Now that Democrats have gotten rid of 74-year-old President Donald Trump for carelessness on wearing masks, a new Danish study showed that mask wearing only reduced Covid-19 infections by 15 to 20%. President-elect Joe Biden, 77, and 56-year-old VP-elect Kamala Harris have told voters that if everyone used masks the country could save over 100,000 lives between now and the end of the year. Biden and Harris cite a University of Washington, Institute for Health Care Metrics and Evaluation [IHCME] study forecasting that 511,000 citizens could die from Covid-19 between September and February 2021, if the nation doesn’t take masks seriously. IHCME study indicated that if 95% of the population wore masks and practiced social distancing, deaths could drop to 381,000, saving about 130,000. One small problem, IHCME often gets its forecasts wrong, by a lot.
California Gavin Newsom listened to the Bill Gates-funded IHCME that forecast that California would have 25.5 million or 60% Covid-19 cases between March 15 and May 15. As of Nov. 19, California had 1,472,099 cases or 2.7% % of California’s population, attesting to the outrageous inaccuracy of IHCME forecasts. Yet that didn’t stop Biden and Harris, for political purposes, to cite more bogus research from IHCME to make Trump look incompetent managing the Covid-19 crisis. To put things in perspective in California only .04% of the population has died of Covid-19, a miniscule fraction, not warranting the widespread shutdowns by 53-year-old Gov. Gavin Newsom who says he listens to “scientists.” With a recall petition getting new life, Newsom has done so much harm to the state’s economy with his Covid-19 incompetence, that workers and businesses are in dire straits.
Biden and Harris used the grossly inaccurate IHCME study to blast Trump for not issuing a national mask mandate. Biden made mask wearing a centerpiece of his Covid-19 strategy, insisting under his managements the U.S. would not have lost 257,619 citizens. Spewing fake research or statistics doesn’t matter in campaign because the goal is discrediting your opponent. Biden’s campaign did a good job of slamming Trump, driving down his approval ratings. Trump’s message, led by 32-year-old Communication Director Hope Hicks, offered no coherent rejoinder to Biden’s outrageous campaign lies. Trump has no one to blame but himself relying a rookie to run communication strategy for his campaign. But when you add up all the campaign rhetoric, Biden’s going to find out the hard way when reality sets in that masks don’t do all that much to prevent Covid-19.
Biden of course never cited a well-done Danish study at Copenhagen Hospital divided 6,024 adults into two groups, one experimental using masks and the other control, using no masks. After one month, 1.8% of the group wearing masks got infected with Covid-19, while the control group, not wearing masks, got infected 2.1%, only giving a benefit of around 15-20%. “The study does not confirm the expected halving of the risk of infection for people wearing masks,” said the study’s authors. “The results could indicate a more moderate degree of protection of 15-20%, however, the study could not rule out that face masks do not provide any protection.” Whether masks prevent wearer from getting Covid-19 is anyone’s guess. What’s known is that the benefit to masks are more to prevent the wearer from spreading Covid-19 infections or the so-called source protection.
With all the limitations of masks, the scientific community, including the Centers for Disease Control [CDC] or World Health Organization [WHO], thinks wearing masks is preferable to not wearing them. When it came to the Danish study, it did not look at “source control,” the extent to which wearing masks prevents others from getting Covid-19. Previous studies suggest that masks could reduce the spread of Covid-19 by 40-50%, something that should be revised to only 15-20%, according to the Danish study. “It is unreasonable to expect any model to do everything well, so each model makes compromises to serve a purpose, while maintaining computational tractability,” said IHCME] wrote. When elected officials rely on forecasters like IHCME, they put the lives of ordinary citizens at risk. Restricting activity for businesses and workers based on wild forecasts is reckless.
Whatever Biden and Harris did to discredit Trump’s handling of the Covid-19 crisis, it has no bearing on the realities of wearing masks, social distancing or good hygiene. When it comes to actual policy decisions, Calif. Gov. Gavin Newsom is a perfect example of how using grossly inaccurate forecasting to restrict businesses and workers has had catastrophic consequences. Newsom, who doesn’t practice what he preaches, violated his own rules attending an ultra-chic birthday party at Wine Country’s French Laundry attended by California Medical Assn. [CMA] CEO and lobbyist. Newsom based many of his restrictions of businesses and workers on bogus forecasts from Bill Gates-funded IHCME. Biden’s about find out the hard way what happens when you let “scientist” make economic decisions. Newsom did it in California and trashed the economy.
