Here’s the real science behind facemasks…

Legal Disclaimer: The following is a combination of mathematical facts and opinion. This article does not make the author your physician. Do whatever your personal physician tells you to do.

Prelude

If you click on the following link, you’ll see that the only thing that seems to correlate with the numbers of people who die from COVID is the population density (click)<–

If you plot the data shown in the linear regression,  then deaths per million are highly correlated with population density.  

That correlation is not surprising (pack people closer together, then disease spread more easily), what is surprising is that if you look at death rates and control for population density, the places with the earliest and strictest mask and quarantine laws (like New York City) have a higher death rate than predicted by population density than in states with later and laxer mask laws (like Texas and Florida). That’s the math.

This puzzle of more masks being correlated with higher deaths was discussed in the Wall Street Journal and a few other places but has been largely not talked about (neither has population density). Mask theory is talked about greatly, but when you look at actual population data (death rates), the reverse of what most expect is seen.

Face Mask Science

So, why would those wearing masks and quarantining more have a higher than predicted death rate–higher than what the population density would predict? Best I can tell, no one has given a good explanation for that enigma until now.

A Ph.D. researcher from the Standford department of cardiology published an article this week that gives possible reasons why wearing masks more seems to be correlated in population studies with more deaths per million (be sure and read to the end, read the references, and make up your own mind–or trust Big Brother to think for you)…

Click to read the article<–

Speculation of Dr. Runels after reading all of the above research:  Eventually, trying to avoid COVID-19 is like trying to avoid the common cold. Your best bet is to focus very strongly on health measures. For example, the CDC showed that the death rate is significantly increased in those who are even mildly overweight! Scary since that’s 1/2 of the US population. But, BMI is something that seems to have more effect than mask-wearing when you look at actual death rates.

Your grandmother (or great grandmother) had to worry about POLIO when she sent her kids to school…but they went.  But, they also did things to keep the children healthy. 

Every mother with a child with cystic fibrosis worries about their child dying from pneumonia–but they do EVERYTHING they can do to keep them healthy and then send them to school. To say that again: Every mother with a child with cystic fibrosis worries about every pathogen that can cause pneumonia, but they don’t lock their children up at home and send them around with a mask strapped to their face everywhere they go.

Those are just a few examples of why our current public policies are warped. I cannot do anything about public policy. But I can do things to boost the health of myself and my family, here are things that are known to increase the strength of your immune system to help you not get so sick from COVID when you are eventually exposed (click)<–

So perhaps, the best bet is to do everything you can do to stay healthy and not depend so much on others to keep you in a sterile bubble.

Note:

Dr. Runels, predicting that convalescent plasma may be of help to those who are acutely ill (now considered an effective treatment by the FDA), constructed the following website to help connect those in large or small communities who are acutely ill with COVID with those who have recovered. Please share the website:  COVID19Switchboard.org