The lab mice are revolting

Vincent J. Curtis

22 Apr 21

RE: Surgical mask study draws ethics complaint.  Hamilton Spectator news article of today’s date. 

If the Spectator had published my August 1^st, 2020, article “The Futility of Masking” none of the ethics complaint would come as a surprise to readers.  The ethics complaint comes from people who recognize a politically motivated “scientific study” when they see one.

The idea being complained of is to show that surgical masks provide somewhere between seventy and ninety percent of the effectiveness of an N95 respirator against COVID transmission.  The methodology is sheer bunkum and the results would have no real-world significance.  But somebody wants a study to hang a contention on, and the lab mice are objecting.

“There is ample research to support the transmission of COVID-19 through aerosols that can be spread through the air and inhaled, requiring respirators as the minimal line of safety protection for at-risk workers.”  Exactly as I contended last year in the debate over masking mandates, and by aerosols I included the virus as a dry dust.  I contended that a false sense of security would be imparted by wearing ineffective masks, and studies in the U.S. have shown that eighty percent of people catching COVID said they wore masks “all the time.”

Unfortunately, Premier Ford’s doctor-advisors haven’t figured this out, and are trying stay-at-home orders for the third time.  They should instead have been focussing on indoors air quality, and encouraging outdoors activities with allowances for social distancing.  But no, they wouldn’t listen to people with experience in industrial hygiene.

Oh, well.

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