Horowitz: Why masks don’t work in the real world

There is not a single place on earth where masks appear to have slowed the spread of the virus, which seems to be aimed at cutting off every population until the herd’s immunity threshold is reached. None of this should have surprised us.

How many people do you know who always wear masks completely glued to their faces like a respirator? Well, there are very few people who can afford to give up after hours of lack of oxygen. Therefore, in short, mask mandates are useless against a virus, even before examining the fact that the pores in the fibers of the mask are much larger than the virus itself.

Stephen Petty, one of the most experienced certified industrial hygienists and exposure experts in the country, sent me the following chart based on new research on mask filtration (Drewnick et al.). This shows that if only 3.2% of the mask space is open, the effectiveness of the mask decreases to zero!

As you can see, with only 2% of the surface of the mask open, 80% of the particles below 2.5 microns will escape. Based on this study, Petty extrapolates that masks will be 100% ineffective in blocking particles that are small when the open area reaches 3.2%.

What people forget is that, apart from the size of the pores in the fabric, very few people actually wear masks the way they test them in laboratories or on mannequins. As Petty points out, based on a new study of filter leaks in masks of 44 different materials, most of the infiltration comes out in parts, because the molecules always travel the path with the least resistance.

“Measurements with defined leaks have shown that already a small fractional runoff area of ​​1-2% can severely damage the total FE,” the German study, published in October last year in Aerosol Science and Technology, concluded. “This is especially the case for particles with a diameter of less than 5 mm, where the FE has dropped by 50% or even by two thirds.”

The study further explains that because “surgical masks as well as cloth masks never fit perfectly on the face”, this is “one of the main reasons why in studies investigating the effectiveness of filtering masks in real life for surgical masks” the effectiveness is “significantly lower” than what we see with shape-mounted N95s. It is also probably why filtration studies in a laboratory show a certain degree of efficacy, but not a single randomized controlled study (RCT) has shown the effectiveness of these masks against viruses, including 10 influenza RCTs and mask wear, as well as the Danish study on the use of the mask for COVID. People are not laboratory mannequins.

As Megan Mansell, a dangerous PPE expert, explained to me:

This is what everyone did wrong from day one or maybe what Fauci and others initially did wrong. The COVID conversation should have started with the minimum size of viable particles under pressure, which for COVID particles is 0.06 microns. 90% of expired particles fall into the range of radically behaving particles / particles in the air.

What this means is that once the particles are well below 1 micron (smaller than most bacteria), they easily pass through and around the mask, remain suspended in the air for a long time, and travel much farther inside. six feet. Once we found out that this virus was transported in the air and so small, it is simply impossible to mask and 6 feet to make a difference inside.

Several virions can make up a single cluster of particles and still fall well below that threshold. Thus, even if everyone wore masks properly, they would still get rid of enough virions to wear the mask only in the theater, which is why we find no real evidence of masking to help at all, as cases are growing in Michigan masks and will drop to one-year lows in Texas and Mississippi.

My friend Emily Burns demonstrates this in a real-life example, exhaling cigarette smoke under a mask that was quite appropriate. As she mentioned on Twitter, cigarette smoke is less than 1 micron, which is the same size or larger than 99% of aerosols that carry viruses.

In fact, new research has shown that 90% of the virions of this virus are smaller than 0.3 microns. There are 100 times more aerosols under 1 micron (mostly significantly smaller) than over 1 micron. This is much smaller than the pores on the surgical masks, much less cloth masks, not to mention the gaps around the masks.

Moreover, the same study shows that at the peak of contagion around the seventh day of symptoms, with inflammation of the alveoli, the number of particles below 0.3 microns increases tenfold, while the largest decrease. This probably explains why asymptomatic individuals are barely spreading and why masks are worthless when people are the most contagious.

We have been sold an illogical premise dressed in science – that masks do not protect you in any way against inhaling someone else’s virus, but they protect others from your expiration. This is an excuse to force people who don’t like masks to wear them, even if people concerned about the virus are free to wear them if they think it works. However, while masks do not work against such a small virus in both directions, if anything, they are even less likely to stop the virus from expiring than inhaling. As Emily Burns demonstrated in her video, with a KN95, which makes you feel suffocated when you inhale, the expiration seems to flow easily through the gaps.

This is also the reason why masking could aerosolize particles even more than people who are unmasked. Which may explain why almost every analysis looks more common in places with mask mandates. As Megan Mansell explained:

Exhalation is the plosive release of respiratory gases and mucous excretions that cover the airways. Exhalation pressure fluctuates depending on an individual’s overall health and level of physical exertion, as well as oxygen saturation in the environment. More extreme changes in external pressure are accompanied by force-generating plosive events (sneezing, screaming, coughing, blowing, raspberry blowing) that each come with changes in facial features, such as opening the mouth and stretching the cheeks that impact external pressure. The more a device is mounted around the mouth and nose, the greater the release of pressure during general breathing and events generating explosive forces. Approximately 90% of respiratory emissions fall within the radically behaving particle range, which also comprises the COVID virion particle range. The more pressurized the plosive activity, the greater the force behind the feather.

Thus, masking is a catch-22. Either the virions protrude directly from the side and the center or, in the case of tighter masks, the plosive force creates a greater pressure behind the escape of tiny particles, which are even more likely to travel longer distances and remain suspended for hours. For this reason, although N95s seem to work well in mechanical laboratory studies, they do not seem to stop transmission from someone who is contagious in the real world.

Certainly, the mandate of medical masks did not work for Germany or Chile:

Stephen Petty sent me a diagram from his presentation on mask filtration, showing that the vast majority of virions are the size that has the ability to suspend in the air for days.

Remember, the big drops that politicians and the media are talking about tend to fall to the ground immediately and not travel far. There is no way to explain this ubiquitous degree of transmission around the globe. Microparticles that travel far into unventilated indoor rooms and remain suspended for days should cause rapid spread. No mask has any efficacy against these particles.

It is important to note that small particles are most likely to enter the deep lungs, not the larger droplets, which are more likely to be trapped in saliva or throat and ingested rather than inhaled. Also, wearing masks tends to force more people to breathe through their mouths, rather than superficial nasal breathing, which makes them even more likely to inhale particles that inevitably pass through masks.

The public was sold a lie about avoiding the virus, wearing a mask and sitting six feet away inside. The reality is that we should have focused on dilution and filtration systems for a fraction of the funding we spent on destroying the economy. We should also have focused on early and preventive treatment with cheap drugs such as ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine, mixed with vitamin and zinc supplements. Again, this was never about science or saving lives. It was about controlling our lives and making us servile to the ruling elite. The mask is the symbol and the ultimate memory that we no longer control our own bodies.

Editor’s note: In the original version of this article, the paragraph that begins, “This is what everyone did wrong from day one … “was not attributed to Megan Mansell. This error has been corrected.