A Scientific Case Against Mask Mandates
During the spring and summer of 2020, I believed everything the media claimed about the coronavirus. After all, why would elected officials shut down the most prosperous country in the world if Covid wasn’t a big deal? I never left the house without a mask, and I wiped down every Amazon package before deeming it safe to touch. I thought that I was keeping myself and family safe by doing these things.
Then during the fall, winter, and spring, my views changed when I learned about a friend’s experience with Covid. He had the virus for two weeks without even knowing it.
Because of how the media portrayed it, I thought that anyone who got Covid would surely be hospitalized or even die. After receiving that text from my friend, I realized that this entire time I had been lied to by the media, and that the people making the Covid mandates did not care about me.
This op-ed aims to combat the mainstream narrative that masking is a good idea with scientific studies, facts, statistics, and basic logic. With the scientific case that I will present, I recently helped overturn the indoor mask mandate at my university. I present the same argument to Govs today, hoping to provide a new perspective on this critically important issue.
Typical masks do not work. A study conducted in August by the University of Waterloo, a prestigious Canadian research university, concluded that “most common masks, primarily due to problems with fit, filter about 10 per cent of exhaled aerosol droplets. The remaining aerosols are redirected, mostly out the top of the mask where it fits over the nose, and escape into the ambient air unfiltered.¹ ”
While KN95 masks are more effective than cloth and surgical masks, most people choose to wear cloth masks, rendering mask mandates ineffective. This study was conducted during August, when the Delta variant was the dominant strain. Omicron is currently the dominant strain, which is far more transmissible than Delta,² meaning that masks are even less effective right now than they were at the time the study was conducted.
For most people, getting Covid is not a big deal. I had Covid in early February, and the symptoms were merely unnoticeable. My friends that were also infected reported the same experience. The current hospitalization rate for people aged 0-4 is 0.0014%; 0.0004% for ages 5-17 (most Govs students); 0.0011% for ages 18-49; 0.0018% for ages 50-64; and 0.0059% for those 65 and up. These rates were 0.0148%, 0.004%, 0.0215%, 0.0408%, and 0.0908% at their respective peaks.³
(CDC presents data as hospitalizations per 100,000. Each number is divided by 1,000 to display as a percentage)
Source: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)
Even smaller than the virtually nonexistent probability of being hospitalized with Covid are the odds of dying with Covid. This number currently sits at 3.23 deaths per million⁴ (0.000323%) for the population-at-large. At its peak, this number was 10.22 deaths per million (0.001022%) on January 13, 2021. That percentage will be lower if you are young and healthy and higher if you are older and have a high risk condition.
To put these statistics into perspective, the odds of getting struck by lighting are 1 in 15,300.⁵ This means that most Govs people are currently 1.6 times more likely to be struck by lightning than they are to be hospitalized with Covid. The odds of a person dying in a car crash in their lifetime is 1 in 102 (0.98%).⁶ This means that a person is 3,035 times more likely to die in a car crash than die with Covid.
The National Institute of Health additionally concludes that most people who have been hospitalized with Covid had at least one of four high-risk conditions: obesity, hypertension, diabetes, or heart failure.⁷ Those without these four high-risk conditions are at an even lower risk of hospitalization than the general public. From all this data, it’s easy to conclude that getting infected with Covid is not a big deal for most people.
Granted, a common concern of getting Covid is missing school or work and also infecting loved ones who are at a higher risk of severe Covid illness. These fears are valid and fair; however mask mandates will not prevent transmission, given most masks do not prevent transmission. Instead, policy makers should encourage high risk demographics to get vaccinated and pursue solutions that actually help people, such as encouraging people to get outside more to improve their vitamin D levels.
An Israeli study highlighted the strong correlation between the probability of developing severe Covid illness and vitamin D deficiency.⁸ They should also devote resources towards acquiring monoclonal antibody treatments, to minimize the impact of high risk individuals that get infected.⁹ Unlike masks, a way to prevent transmission is to improve ventilation in indoor spaces.¹⁰¹¹
An estimated 3-12% of Americans contract influenza every year, yet there’s no mask mandates over containing the spread. Covid is no different. Getting sick is part of life, and trying to prevent people from being exposed to germs and illnesses is irrational and, frankly, impossible.
Disposable masks are additionally detrimental to the environment. A Massachusetts Institute of Technology study concluded that the “Covid-19 pandemic is estimated to generate up to 7,200 tons of medical waste every day, much of which is disposable masks.”¹² It’s difficult for people to make an honest claim to caring about the environment when they choose to wear a mask, which scientifically does nothing but provide a false sense of security.
Moreover, masking “impede[s] our ability to hear, understand, engage, and connect with others.”¹³ They additionally increase feelings of loneliness and isolation.
Masks do not keep people safe, contrary to popular belief. Rather, they pollute the environment, harm people’s mental health, and interfere with our ability to return to normal. It’s now been over two years since this pandemic began, and it’s time to stop mandating such an ineffective and disastrous tool to prevent a pandemic that is not a big deal for most people.
This op-ed was written by a Governor’s Academy Alum who graduated in May of 2021.
Foot/endnotes:
https://uwaterloo.ca/news/media/study-supports-widespread-use-better-masks-curb-covid-19
https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/variants/omicron-variant.html#:~:text=The%20Omicron%20variant%20spreads%20more,'t%20have%20symptoms.
https://gis.cdc.gov/grasp/covidnet/covid19_3.html
https://ourworldindata.org/covid-deaths
https://www.weather.gov/safety/lightning-odds
https://injuryfacts.nsc.org/all-injuries/preventable-death-overview/odds-of-dying/
Note: This source also says odds of dying from COVID-19 are 1 in 12. That statistic is incorrect, as less than 1 million people have died from COVID-19 in the U.S., which has a population of around 330 million.
https://www.nih.gov/news-events/nih-research-matters/most-covid-19-hospitalizations-due-four-conditions
https://health.ucdavis.edu/news/headlines/what-is-the-link-between-vitamin-d-levels-and-covid-19/2022/02
https://www.fda.gov/news-events/press-announcements/coronavirus-covid-19-update-fda-authorizes-new-monoclonal-antibody-treatment-covid-19-retains#:~:text=Bebtelovimab%20works%20by%20binding%20to,risk%20of%20hospitalization%20or%20death.
https://www.who.int/news-room/questions-and-answers/item/coronavirus-disease-covid-19-ventilation-and-air-conditioning
https://www.iata.org/en/youandiata/travelers/health/low-risk-transmission/
https://news.mit.edu/2021/covid-masks-environment-0720#:~:text=The%20masks%20are%20designed%20so,very%20long%20time%20to%20degrade.
https://www.manchester.ac.uk/discover/news/face-masks-leave-us-feeling-isolated-and-stressed-reveals-survey/