Oregon’s statistics highlight the folly behind mask mandates

By Andrea Widburg, AM THINKER

If you have the right mask and use it in the right way, it can protect you. Well-fitting N95 masks thrown out after every use may well protect against viruses. Paper surgical masks are useless against viruses. Likewise, a cloth mask, which people repeatedly use for days or weeks, is probably an effective bacteria and virus vector, rather than a protector. If you doubt me, just look at the data out of Oregon, where Gov. Kate Brown’s latest totalitarian mask mandates coincided with a huge increase in COVID cases. Correlation is not causation, but there are other data out there to suggest they’re one and the same.

Jim Geraghty, at National Review, has the Oregon data:

On August 24, Oregon governor Kate Brown instated a state masking requirement that requires everyone five years and older, regardless of vaccination status, to wear a mask, face covering, or face shield in outdoor spaces if they are less than six feet apart from individuals not in their household.

“Cases and hospitalizations are at a record high,” said Governor Brown. “Masks are a quick and simple tool we can immediately deploy to protect ourselves and our families, and quickly help stop further spread of COVID-19.”

On August 24, Oregon had 49,889 active cases of COVID-19. As of yesterday, Oregon had 86,623 active cases of COVID-19 — an increase of 73 percent from the day the governor announced the outdoor mask requirement. Keep in mind, cases merely mean positive tests; an active case does not necessarily mean that person is significantly ill.

I wouldn’t go so far as to say that masks were indeed vectors, but it’s pretty clear they weren’t protectors.

But one story is just one story, and it has little statistical value. However, a Twitter user named IM (@ianmSC) has been tracking the fact that masks (and lockdowns) seem to make no difference to COVID’s spread. Here are just a few of his tweets on the subject:

CICK ON THE TWEETS TO SEE THEM IN FULL

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The fact that these data relentlessly repeat the same patterns suggests a few conclusions:

• Lockdowns don’t work
• Mask mandates don’t work
• Vaccines are of limited efficacy.

Without discussing the potential downside risks of the vaccines (which are fiercely debated), it appears that the vaccines offer some protection against getting very sick from COVID, but no protection against catching the Delta variant, which the vaccines themselves may have triggered.

The smartest thing, of course, would be to set up early intervention treatments. Everybody should have easy access to Ivermectin or the Hydroxychloroquine cocktail, which includes Azithromycin and zinc, which they can start taking immediately.

I’ll say again what I’ve said before, which is that COVID is the only disease I know of that the medical establishment refuses to treat until people are on death’s door. Dr. Ted Noel explains why this is, and you can blame the government for the fact that doctors have their hands tied.

And of course, the government’s refusal to act is because the Democrats who run the government don’t want COVID to end. It’s been their E-ticket to unlimited power. The worst thing that could happen for them is to have COVID become a treatable disease like a cold or flu.

But going back to my original point, those stifling, dirty, inconvenient, face-obscuring, voice-obscuring masks, which invariably remind me of the most restrictive burqas and which have made cities dirtier, are useless.