media tout this study because they have no relevant science to support their policy of masking everybody.  Id.

Before masking everybody became a liberal political cause, all medical authorities declared that masks are ineffective to prevent a viral infection.

Before we see what real medical studies say, let’s look at what all medical authorities recommended all of the way up to last spring, on the issue of whether the healthy public should wear masks to prevent infections.

In March 2020, the CDC was still following the infectious disease protocols in place through earlier this year – before the liberals began to use masks as a political tool.  The CDC stated it “does not recommend that people who are well wear a facemask to protect themselves from respiratory diseases, including COVID-19”.[5]

The CDC’s own journal, Emerging infectious Diseases, published a May 2020 meta-analysis of masking in “non-healthcare settings”.  This analysis of prior randomized controlled trials (undertaken between 1946 and 2017) concluded:

Our systematic review found no significant effect of face masks on transmission of laboratory-confirmed influenza.[6]

The CDC’s infectious disease expert, Dr. Anthony Fauci, stated:

No, right now, people should not be wearing – there’s no reason to be walking around with a mask.[7]

Fauci is a liberal.  It is not that he was conservative in March 2020 and then became a liberal.  Liberals (and everyone else) agreed last March that masking everybody is not effective against a virus.  Fauci changed his position when the liberals began using masks as a political tool.

On February 29, 2020, before masking everyone became a political tool, the U.S. Surgeon General, Jerome Adams, MD, did his best to discourage the public from wearing masks.  He stated:

Seriously people – STOP BUYING MASKS!  They are NOT effective in preventing general public from catching #Coronavirus.[8]

In a May, 2020 study entitled: Universal Masking in Hospitals in the Covid-19 Era, The New England Journal of Medicine stated:

We know that wearing a mask outside health care facilities offers little, if any, protection from infection.[9]

California’s OSHA regulations state:

Cloth face covers are not protective equipment and do not protect the person wearing a cloth face cover from COVID-19.[10]

In March 2020, Dr. Mike Ryan, executive director of the United Nation’s WHO (World Health Organization) health emergencies program, stated:

There is no specific evidence to suggest that the wearing of masks by the mass population has any potential benefit.[11]

Before the liberals began using masks as a political tool, the World Health Organization advised against everyone wearing masks.  Here is what the WHO stated:

[T]here is currently no evidence that wearing a mask (whether medical or other types) by healthy persons in the wider community setting, including universal community masking, can prevent them from infection with respiratory viruses, including COVID-19. …  [T]he wide use of masks by healthy people in the community setting is not supported by current evidence and carries uncertainties and critical risks.[12]

Dr. Eli Perencevich, MD, is an infection prevention specialist and a professor of medicine and epidemiology at the University of Iowa’s College of Medicine.  Here is how he recommended against healthy people wearing masks:

The average healthy person does not need to have a mask, and they [sic] shouldn’t be wearing masks.  …  There’s no evidence that wearing masks on healthy people will protect them.  They wear them incorrectly, and they can increase the risk of infection because they’re touching their face more often.[13]

Before the liberals began using masks as a political tool, everyone agreed that masks were not effective to prevent the public from catching a virus.  One of the reasons for this universal agreement is because the studies concluded this.

For example, the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy published a 2020 study entitled: Face Masks Pose Serious Risks To The Healthy.  Here are conclusions from that study:

We do not recommend requiring the general public who do not have symptoms of COVID-19-like illness to routinely wear cloth or surgical masks because there is no scientific evidence they are effective in reducing the risk of SARS-CoV-2 transmission.  … 

Our review of relevant studies indicates that cloth masks will be ineffective at preventing SARS-CoV-2 transmission, whether worn as source control [i.e., by a sick person] or as PPE [i.e., by a healthy person].  …

[G]iven the paucity [i.e., scarcity] of information about their performance as source control in real-world settings, along with the extremely low efficiency of cloth masks as filters and their poor fit, there is no evidence to support their use by the public or healthcare workers to control the emission of particles from the wearer.  …

We were able to identify only two household studies in which surgical masks were worn by the index patient [i.e., sick person] only, as source control.  Neither of these found a significant impact on secondary disease transmission [i.e., infecting others], although both studies had important limitations.

Clinical trials in the surgery theater have found no difference in wound infection rates with and without surgical masks.  Despite these findings, it has been difficult for surgeons to give up a long-standing practice. …[14]

In a meta-study of 17 earlier studies concerning wearing a mask to protect against the flu, the study concluded:

None of the studies established a conclusive relationship between mask/respirator use and protection against influenza infection.[15]

A 2009 study found that mask-wearers had more headaches and no benefit avoiding contraction of cold viruses.[16]

A 2010 review of studies on mask wearing outside a hospital setting, showed that masks did no good preventing the flu.  Here[17] is a summary chart with the findings:

A 2017 study conducted a meta-analysis of mask effectiveness among healthcare workers.  Here[18] are key findings of the study:

➢  The meta-analysis suggested mask wearing provides a protective, but non-statistically significant, effect against laboratory-confirmed viral infections.

➢  There is no evidence cloth masks provide protection and they might facilitate transmission of pathogens when used repeatedly without adequate sterilization; and

➢  There is no protective effect against SARS for disposable, cotton, or paper masks.

On November 18, 2020, a new randomized controlled study was published.  It is the first study in the world to test whether face masks were effective in preventing wearers from contracting the coronavirus.  The study found there was no statistically significant difference in COVID-19 cases between mask-wearers and non-mask-wearers.[19]

It is impossible for masks to be effective because viruses are far too small.

Masking everyone is not effective to prevent respiratory influenza-like illnesses, or respiratory viral illnesses believed to be transmitted by droplets and aerosol particles.  This is because the principal transmission path is long-residence-time aerosol particles which are between 10 – 80 nm[20] in size.[21] 

Trying to stop tiny virus particles with a mask is like trying to stop mosquitos with chicken wire (poultry netting).  It is not effective.  Virus particles are far too small to be trapped by even the oppressively uncomfortable N95 masks.  Here is how one review of the research explains this fact:

[T]he filtration material itself of N95 (average pore size ~0.3−0.5 μm) does not block virion [i.e., individual particles of virus] penetration, not to mention surgical masks.[22]

This means, e.g., that with a virion of 10 nm and a mask pore of 0.3 μm, 30 of those virions could fit through the same mask pore at the same time.  Hence, it is roughly like 30 mosquitos going through the same hexagonal hole in the chicken wire at the same time.  It is unreasonable to stop mosquitos with chicken wire and is unreasonable to stop viruses with a face mask.  They are not effective and all medical authorities agreed about this before the liberals made the corona-scare political.

Summary

The conclusion is plain: masking everyone is not effective against the coronavirus. 

2.   It is a health hazard for everyone to be wearing masks

In part one (above), we saw that masks are ineffective against a virus and no one recommended masks for healthy people in the general population until the liberals made the issue political in the Spring of 2020.

Masks are not only ineffective they also pose significant risk of harm.  This is why – before the liberals made the issue political – the U.N.’s World Health Organization warned:

[T]he wide use of masks by healthy people in the community setting is not supported by current evidence and carries uncertainties and critical risks.[23]

Among the known critical risks to a healthy general population, are that mask-wearing:

1.    Reduces a person’s oxygen supply;

2.    Increases the risk of carbon dioxide toxicity;

 

3.    Reduces a person’s immune protection against diseases;

 

4.    Disposes a person to “brain fog” and can reduce the clarity of his thinking;

 

5.    Causes headaches, dizziness, difficulty breathing, and shortness of breath (dyspnea);

 

6.    Causes a person to re-breathe contaminant particles trapped in his mask;

 

7.    Forces a person to breathe through a moist, warm material perfect for growing whatever pathogens are present in his surroundings; and

 

8.    Typically causes a person to touch his face more frequently.

Below, we discuss each of these critical risks caused by mask-wearing.

1.   Mask-wearing reduces a person’s oxygen supply.

Mask-wearing decreases the oxygen level in a person’s blood.  A mask increases the risk of hypoxemia (which is a critically-low level of oxygen in the blood).[24]

In this study, researchers examined the blood oxygen levels in 53 surgeons using an oximeter, measuring blood oxygenation before and after surgeries (during which they wore masks).  Id.  The researchers found that the masks reduced the surgeon’s blood oxygen levels significantly.  Id.  The longer the duration of wearing a mask, the greater the fall in the blood oxygen level.  Id.

2.   Mask-wearing creates the risk of carbon dioxide toxicity.

Mask-wearing increases the carbon dioxide in a person’s blood and increases the risk of hypercapnia (which is a harmful elevation in the blood’s carbon dioxide level).

In a study conducted in a medical setting using a capnometer (used to test CO² blood levels) mask-wearing anesthetists were tested before wearing their masks and then after wearing a mask for twenty minutes.  All anesthetists showed elevated CO² blood levels after this twenty-minute period.[25]

The results of these studies are common sense and are predictable since masks trap some of the CO²-rich breath in the mouth/mask inter-space.  Thus, a part of the carbon dioxide previously exhaled is inhaled again during each respiratory cycle.

Not only are the resulting oxygen deprivation and elevated CO² blood levels common sense and predictable, but the consequences are also.  For example:

➢  A New Jersey man passed out when driving while wearing a mask and crashed.[26] 

➢  Two healthy Chinese teenagers dropped dead while wearing masks during a run.[27]

3.   Mask-wearing reduces a person’s immune protection against diseases.

Habitual wearing of masks decreases a person’s natural immune response which fights off diseases.  This is because a drop in oxygen levels (hypoxia) is associated with an impairment in immunity.  Such impaired immunity places a person at greater risk of contracting any infection, including COVID-19 and also makes the consequences of any infection graver.  In other words, mask-wearing can place a person at an increased risk of infections and likelihood of a worse outcome.  Here are four studies which show this:

1.    Shehade H. et al. study entitled: Cutting edge: Hypoxia-Inducible Factor-1 negatively regulates Th1 function published in: J Immunol 2015;195:1372-1376; https://www.researchgate.net/publication/275019757_Cutting_Edge_Hypoxia-Inducible_Factor_1_Negatively_Regulates_Th1_Function

2.    Westendorf AM et al. study entitled: Hypoxia enhances immunosuppression by inhibiting CD4+ effector T cell function and promoting Treg activity, published in: Cell Physiol Biochem 2017;41:1271-84; https://www.researchgate.net/publication/314487473_Hypoxia_Enhances_Immunosuppression_by_Inhibiting_CD4_Effector_T_Cell_Function_and_Promoting_Treg_Activity

3.    McMahon, et al., Hypoxia-enhanced Expression of the Proprotein Convertase Furin Is Mediated by Hypoxia-inducible Factor-1: 10.1074/jbc.M413248200, 2004, published in the Journal of Biological Chemistry and available here: https://www.jbc.org/content/280/8/6561.full.pdf+html

 

4.    Sceneay J et al., study entitled: Hypoxia-driven immunosuppression contributes to the pre-metastatic niche, published in: Oncoimmunology 2013;2:1 e22355, https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.4161/onci.22355

COVID-19 is more technically named “SARS CoV-2”.  This is significant because one medical study showed that mask-wearing increased the risk of contracting Severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) in particular.[28] 

This weakening of the immune system is apparently why Surgeon General Jerome Adams told the public in March 2020 that wearing a mask “can increase your risk of getting it [viz. COVID-19]”.[29]

However, low oxygen blood levels don’t make a person more susceptible to only respiratory viruses, but also to a whole host of other diseases.  For example:

❖  Cancer invades, grows and spreads more readily in a low-oxygen environment.[30]

❖  Atherosclerosis, cardiovascular (heart attacks), and cerebrovascular (strokes) disease risks are enhanced by a low-oxygen environment.[31]

 

4.   Mask-wearing disposes a person to “brain fog” and can reduce the clarity of his thinking.

In a 2008 study, mask-wearing was shown to cause anxiety, brain fog, and difficulty concentrating.[32] 

In another 2008 study, mask-wearing was shown to cause reduced work efficiency and the decreased ability to make correct decisions.[33]

Two of the Catholic Candle Team saw a striking instance of “brain fog” during the oxygen deprivation suffered by a woman they knew in a nursing home.  She was not wearing a mask but as she got closer to death, her lungs were less effective, so her blood oxygen level decreased.  She suffered an oxygen-deprivation incident which is instructive concerning what can happen when a person’s blood-oxygen level goes down a few points.  (The oximeter registered that her oxygen blood level was down 5%). 

One of the incidents which caused her nursing home to place her on supplemental oxygen, was her insisting that one of the two of us had visited her earlier on that particular day.  In fact, this did not happen.  That day, she also showed her confusion by saying various incoherent things.  When she was given supplemental oxygen, she (with her mind and memory) returned to normal and she was kept on oxygen for the remaining weeks of her life. 

5.   Mask-wearing often causes headaches, dizziness, difficulty breathing, and shortness of breath (dyspnea).

A 2020 study involved 159 healthcare workers aged 21 to 35 years.  It found that 81% of the workers developed headaches from wearing a face mask.  The research study concluded:

Most healthcare workers develop de novo PPE‐associated headaches or exacerbation of their pre‐existing headache disorders.[34]

In a 2014 study of headaches caused by mask-wearing, researchers surveyed 212 healthcare workers (47 males and 165 females) and asked them about presence of headaches with N95 mask use, the duration of the headaches, the type of headaches, and if the person had preexisting headaches.  The researchers found that about a third of the workers developed headaches when they wore a mask; most of these workers had preexisting headaches that were worsened by mask-wearing, and 60% required pain medications for relief.[35] 

In a 2008 study, mask-wearing was shown to cause headaches, difficulty breathing, shortness of breath, and other adverse symptoms.[36]

In another 2008 study, mask-wearing was shown to cause headaches, dizziness, and shortness of breath.[37]

6.   Mask-wearing causes a person to re-breathe particles trapped in his mask.

Mask-wearing not only increases the amount of CO² a person re-breathes (as explained above) but also causes a person to re-breathe particles that his lungs have exhaled, whether those particles are pollen, dust, or various infectious particles which are trapped in the mask.  On the very next inhalation the person breathes them back in, increasing infectious particles in the airways and lungs.[38]  In this way, medical masks cause self-inoculation, an increase in particle load, and an increase in disease severity.

7.   Mask-wearing forces a person to breathe through a moist, warm material perfect for growing pathogens present in his surroundings.

Bacteria, protozoa, fungi and other pathogens are all around us in our environment.  This is normal.  Those pathogens do not cause disease unless they infect a person in sufficiently large numbers. 

For many of those pathogens to increase in number, they need a moist, warm environment.  This environment is supplied by a mask through which a person exhales his moist, warm breath.  Those masks become saturated and pathogens from the environment around us then can opportunistically multiply there.[39]

8.   Mask-wearing often causes a person to touch his face more frequently.

Every day, we see mask-wearers constantly fiddling with their masks.  Although COVID-19 is in the “same ballpark” as the annual flu and not dangerous to most people, nevertheless, if a person is supposedly trying to protect himself from colds, flu, COVID-19, or any other infectious disease, it can’t be helpful for him to be continually touching his face.

Eli Perencevich, MD, is an infection prevention specialist and a professor of medicine and epidemiology at the University of Iowa’s College of Medicine.  Here is how he warned how increased touching of one’s face increases a risk of infection anytime there is a pathogen present:

The average healthy person … shouldn’t be wearing masks.  …  [People] can increase the risk of infection because they’re touching their face more often.[40]

Further, continually fiddling with a mask is a sign of the discomfort of wearing a mask and how it also distracts a person from thought and from his focus on other parts of life.

The above problems are made worse by the almost universal practice (in the mask-wearing general public) of wearing the same mask repeatedly and for long periods, rather than continually replacing masks every hour or so.

In the medical setting, masks are continually replaced by new masks.  Here is how one surgeon explained this practice:

Medical masks are single use devices designed to be worn for a relatively short period of time.  Once the mask becomes saturated with moisture from breath, which, if properly fit, takes about an hour, they should be replaced.  The more moisture-saturated the mask becomes, the more it blocks oxygen, increases re-breathing of carbon dioxide, re-breathing of viral particles, and becomes a breeding ground for other pathogens.[41]

As we see in daily life, almost every mask-wearer uses the same mask, day after day.  He stores it in an unsanitary location, e.g., at the grungy bottom of his backpack, where it accumulates other foreign grime which is then available for his inhalation on the next occasion when he wears it.  This is a further inevitable problem with the harmful idea of having the healthy general population wear masks.

Conclusion: As everyone agreed before the liberals made mask-wearing a political tool:

➢  Mask-wearing “carries uncertainties and critical risks” for the general public (WHO); and

➢  Mask-wearing “can increase your risk of getting it [viz. COVID-19]” (U.S. Surgeon General Jerome Adams).

3.   The real purpose of imposing masks is to dehumanize and control the population

As is true of the corona-lockdowns, the mask-mandates are for controlling the people, not a virus.

Let’s start by summarizing the background of these mask-wearing mandates.

As we showed above, until the Spring 2020, every medical authority and medical study agreed that masks are ineffective against a virus and that masks themselves present a serious health risk to the general population.  Then the liberals completely reversed their position – although they did not support their new position with any serious studies or reasoning. 

Starting with the liberals’ reversal of position, masks instantly “became” the safe and prudent garb that everyone was told to wear.  Those who didn’t reverse their own position and their own practice in order to follow the liberals and mainstream media, were mocked and attacked as being rash, stubborn, unfeeling, “science deniers” who endanger the lives of other people.  People felt peer-pressure to conform.  By wearing a mask, people engage in “virtue signaling” to show that they are not backward, unfeeling, or “science deniers”.

The liberals and mainstream media leave no room for calm, rational discussion of the many reasons and studies against mask-wearing.  For example, social media sites immediately remove any rational discussion, calling it “disinformation”.  The liberals and mainstream media declared that it is completely unacceptable to continue to follow what everyone – even Fauci, the CDC, the WHO, and the rest of the liberal medical “authorities” – had continually said for years until they contradicted themselves in the Spring of 2020.  People are given no other choice: either conform or be mocked and vilified.

Mandatory mask-wearing began in the summer of 2020, as the evidence then showed increasingly plainly that the COVID-19 death scare was overblown.

Early in 2020, the liberals and mainstream media terrorized the people by predicting a catastrophic corona-death toll.  For example, in March 2020, the widely-cited Imperial College COVID-19 death model predicted that COVID-19 could cause as many as 2.2 million people to die in the U.S.[42]

But as the weeks passed, it became increasingly clear that this scare was false and that COVID-19 was not nearly as fatal as the scaremongers claimed.  People became less afraid and were demanding that society be opened up and that the lockdowns end. The “spell” of corona-terror was dissipating.  At that point, many governments ordered mandatory mask-wearing. 

Masks cause people to be disoriented, frightened, and anxious (both emotionally and physically).  This effect of masks is not only common sense – and we observe every day in our current, bizarre times – but it is shown by all of the medical studies on the subject.  For example, a 2008 study showed that mask-wearing caused anxiety, brain fog, and difficulty concentrating.[43]

For the liberals to accomplish their totalitarian goals, it is crucial that the people be anxious and disoriented.  This was admitted, for example, by billionaire, far-left promoter of socialism and revolution, George Soros, who remarked how the people’s fear and disorientation were crucial for accomplishing his goals.  Here are his words:

I would describe it as a revolutionary moment when the range of possibilities is much greater than in normal times ….  What is inconceivable in normal times becomes not only possible but actually happens.  People are disoriented and scared.[44]

The leftists and New World Order promoters are using mask-wearing mandates to prevent people from going back to normal life and to keep them in a state of corona-disorientation.

No medically-effective mask is demanded but only outward conformity.

Because mask-wearing is about controlling the people, and not controlling a virus, there are no minimum medical standards for the masks.  A face-covering is demanded, but any face-covering is acceptable.  It doesn’t matter what the face-covering is, as long as it conceals a person’s face.  Any kind of bandana or strip of cloth is fine – no matter what it is made of and no matter how ill-fitting it is.

Mask-wearing destroys human interaction.

All that tyrants need in order to succeed in enslaving the people is to prevent the people from joining together.  As Benjamin Franklin famously said while he and other American colonial leaders were opposing King George III of England: “If we don’t all hang together, we will all hang separately.” 

Mask-wearing is all about dividing and isolating people from each other because masks disrupt social connections and impede social interactions.  This is because masks hide the most distinct, unique, human aspect of people – their faces.  The two main means of human communication are our mouths and our eyes.  Masks obscure our expressions and impede normal human, social interaction, dialogue and therefore, friendships and community.

Masks de-humanize persons and weaken the human connection of persons who are talking together.  They cannot see each other’s expressions, so they are less sure they know what the other person is thinking, whether he understands correctly, etc.  For example, when a person tells a joke, it is harder to know if the other person knows he is joking and whether the other person understands the joke being told.

When people have their mouths and noses covered, they cannot readily speak.  This is why placing something over the mouth is a universal symbol of suppression of speech.  It is a common sight to see two masked persons come together and pull down their masks so they can speak to each other.

Not only can’t people readily talk, they also cannot readily understand the muffled words which other people are trying to communicate.  The psychological impact of these impediments to communication, is huge.

Government mask-mandates push people to watch their neighbors and report on them.

One hallmark of communist countries is pushing people to report their neighbors if those neighbors do not conform to government regulations.  The U.S. has had comparatively little of such a report-your-neighbor, tattletale mentality in its history.  But the government is encouraging this mentality now.  Some governments have set up hotlines on which a person can report his neighbor for not wearing a mask.  Here are three examples:

❖  In Ohio:  https://www.lifesitenews.com/news/ohio-county-launches-hotline-to-report-people-spotted-without-masks

❖  In New York: https://nypost.com/2020/04/21/de-blasios-social-distancing-tip-line-flooded-with-obscenities/

❖  In Los Angeles: https://www.lifesitenews.com/news/la-mayor-says-snitches-get-rewards-if-they-report-neighbors-covid-violations

Vermont schools interrogate their students whether the students’ families had Thanksgiving dinner with anyone outside their family circle.[45]

Some people are officious meddlers and so they will gladly report their neighbor for not wearing a mask.  Others are jealous of non-mask-wearers: “if I have to wear this, why don’t they?”  This jealous friction harms the cohesiveness of a free people.

Mask orders are helping to turn the U.S. – which has been one of the freest countries on Earth – into a regimented, conformist society, under perpetual surveillance, in which a subservient people scurries about under the severe eyes of authority.

Mask-wearing is a further part of the liberals’ vision of a “nanny state”.

A mature and free person takes personal responsibility for his own actions.  For example, he decides whether to buy flood insurance for his home – for his use in the event that his home suffers a catastrophic flood.  If he decides not to buy this insurance, then he suffers the consequences of his own decision if his house floods.  He “made his bed and now must lie in it”.

This is a conservative mentality.  This is the position of freedom, maturity and virtue.  This is the Catholic position.  So, although there are hurricanes and floods every year, the government does not command a person to buy flood insurance.  This was more the position of our nation in the past (compared to the present). 

Likewise, there is flu and there are other sicknesses every year.  In the past, no one ordered healthy people to lockdown, wear a mask, and take other such measures.  An adult was expected to take personal responsibility for his own health and for his family.

By contrast, the liberals seek (and have long sought) to make the U.S. into a “nanny state”, in which adult citizens are not free but must conform to everything the government tells them to do for their (supposed) “own good”.  For example, the Obamacare statute has a health insurance mandate to compel people to buy health insurance “for their own good” and which includes the specific minimum coverage which the government decides those people must buy.  This is like the government demanding that all people eat a certain minimum quantity of broccoli “for their own good”. 

This is the same mentality as in communist countries, where the government manages everyone’s life and, e.g., tells factories what (and how much) to produce and tells farmers what (and how much) to grow.  Pope Pius XI warned about this communist control of the people, in these words:

Communism, moreover, strips man of his liberty, robs human personality of all its dignity ….[46]

Part of that dignity which Pope Pius XI speaks of, is the dignity of a person taking personal responsibility and being provident for himself and his family. 

Mask-wearing is all about the government controlling the people through power and fear.  Face masks turn people into voiceless submissives.  In mask-wearing, we see an example of government abuse and a furtherance of the “nanny state”.  The “nanny state” mandates (such as mask mandates) are very visible ways in which Russia is spreading her errors to the Western World, as Our Lady of Fatima predicted would occur.[47]

The liberals and mainstream media make a pretense of tolerance but are completely intolerant when they are in control and when people don’t make the same “safety decisions” those liberals demand, because liberals assume that people will not do what is reasonable unless the government compels them to do so.

Mask-wearing promotes evil conduct.

Revolutionary change can only occur in a destabilized society, as George Soros recognizes in the quote above.  Mask-wearing destabilizes society because it emboldens people to commit evil they would not otherwise commit.  That is why the (anti-Catholic, anti-black, bigoted) Klu Klux Klan members wear masks to embolden them in the evil they commit.  Similarly, criminals wear masks because it makes them anonymous. 

That is why many states make it a felony to wear a mask or conceal one’s face in public (with a few exceptions for which masks are permitted).  Here, for example, is the relevant part of Virginia’s criminal mask-wearing statute:

It shall be unlawful for any person over 16 years of age to, with the intent to conceal his identity, wear any mask, hood or other device whereby a substantial portion of the face is hidden or covered so as to conceal the identity of the wearer, to be or appear in any public place ….  The violation of any provisions of this section is a Class 6 felony.[48]

The anonymity of actions committed while wearing a mask is like the anonymity of conduct committed in darkness.  That is why Our Lord declares that evildoers love the darkness:

[M]en loved darkness rather than the light: for their works were evil.  For everyone that doth evil hateth the light, and cometh not to the light, that his works may not be reproved.[49]

Similarly, broad public mask-wearing de-stabilizes society by encouraging the protestors and rioters to commit crimes they would not otherwise commit.  This mask-wearing obstructs the relationships between people and makes people’s interactions more anonymous.

Face-covering promotes aggressive (and unfriendly) conduct against another person whose face is covered.

Not only does wearing a mask encourage a person to act evilly or irresponsibly, but also, when the person acted upon has his face covered, this further encourages aggressive or unfriendly conduct because it dehumanizes the recipient of that conduct.  This is why from time immemorial, executioners covered the faces of the criminals who were being executed (whether by firing squad, lethal injection, electric chair, hanging, etc.).  Covering the criminal’s face de-humanizes the man whom the executioners are about to kill.

The incentive offered to the people for this conformity, is receiving back a part of the normal life that the government stole from the people.

As long as people conform to the mask requirement and wear something that covered their faces, they are not harassed.  They are given the “privilege” of shopping at those stores which are, in turn, granted the “privilege” of being allowed to be open.  (The permissible stores are mostly the big-box stores, to the destruction of the nation’s “mom and pop” businesses.  These big-box corporations almost uniformly promote and support liberal causes.)

Thus, people learned that if they conformed to the mask-wearing order, they could receive the “privilege” of having part (but only part) of their normal life restored to them again.  This is like in communist countries, the government allows the people the “privilege” of working and living with less government harassment if they conform and don’t dissent.  People in communist countries learn that by conforming, they can have at least some aspects of a normal life (at the cost of their soul and their character).  In other words, people are taught that if they want to live a life which is at least partly normal, they have to accept abnormality.

The character of mask mandates as executive orders, does further harm.

The harm to our country is not only caused by ordering everyone to wear masks but also because this is done by “emergency” executive order.  The justification of those orders, in principle, is that they are necessary when an emergency is so urgent that action must occur immediately and there is no time to wait for the legislature to act.  However, the months tick by, one by one, and there is no legislative action, as there would be if this were a true emergency.

This is an important and evil precedent which twists our established form of government.  The abusive executive orders continue without checks or balances, month after month, long after the legislatures could have enacted a law but chose not to.  In fact, some legislatures, e.g., Wisconsin’s, both did not enact any law and also challenged their governor’s lockdown as unconstitutional.[50]

Those who voluntarily promote this societal upheaval and revolution also share the guilt for it.

A person is culpable for the sin of another person when he: 1) consents to that sin; 2) remains silent when he should speak up; or 3) is a partner in that sin.[51] 

All of us, in our own circumstances, must make sure that we do not consent to or voluntarily cooperate with this evil now committed through this corona-scare which is ushering in what the globalists call “rebuilding the infrastructures of human existence”[52] and the “Great Reset” of the world’s “economic and social system” in the wake of the “global health crisis”, requiring a “new social contract” focusing on “social justice”.[53]

Some people have more options than others do to effectively resist the jack boot of the New World Order, firmly pressing on society’s neck.  Plainly, as much as possible, we should avoid scandalizing other people by giving them the impression that we support the liberal agenda. 

Whereas the liberals follow their leaders such as former vice president Joe Biden, in “religiously” wearing masks, conservatives tend to be mask sceptics, like President Trump.  As even the liberal media notes, there is an element of political allegiance displayed in wearing a mask in public.[54]

Further, Our Lord is the Truth.  St. John’s Gospel, 14:6.  We all have a duty to be devoted to the truth and reflect the truth by our outward actions.  If a person is persuaded that the present universal mask-wearing is not a health necessity but rather is a leftist political ruse, then he would avoid voluntarily wearing a mask so that his outward actions would reflect these truths that he knows.  Each such instance of not being cowed by human respect and pressure can help timid Catholics gain strength to join the fight for Christ the King.

We are first and foremost Catholics!  We are subjects of Christ the King!  Everything else we are, is secondary!

Catholic Candle note: Catholic Candle usually focuses directly on Faith and morals.  However, sometimes issues in society have a severe indirect impact on Faith and morals and should be addressed.  Below, we examine one of those issues which has a severe indirect impact on Faith and morals, viz., the overblown corona-scare.  We put COVID-19 in perspective, to help readers face this challenge in which Providence placed us, for the glory of God and for our good.

In our current corona-crazy world, people are acting strangely because they are frightened by (supposed) imminent death from COVID-19, or they are intimidated by abusive governmental lockdown orders.

People have been coerced into failing to gather to sanctify the Sunday together (which is important, even in the present Great Apostasy, when we have no Masses and no uncompromising priests, at least in most places in the world).  People have been bludgeoned into letting go of their humanity and are fearfully acting as if their fellow man was a threatening virus-culture rather than a fellow child of God and fellow soldier in the Church Militant.

Lastly, another reason to examine the exaggerated corona death toll is because it is a prominent example showing (for anyone who needs further proof) that the mainstream media is unreliable as a source of the truth concerning what is going on in the world.  It is Catholic Candle’s hope that this present article is a helpful reminder to our readers that they should distrust the mainstream media because it lies and “spins” the truth.

This article uses the statistics which were current when the article was written in August and September, 2020.  The article mostly uses data from the U.S. because there is so much of this data available.  For the most part, we do not include the data from the rest of the world because that information is less available to us and also in order to avoid this article becoming too cumbersome. 

However, the data we have from other countries supports the theses of this article.  That support makes sense because human nature is the same in all countries, COVID-19 is (apparently) the same everywhere, and the lockdowns are broadly similar, although more severe and abusive in some places than in others.

There are three aspects to the COVID-19 (so-called) “pandemic”, which help us to put the “COVID-19 death” totals in perspective:

1.    COVID-19 is in the same “ballpark” with (and has the same fatality profile) as the annual flu;

2.    The collateral deaths caused by the government lockdowns likely greatly exceed the deaths caused by COVID-19, even if the inflated COVID-19 death tolls were the true ones; and

3.    The COVID-19 death numbers are unreliable and inflated. 

Below, we examine each of these points.

 

1.   COVID-19 is in the same “ballpark” with (and has the same fatality profile) as the annual flu

There are almost no deaths of younger and healthier people.  For example, the latest CDC numbers (from August 15, 2020) show 309 deaths of persons 24 years of age and younger.[1]  More than 90% of COVID cases are asymptomatic and people usually don’t know they ever had the virus.[2]

Almost all persons who were listed as “COVID-19 deaths” were retirement age (65 or older), especially over 85 years old.[3]  Almost all of them (94%) had co-morbidities, meaning they were being treated for something else which was a known lethal condition.[4]

In fact, the persons who were counted as “COVID deaths” had an average of 2.6 co-morbidities – meaning that more than half of them had three co-morbidities (compared to the number who had 2 co-morbidities).[5]

A person who receives only the slanted, deceptive news of the mainstream media would not be aware of the truth concerning the relative lack of danger for most people.  Instead, people are given the impression that everyone is in great danger of dying at any time from COVID-19.  A recent Gallup poll reveals how ignorant and scared the American people are (because of the mainstream media’s and Democrats’ fear-mongering).  Look at these two graphs of Gallup Poll results, comparing reality and misperception:

This graph is found here: https://www.franklintempleton.com/investor/article?contentPath=html%2Fftthinks%2Fen-us-retail%2Fcio-views%2Fon-my-mind-they-blinded-us-from-science.html

This graph is found here: https://www.franklintempleton.com/investor/article?contentPath=html%2Fftthinks%2Fen-us-retail%2Fcio-views%2Fon-my-mind-they-blinded-us-from-science.html

Despite the false perception promoted by the mainstream media and the Democrats, the reality is that COVID-19 is in the same “ballpark” with, and has the same fatality profile as the annual flu, viz., it is usually something that does not affect most people and, if it does affect us, it is usually a little “blip” in our month.  (See, the two graphs above.)  However, older people in poor health have to take extra precautions for COVID-19, just like they should regarding the annual flu. 

To put this in perspective, there were 80,000 U.S. fatalities in the 2017-2018 annual flu season, and this number was so unremarkable that this death toll passed virtually unnoticed at the time.[6]

 

No one was locked down in 2017-2018 because of 80,000 flu deaths.  The economy was not destroyed because of that annual flu.  There were no masking orders, no churches closed, and no other oppressive government orders.  In a country the size of the U.S., with over 330 million people, a lot of people die every day and every year. 

Not only is the current COVID-19 scare overblown, but even now, some years of the annual flu, e.g., 1968, have killed more people per capita than COVID-19.  https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(20)31201-0/fulltext  (We do not even mention the far-worse 1918 flu season.) 

It goes without saying that in none of those years – which were worse than the current year – was there a lockdown or other over-reaction, such as we see in the current year.

 

2.   The collateral deaths caused by the government lockdowns likely greatly exceed the deaths caused by COVID-19, even if the inflated COVID-19 death toll were the true one

In the section above, we saw that COVID-19 is in the same “ballpark” with (and has the same fatality profile as) the annual flu, viz., it is usually something that does not affect us and if it does affect us, it is usually a little “blip” in our month.  However, older people in poor health (especially with multiple co-morbidities) have to take extra precautions for COVID-19, just like they should regarding the annual flu. 

That older, sicker persons are in a different situation than the general population, is underscored by the fact that 42% of all U.S. “COVID-19 deaths” occur in nursing homes, although those facilities contain only 0.62% of the U.S. population.[7]

In the U.S., the states controlled by the (more liberal) Democratic party locked down more severely their general populations of younger and healthier people (compared to Republican states).  However, the Democratic governors of four of these states killed thousands of their most vulnerable people (who were in nursing homes) by forcing those nursing homes to receive other persons who tested positive for COVID-19.[8]

This is exactly the opposite of what should have happened!  Younger, healthier people should have been allowed to go on with their lives, while the government should have allowed nursing homes to protect the most vulnerable people, like those nursing homes protect their residents every year from the annual flu. 

 

Self-inflicted harm and the deaths from delayed medical care, during the corona-isolation

Among the many severe tolls taken by the corona-scare is the increases of suicides, drug overdoses, and deaths from delayed care for other serious illness because of the draconian corona-lockdowns.

It is obvious to any person of common sense that the severe lockdowns would cause great collateral harm.  Here are how more than 500 doctors described this harm in their public letter to President Trump:

It is impossible to overstate the short, medium, and long-term harm to people’s health with a continued shutdown. …  Losing a job is one of life’s most stressful events, and the effect on a person’s health is not lessened because it also has happened to 30 million other people.  Keeping schools and universities closed is incalculably detrimental for children, teenagers, and young adults for decades to come.

The millions of casualties of a continued shutdown will be hiding in plain sight, but they will be called alcoholism, homelessness, suicide, heart attack, stroke, or kidney failure.   …  In youths it will be called financial instability, unemployment, despair, drug addiction, unplanned pregnancies, poverty, and abuse.[9]

Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security examined the idea of “Large-Scale Quarantine Measures” in its November 4, 2006 study entitled: Disease Mitigation Measures in the Control of Pandemic Influenza.  Here is what that university study concluded:

The negative consequences of large-scale quarantine are so extreme (forced confinement of sick people with the well; complete restriction of movement of large populations; difficulty in getting critical supplies, medicines, and food to people inside the quarantine zone) that this mitigation measure should be eliminated from serious consideration.[10]

Although many people gullibly accept the false narratives of the mainstream media, we see now – by looking at the results of the lockdowns around us – why rational studies and doctors (like those quoted above) have rejected/opposed such lockdowns.

Before discussing the dramatic increase in suicides during the corona-scare, we note that this suicide increase was paralleled by a dramatic increase in help calls to suicide hotlines.  Here are some examples of different suicide hotlines with different increases:

➢  Two national hotlines had increases of 47% and 300% respectively.[11]

➢  Another national suicide hotline had a 40% increase.[12]

➢  Another national suicide hotline had an increase of 891% in March 2020, compared to March 2019.[13]

➢  Two other suicide hotlines had an 800% increase in call volume.[14]

These increased suicide “help” calls are attributed by those hotline organizations to “social distancing” and “social isolation” suffered because of the lockdowns.[15]

Indeed, common sense makes predictable the severely negative effects of the lockdowns, because we are human.  These lockdowns are inhuman and have never been tried before in the history of mankind: viz., isolate everyone in a nation from all his friends and fellow humans – and isolate each nation throughout almost the entire world.  This is rash and foolish in the extreme!

It is no wonder that one of the epidemiologists who advises the British government called the lockdowns a panic response.  Here are his words:

Lockdown was a panic measure and I believe history will say trying to control Covid-19 through lockdown was a monumental mistake on a global scale, the cure was worse than the disease.  …  It was always a temporary measure that simply delayed the stage of the epidemic we see now.  It was never going to change anything fundamentally; however low we drove down the number of cases …. 

We absolutely should never return to a position where children cannot play or go to school.  …  I suspect right now more people are being harmed by the collateral effects of lockdown than by Covid-19.  … 

Any restrictions imposed should be considered measures and should protect those who needed it while letting everyone live more freely.  …  Instead of concentrating on schools, we should have been concentrating on care homes. We were not really thinking about where the risk lies, just on suppressing the virus.[16]

Regarding the suicide death toll, obviously, the 2020 suicide death toll will not be certain until after the end of 2020.  However, the current projection for suicide/drug overdoses deaths is about 150,000 in the U.S.[17]  To estimate how many of these deaths are due to the extreme corona-isolation, we subtract the total for the latest year for which there is data: 2018.  In 2018, there were 48,344 self-inflicted deaths (suicides and drug overdoses) in the U.S.[18]

Let’s round that 2018 number up to 50,000 deaths.  Thus, according to the best projections we have, suicides and drug overdoses in our times of extreme corona-isolation are estimated to be about 100,000 greater this year than before this corona-scare.  In other words, self-inflicted deaths are 300% of the 2018 number!

The death toll from COVID-19 is extremely inflated, as we see in section three of this article.  However, this death toll is supposedly estimated to be about 183,000.  One way to put this supposed death toll in perspective, is that if we take this number and subtract the increase in self-inflicted deaths because of the corona-isolation, we get 83,000 (i.e., 183,000 – 100,000 = 83,000).  This is approximately the fatality total from the 2017-2018 annual flu which was so unremarkable that this flu death toll went almost unreported then.  Yet, politicians over-react in 2020 and ruin the country’s life.

But there is more: What is not evident in the above comparison of the numbers (viz., “COVID deaths” vs. collateral deaths), is that the deaths blamed on COVID-19 are almost entirely of older, retired people with multiple co-morbidities, most of whom are given only a relatively short time to live even without COVID-19.  By contrast, the suicide and drug overdose deaths occur in the younger and otherwise healthier people who have a far longer life expectancy.  In other words, each “COVID death” represents a far smaller number of years of life lost compared to the suicide/drug overdose deaths. 

Of course, we don’t want anyone to die, but we recognize that a sick, older person losing the last year of his life – as tragic as that is – is not the same as a high schooler losing that last 60 years of his life.

Below, we quote how the U.S. Center for Disease Control (“CDC”) sounded the alarm about the current suicide/drug overdose rate for high schoolers during our corona-isolation.  These COVID-19 lockdown death tolls are far greater than the corresponding “COVID-19 death” toll:

But there has been another cost that we’ve seen, particularly in high schools. We’re seeing, sadly, far greater suicides now than we are deaths from COVID.  We’re seeing far greater deaths from drug overdose that are above that we had as background than we are seeing the deaths from COVID.[19]

Similar spikes in suicide are occurring elsewhere in the world, e.g., in Australia.[20]

Another of the many great harms inflicted by the lockdowns (which are especially extreme in Democratic states) is deaths that occurred because of postponing medical treatment for other diseases, due to the COVID-19 lockdowns.  Those lockdown deaths – which would not have otherwise occurred – are from a variety of causes, e.g., heart attacks, strokes, and cancer.

We don’t know of a comprehensive estimated total of non-COVID-19 deaths which would have been prevented, in the absence of the corona-scare and lockdowns.  However, here are some datapoints:

➢  Looking at only two of the many types of cancer (breast cancer and colorectal cancer) the National Cancer Institute predicts there will be 10,000 excess deaths in the U.S. over the next 10 years because of pandemic-related delays in diagnosing and treating these tumors.[21]

➢  Looking at only the drop in cancer referrals, admissions, and diagnoses, compared to pre-COVID levels, one study (using what it called “conservative assumptions”) estimated that there will be 33,890 additional (i.e., excess) cancer deaths during the next year, in the U.S. because of that delayed treatment.[22]

➢  Although we do not have non-COVID increased-fatality numbers for the entire country for heart attacks, strokes, diabetes, and Alzheimer’s disease, we did find statistics of percentage increases in deaths (of persons who did not have COVID-19) from these four diseases, in five Democratic states (Massachusetts, Michigan, New Jersey, New York, and Pennsylvania).  These five states were among the most extremely locked down.  In these states, in March and April 2020, compared to January and February 2020, there was a:

 

·         96% increase in diabetes deaths;

 

·         89% increase in heart disease deaths;

 

·         64% increase in Alzheimer’s disease deaths; and

 

·         35% increase in stroke deaths.[23]

Also, in New York City (which suffered a more severe lockdown than almost anywhere), there was a 398% increase in heart disease deaths and a 356% increase in diabetes deaths.[24]

With this data, let’s do our best to estimate, in a rough way, how many deaths these percentages (of additional deaths) would mean throughout the United States.  Let us use the latest national numbers (from 2018) for these four causes of death and let us suppose those percentage increases in deaths from lockdown-delay-in-treatment were the same nationwide.  In other words, let’s use the 2018 national total deaths from each of those four causes, multiplied by the percentage increases given above, to calculate the excess lockdown deaths from each of those four causes.

This formula means that the lockdown-delays-in-treatment caused:

❖  81,548 additional diabetes deaths (84,946 deaths x 96% = 81,948)

❖  583,289 additional heart disease deaths (655,381 x 89% = 583,289)

❖  78,092 additional Alzheimer’s disease deaths (122,019 x 64% = 78,092)

❖  51,734 additional stroke deaths (147,810 x 35% = 51,734)[25]

Thus, we see, as a “ballpark” number, that the total of these lockdown-delay-in-treatment deaths is 794,663 additional deaths in the United States.  Let’s be clear about these numbers.  They are only rough.  On the one hand, they would seem to be overstated because they use the data of five Democratic states, whereas other (Republican) states exercised a much “lighter touch” in their lockdowns.  So, we would expect that the percentages (of increased deaths) in these Democratic strongholds would be higher than in other parts of the country.  This would mean that the national percentages for these lockdown-delay-in-treatment deaths would be lower than in those five Democratic states.

On the other hand, these numbers undercount the lockdown-delay-in-treatment deaths in another way: viz., those percentages only pertain to the increased death from four causes.  Since there are roughly 100,000 self-inflicted deaths, plus cancer lockdown-delay deaths, and delay-deaths from other causes too, all those numbers should be added to the total of the lockdown-delay deaths from these four causes (794,663) to approximate the additional U.S. deaths.  We see similar collateral deaths from corona-isolation in other countries too.[26]

For the present purpose, we are not trying to get an exact number of the collateral, lockdown-isolation deaths.  Nor are we saying that we know there are 800,000 additional deaths.  Rather, we are pointing out that these collateral deaths from the corona-lockdowns provide a valuable context to our assessment of the current corona-scare. 

It is easy to see how the collateral deaths caused by the government lockdowns could easily exceed – even very greatly exceed – that inflated 183,000 COVID death number which is claimed.  Moreover, when comparing those collateral “lockdown deaths” with supposed “COVID-19 deaths”, the comparison is even more dramatic when we consider the number of years lost by people, compared to the number of lives lost (as shown above).

Perhaps someone might suppose that the “COVID-19 deaths” would be far more numerous if the governments did not order the harsh lockdowns which caused the huge numbers of collateral deaths.  That supposition is false, as will be shown in a future Catholic Candle article.  In fact, those lockdowns were unnecessary and did not help.

 

3.   The COVID-19 death numbers are unreliable and inflated

Above, we saw that the collateral deaths caused by the government lockdowns could easily exceed – even very greatly exceed – that inflated 183,000 “COVID-19 death” number which is claimed.

Now, we examine that “COVID-19 death” total and see if it is reliable. 

 

The overcount of “COVID-19 deaths”

There is a huge difference between dying with COVID-19 and dying from (i.e., because of) COVID-19.  Let’s illustrate the difference: the CDC estimates that adults will come down with 2-3 common colds every year.[27]  With colds being so common, it is common to die with a common cold, even though not because of a common cold.  If someone died while he had a common cold, we would not say he “died from the common cold”.

Well, “COVID-19 deaths” are counted to include anyone who dies with COVID-19 even though not because of (from) COVID-19.  This is similar to counting a person as a “common cold death” if the person died while he had a common cold.

Here is how Dr. Deborah Birx (coordinator of the coronavirus taskforce) explained this U.S. method of counting COVID-19 deaths:

There are other countries that if you had a preexisting condition and let’s say the virus caused you to go to the ICU and then have a heart or kidney problem some countries are recording [this] as a heart issue or a kidney issue and not a COVID-19 death. … [In the US] if someone dies with COVID-19 we are counting that as a COVID-19 death.[28]

With this foolishly broad overcounting, which no one ever uses for other sicknesses, there is a greatly exaggerated COVID-19 death toll.  There is not only the everyday overcount we would expect, of sick, frail, elderly people who have multiple co-morbidities, who die of something else (like a heart attack, a stroke, cancer, etc.) but who are counted as a “COVID-19 death” because they died with COVID-19. 

But there are also striking absurdities which are consistent with this official policy of counting every death as a “COVID-19 death” as long as the person had COVID-19 when he died, e.g.,

➢  A person who died in a motorcycle accident was listed as a COVID-19 death.[29]

➢  A person who died of suicide was listed as a COVID-19 death.[30]

But the COVID-19 overcount is even more exaggerated because a person need not even be known to have COVID-19.  Rather, current CDC protocols allow a person to be reported as a “COVID-19 death” as long as there is an assumption that COVID-19 somehow contributed to the death.  Here is the CDC’s instruction:

COVID-19 should be reported on the death certificate for all decedents where the disease caused or is assumed to have caused or contributed to death.[31]

Thus, when the death certificate lists COVID-19 on it, the CDC and the mainstream media report the person as if COVID-19 caused that person’s death.  For example, here is one instance of this type of falsification (this one from National Public Radio):

Today, more than 6 million Americans have been infected with the coronavirus and some 183,000 have died from it ….[32]

Here is another example of this type of falsification (this one from the Washington Post):

At least 191,000 people have died of the coronavirus in the United States

….[33]

The truth is that the COVID-19 death total is really of people who died in some way connected with COVID-19, but not because of COVID-19.  These people did not all have pneumonia-type COVID-19 symptoms, nor were they all even known to have ever had COVID-19.

In fact, the “COVID-19 death” toll includes many people based on statistical suppositions.  For example, early on, New York adopted the policy of counting as “COVID-19 deaths” the number of people who died in excess of a statistically average year, even though those people never tested positive for COVID-19 or had any symptoms suggesting COVID-19.[34]  The unreasonableness and inaccuracy of this policy is obvious, since “half the time” (even without COVID-19) the fatalities will be above average – maybe even far above average – to offset the other “half” of the years when the death toll is below average.

 

Perverse financial incentives to count persons as “COVID-19 deaths”

We see (above) that the CDC authorizes hospitals to count as “COVID-19 deaths” all people whom they “assume” had COVID-19 which somehow contributed to the deaths.  These assumptions are made more common by the perverse financial incentives pressuring cash-strapped hospitals to “assume” that COVID-19 had some role contributing to patients’ deaths.  For example, the U.S. government pays hospitals a 20% premium in Medicare payments if the hospital “assumes” that a patient was a “COVID-19 death”.[35]

Any reasonable person would know that under these circumstances, there will be lots of “assuming” that COVID-19 had some connection to the death.  In fact, some whistleblower doctors have publicly complained that their hospitals pressure them to add COVID-19 as an assumed “contributing cause” on their patients’ death certificates.[36]

 

Summary of this section so far, of the reasons “COVID-19 death” numbers are inflated

The “COVID-19 death” totals are inflated because a person can be counted if:

➢  The person had COVID-19 when he died (regardless of what actually caused his death); or

➢  The person was assumed to have had COVID-19 when he died; or

➢  There was a statistical increase in deaths above the expected average, regardless of how the persons died.

Further, we see (above) that there is a large perverse incentive for hospitals to lie and to say that a person was a “COVID-19 death” so the hospital would get more money.

 

Let’s try to estimate the true number of persons whose deaths were caused by COVID-19

How do we figure out how many so-called “COVID-19 deaths” were really caused by COVID-19?  One way to roughly approximate this number is to consider what COVID-19 is and then look at the CDC numbers.

COVID-19 is a respiratory disease caused by the virus named SARS-CoV-2. The “SARS” in “SARS-CoV-2” stands for “severe acute respiratory syndrome” (which is sometimes also referred to as acute respiratory distress syndrome or adult respiratory distress syndrome).[37]

The CDC explains that sometimes COVID-19 is severe enough that it leads to death by progressing to pneumonia and acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS).[38] 

Here is another way this causation is stated:

The virus that causes COVID-19 is designated severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The major morbidity and mortality from COVID-19 is largely due to acute viral pneumonitis that evolves to acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS).[39]

This is why, last spring, the CDC directors used a “case definition of COVID-19 requiring a diagnosis of pneumonia” in an article they wrote for the New England Journal of Medicine.[40]

Thus, let’s look at the death toll of persons whose death certificates at least mentioned pneumonia (regardless of what they died of).  In the CDC chart below[41], you see that there are 71,700 persons who died between February 1, 2020 and August 31, 2020, who at least had influenza or pneumonia when they died (regardless of the actual cause of their death).

Again, this total is 71,700 deaths.  Let’s count that as a rough proxy for how many people with COVID-19 actually died from it, since these people at least had influenza or had the pneumonia which accompanies COVID-19 when people actually die from the disease.

This data is the best we have although, obviously, to the extent that persons had COVID-19 and pneumonia but died of something else, such as a heart attack, these persons would be included in this total and would overcount COVID-19 deaths.  Further, to the extent that these persons had influenza and not pneumonia, they also would be an overcount.  But let’s “be generous” and count them all, to approximate a real COVID-19 death toll.  That number (71,700) is still only 40% of the claimed total of COVID-19 deaths (183,000).

It might seem that 71,700 is a big number.  However, the U.S. is a country of 330 million people.  In fact, about 2.8 million people die in the U.S. during a typical year.[42]

So, although we don’t want anyone to die, nonetheless pneumonia (and influenza) deaths are currently average for the entire country, not above average.  See the current CDC map below.

 

Map taken from: https://gis.cdc.gov/grasp/fluview/mortality.html

 

Italy

We could talk about other countries too.  However, we will only briefly talk about one other country, Italy, because it has been mentioned so often in the mainstream media’s corona-scare.  Italy has the second-oldest population in the world.[43]  Just as the annual flu strikes more severely in elderly people with co-morbidities, so does COVID-19 too, as we saw in section one of this article. 

However, there is a dishonesty in the reporting of Italy’s COVID-19 fatalities, just as is true in the statistics for the U.S. and other countries.  Like for the U.S., the mainstream media attributes to COVID-19 all deaths in which the persons had some connection to the virus.  In other words, Italy’s COVID-19 fatality statistics include all the people who died with COVID-19, even when they die of something else and their deaths are not caused by COVID-19.

Here is how this is explained by Prof. Walter Ricciardi, scientific adviser to Italy’s minister of health:

The way in which we code deaths in our country is very generous in the sense that all the people who die in hospitals with the coronavirus are deemed to be dying of the coronavirus.  On re-evaluation by the National Institute of Health, only 12 per cent of death certificates have shown a direct causality from coronavirus, while 88 per cent of patients who have died have at least one pre-morbidity – many had two or three ….[44]

Thus, looking at how many people – even among Italy’s more elderly population – have died from COVID-19 as the cause, only 12% of those attributed in Italy as “COVID-19 deaths” showed a “direct causality from coronavirus”.  In other words, Italy’s “COVID-19 death” toll is inflated by 800%!

 

Summary of this article

There are many reasons that it is plain that the corona-scare is overblown.  The reality is that:

❖  COVID-19 is in the same “ballpark” with (and has the same fatality profile as) the annual flu;

❖  The collateral deaths caused by the government lockdowns likely greatly exceed the deaths caused by COVID-19, even if the inflated “COVID-19 death” toll were the true one; and

❖  The “COVID-19 death” numbers are unreliable and inflated.

 

Lastly, beware of the lies and “spin” in the reports of the mainstream media!