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New studies: Plexiglass does nothing; masks carry diseases; lockdowns destroyed 40% of all small businesses

Modern science!
How modern politicians apply science!

Three new studies have once again confirmed what common sense and a hundred-plus years of medical research has consistently shown, that the measures mandated by foolish governments and health officials last year to supposedly “stop” or “slow” the spread of COVID-19 did nothing of the sort, and instead likely accomplished the exact opposite.

The studies specifically looked at three of the most popular and imposing actions mandated by either governments or corporations, the installation of plexiglass everywhere, the mandating of mask use, and the draconian lockdowns that shut down whole states for almost a year. In all three cases, the studies found them worse than useless.

First, the plexiglass barriers: Not only has there never been any research documenting the usefulness of the plexiglass barriers that restaurants, convenience stores, and almost all businesses have installed to isolate their workers and customers from each other and thus supposedly prevent the spread of COVID-19, a new study from Boston found that the plexiglass barriers likely increased the risk of infection, because it hampered the flow of air circulation.

Wellesley Pubic Schools (WPS), the Health Department, and Facilities Management Department joined forces on an investigation into a recent cluster of COVID-19 cases at the high school and determined that changes are needed in the main office space. WPS and the Health Department said in a joint statement that: “The team concluded that the origin of the transmission of a large number of cases was the main office area and recommended a number of additional mitigation measures, including reducing the density of individuals in this area, better defining one-way entrance/egress, increasing air circulation, and modifying the use of plexiglass dividers. This last finding was both surprising and important for us, as our test of air circulation in this area using smoke devices clearly showed that in several cases, plexiglass dividers, when coupled with side panels, significantly impeded air circulation.” [emphasis mine]

In other words, you want to put your self in a COVID-19 hotbox and increase your chances of exposure, put yourself in a cubical surrounded by plexiglass barriers. Upon seeing this data, these Boston schools are looking at removing many of the barriers it installed.

Then there are those wonderful masks. Got yours? Is your face properly sealed by cloth? Well, a group of parents in Gainesville, Florida, decided to submit six face masks that their children (and one adult) had worn during the previous school day.

The resulting report found that five masks were contaminated with bacteria, parasites, and fungi, including three with dangerous pathogenic and pneumonia-causing bacteria. No viruses were detected on the masks, although the test is capable of detecting viruses. The analysis detected the following 11 alarmingly dangerous pathogens on the masks:

  • Streptococcus pneumoniae (pneumonia)
  • Mycobacterium tuberculosis (tuberculosis)
  • Neisseria meningitidis (meningitis, sepsis)
  • Acanthamoeba polyphaga (keratitis and granulomatous amebic encephalitis)
  • Acinetobacter baumanni (pneumonia, blood stream infections, meningitis, UTIs— resistant to antibiotics)
  • Escherichia coli (food poisoning)
  • Borrelia burgdorferi (causes Lyme disease)
  • Corynebacterium diphtheriae (diphtheria)
  • Legionella pneumophila (Legionnaires’ disease)
  • Staphylococcus pyogenes serotype M3 (severe infections—high morbidity rates)
  • Staphylococcus aureus (meningitis, sepsis)

Half of the masks were contaminated with one or more strains of pneumonia-causing bacteria. One-third were contaminated with one or more strains of meningitis-causing bacteria. One-third were contaminated with dangerous, antibiotic-resistant bacterial pathogens. In addition, less dangerous pathogens were identified, including pathogens that can cause fever, ulcers, acne, yeast infections, strep throat, periodontal disease, Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever, and more.

Notice how the tests found no viruses, including COVID-19, even though it could have. What this tells us is that if the virus was present, the mask was transparent to it, providing no protection at all. Previously I had thought the mask might become a trap for the COVID-19 virus, but no, it is not. Masks do nothing to stop it.

Masks do however act as great collectors of a lot of other very bad pathogens, and in doing so put them at the very place you breath. Isn’t that reassuring?

Thus, masks are not just a pointless act of virtue signaling, they are downright unhealthy. Take them off, and burn them if you can, because a used mask is not something you should handle nonchalantly.

Finally, the lockdowns: A study published in the Proceedings of the National Academies of Sciences found the lockdowns were generally useless at reducing the spread of COVID-19.

Previous studies have claimed that shelter-in-place orders saved thousands of lives, but we reassess these analyses and show that they are not reliable. We find that shelter-in-place orders had no detectable health benefits, only modest effects on behavior, and small but adverse effects on the economy.

The destruction of America's small businesses by the government lockdowns
Click to see original chart.

The last conclusion, that the lockdown had only a “small” negative effect on the economy however is quite wrong. Data in April of 2020 showed that the lockdowns were disastrous for small businesses, and the data now proves this, unequivocally. The graph to the right, taken from this study [pdf] shows that almost 40% of all small businesses were bankrupted by the lockdowns, which conveniently allowed the big box corporate stores to stay open but forced all family-owned business to shutter, and thus die forever.

Our government and so-called “experts” in both the health and scientific fields failed the American people horribly during the Wuhan panic. They choose badly (often doing the worst possible thing), favored big companies, did harm to children and families, acted to destroy our liberties and Constitutional rights, and generally worsened the situation terribly.

The American people however are not innocent. Too many acquiesced meekly to these government mandates, as if they were the word of God handed down from Mt. Sinai. Americans acted not as educated citizens in a free society, who insist on being treated as mature adults who make their own decisions, but as mindless and fearful children lacking the independence of mind to think at all.

Consider that the next time you see someone riding in their car alone, with their mask on.

Genesis cover

On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.

 
The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.


The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
 

"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News

19 comments

  • Cotour

    Related crazy:

    THIS SHOULD WORK OUT WELL

    Victoria’s Secret who unarguably had some of the most beautiful and sexy women on the planet modeling and reping their products. And those products were about women being attractive to men. Is apparently rethinking their business model.

    But of course that definition of sexy was based solely on what MEN desired. Or what designers and women intuitively understood men wanted to see on (and off) their women. Arguably these standards are the result of many, many thousands of years of human existence.

    https://pagesix.com/2021/06/16/megan-rapinoe-and-priyanka-chopra-join-victorias-secret-rebrand/

    Those at Victoria’s Secret are now going to apparently dump the hottest women on the planet appealing to men? And will now recast their company to women appealing to “politically correct” women and essentially removing men from the equation?

    We have all been witness to “politically correct” media subtly and not so subtly trying to force / change the standards of beauty and sexy equation for some time now. And that standard of beauty and sexy has in the past been set by essentially men and what appeals to them about women. Or what women intuitively understand that men are attracted to them by.

    A healthy, beautiful symmetrical face, and “T” and “A”, among other lesser traits. Its a relatively simple equation, its hot wired into men by design. And women naturally fulfill what men want. Women are sex, and men want sex. Lets not over think this. Women have “IT” and men want to see “IT”.

    Well the sexy and men has now apparently been removed from the equation and this company is hitching its star to the “progressive” movement.

    Megan Rapino: “Rapinoe told Page Six. “I think functionality is probably the sexiest thing we could possibly achieve in life. Sometimes just cool is sexy too.”

    Like I said, should work out well for them.

  • “: “Rapinoe told Page Six. “I think functionality is probably the sexiest thing we could possibly achieve in life.”

    A toilet is sexy? Or a can opener? Strictly speaking, the function of a female (in a binary-sex environment) is to birth and nurture the species. You certainly don’t need to be ‘hot’ to do this, but evolution argues in favor of the attractive.

    My goodness. We’re all just trying to get through the day, and people keep coming up with ways to make that harder than it already is. Give it a rest, already.

  • wayne

    Cotour–
    I guess it was only a matter of time…
    From a leftwing nut perspective, VS is in a bad spot. They sell (over-priced) lingerie (generally made by slave labor) to woman who buy it because it’s lingerie. Attracting men however isn’t very woke, so they have to couch it in more subtle and deniable ways. Their LGBTQ-Anon customer-base however, is maybe 5% on a good day.
    I hate to break it to everyone…. VS lingerie isn’t functional to wear— it’s designed to be taken off.

    Wendy’s – Soviet Fashion Show Parody (1985)
    https://youtu.be/FpypTXccG2I

    Ref Plexiglas–
    Large grocery retailer in the midwest– they bought 10,000 plexiglas sneeze-guards for the check-out lanes, (at $125 each,) for their 200 stores.

  • Over at Instapundit, Sarah Hoyt linked to this post. In the comment thread, someone suggested that when the next CCP panic-demic comes to pass, perhaps we should try leeches.

    But I note that, during the present panic-demic, we submitted to treatment from several different types of leeches. In nearly all cases, they prolonged the symptoms and made it worse.

    The Fauci leech (a long-living variant of the Blue Leech species) is particularly notable in its ineffectiveness … in large part, because it refuses to stay stuck in one position for any length of time, as it keeps seeking the best angle for viewing by any TV camera it senses.

    But it’s the the regional-specific variants that give a new meaning to the phrase “the cure is worse than the disease”. The Cuomo leech … the Whitmer leech … the Newsom leech … the Wolf leech … the Murphy leech … and the Pritzker leech, whose suction capability was the subject of warning signs across the Land of Lincoln.

  • TGeorge

    At least the US has a rockstar pres. :))))
    Rammbiden – Du riechst so gut
    https://youtu.be/6VwIAex5Tc8

  • Kyle F

    In my memory, the masks were never described as protection for the wearer, but for everyone else. Precisely for one of the reasons cited – viruses are far too small to be stopped by cloth and even on masks that can stop them, the masks must be worn perfectly.

    On the outbound side, I think COVID 19 or the Wuhan flu or virus (whatever) is always contained in water droplets that are suppressed by masks covering the mouth and nose. Once free of the water, they are tiny.

    This does not change your salient points: the risks from the masks, the moving of the targets, shutting down the economy, etc.

  • larry cavallini

    Where is Hugh Hefner when we need him?

  • Col Beausabre

    Women who wish to continue to wear sexy, lacy, revealing underwear (pant, drool, owwwOOO!) need not despair. Another vendor will pop up in its place (or perhaps an old one will revive – anybody remember Frederick’s of Hollywood?). That’s the genius of our capitalist system, if there is a market, someone will recognize its existence and will serve it

  • Cotour

    Col and all:

    If they are allowed in this brave new “Functional” world that must wash society of everything male related.

    The “progressive” movement is about breaking the thousand year domination of men over women. As is the breaking of Christianity and what it has informed the world regarding philosophy, morality and justice. And like all arguments of the Left there are nuggets of truth to their argument but they never recognize the progress in mutual respect that has grown from it.

    They say: All women are beautiful. And they are correct, women are special and I mean that sincerely. And no rational human would argue with that.

    BUT some women are more physically beautiful and more desirable than others, and they are going to change that fact. (?)

    Like everything else “progressive” the Left attempts to recast it because men and the status quo cultural norms have had a dominant roll in defining them based on what men desire and they must break it and *make* people believe what they really do not believe. Forced beliefs are just that, forced. DNA cares not about any of it.

    But the forcing is what is important to recognize. IT and the concept that IT can overcome DNA is where the Left becomes Marxist and that is where the need for force and violence to enforce the “NEW” reality stems from.

    Its ladies underwear, its an illness, its a form of abuse of power. Seems harmless and a non event to some.

    Should work out well for them.

  • Cotour

    This is also a part of it:

    “Central Illinois School Board Censors Parents for Speaking Out Against Sexualization of Children in Schools”

    Retraining children to be more accepting of sexual differences and in sexual preference. But what they really are attempting is to once again force this new paradigm into the minds of children and the result is the feminization of males and the sexual fluidity of females.

    And there is no in between for their agenda, there can be no half measures, raze it and build anew on the site of what was.

    BLM, sexual training of children, the feminization of males so they do not dominate in any field, destroying Christianity, promoting Socialism, defining beauty and sexy, training the population to obey the government, destroy the Constitution because it is based in the philosophy of the Bible, “In the future you will own nothing, and you will be happy”, etc, etc, its all a package that the Left in America and the world offer for the future. Sounds fun.

    Should work out well.

  • wayne

    back to plexiglass….

    The Boy In The Bubble
    Paul Simon (1986)
    https://youtu.be/Uy5T6s25XK4
    4:00

  • wayne

    “Rachel Levine, Assistant Heath Secretary, Gets It”
    Tim Dillon (January 2021)
    https://youtu.be/TMLaUkJd4ds
    1:04

  • Brian

    Cotour I read the article, my thought is, say goodbye to Victoria Secret, say hello to bankruptcy. Who ever is running that company, good luck with that.

  • Nightfall

    Riding alone in a car, with a mask on, or any mask on outdoors:

    In California, even the democrat governor admitted that the number of people that contact tracing had shown had gotten COVID was…3. That is, 3, during the, what, year and a half it has been around? Given the amount of people in California, some 40 million, and moving through it, that makes your chance of getting COVID outdoors something like 1 in 14 million. Your chance of being struck by lightning is 1 in 700,000, which means it is 20 times more likely you will be struck by lightning than catch COVID outdoors.

    Are you going to hide under your bed for the rest of your life, afraid you will be struck by lightning? What about wearing a protective tinfoil hat? Ducking under cover ever few feet, fearfully looking up?

    Question, you are outdoors, look up, see all that air? That’s a lot of air, it stretches up for miles and miles. If a virus is 10 feet over your head, sailing by on the breeze, can it touch you? What about 100 feet, 1000 feet, 10,000 feet, more? In fact, there is simply too much air out there for the virus to even find you, one look up should tell you that. One look up with even a lick of common sense, that is.

    That is, if the virus even had time to find you. Did you know that sunlight kills the virus? Yeah, that’s right, it simply can’t last long enough to find you in that huge expanse of air before it is killed.

    Do you see someone coming into your business looking for a job? Did you see them outside with a mask on? Don’t hire them, they are a moron, a coward, and mentally lazy to not realize what common sense should instantly tell them if they even glance up.

    In fact, from now on, anyone wearing a mask should be sneered at, distrusted, perhaps even not allowed in. It is now possible to tell stupid and cowardly people at a glance, even at a distance. And remember, these are the people who allowed 40% of businesses to fail, who hurt millions, they are your enemy. It’s time to stop thinking that goodness is being nice, just being nice can kill when you are nice to people who do not deserve it.

    But, you say, my religion demands I be nice. Does it? Seems to me it demands “justice and mercy”. You seem to have forgotten the justice part. And, because you forgot justice, what about mercy to those people put out of their life’s work? You forgot both. You need to reevaluate your life.

  • Nightfall

    So, fewer test positive with masks than without, huh? Lets look:

    “Test positive”, WHO tested positive, where, and when? Oh, an online poll, how accurate are those? Are they considered to be of scientific accuracy? What is?

    The largest actual scientific test of it’s kind, in Denmark, of 6000 people, half with masks and social distancing, half without, showed NO statistical difference in the catching of ANY viral disease between the masked and unmasked groups. So, do you believe in science? What about the 24 other scientific tests that showed the same thing? Just how many times must such a thing be proved before you will believe it? Is science about belief?

    During the Spanish Flu, a MUCH more virulent and deadly disease, all people religiously wore masks when told to by doctors. The doctors were “scandalized” by the complete lack of any noticeable effect on the passage of the disease after the masks went on. This same complete lack of effect has been seen in places today when mask orders went into effect, no noticeable change was seen in infection rates..

    You will notice that this is Google, Google understands propaganda, “it’s not what you say, it’s what you don’t say”. They will only give you whatever results (unscientific as they are) that they think will support their position. Simply look through any thing that they think they can pass off as authoritive (known as the unscientific “appeal to authority”), and then tell you only what supports their position, not other studies and such that do not.

    And the tests? The tests are so accurate that one guy had himself tested 4 times. Same test kit, same nurse, 2 times tested positive, two negative. The test is so oversensitive that I can give you any result you like simply by varying how often, who, where, and when I test. I can prove that masks either don’t work or do, depending on what you want to hear.

    Example, test when the mask order is given, and the prevalence of the virus is already decreasing, and you can “prove” that masks cause the prevalence of the virus to decrease.. You then DO NOT show those areas where the mask order was given, and the prevalence of the virus increased. This was done in the news, to “prove” that masks work. They got caught at it.

    And the test does not say that you are sick, only that you tested positive for exposure to the virus (often falsely). Most people, and the younger they are the more likely this is, shrug off the virus. A positive test, therefore, merely shows someone who is now immune for life to the virus. The more people who test as being immune for life, the better, right? Some people are now stuck in hospitals because, having gained immunity, they now naturally test positive, since they now have parts of the virus in their bodies as part of their immune systems method of identifying the virus. They are immune, they are not sick, yet they cannot leave the hospital since the hospital equates “test positive” with ‘sick”, even though those are two different things.

    So, what did this Google online poll prove, exactly?

  • wayne

    Brian-
    VS is owned by “L Brands,” (a multi billion $ company) which also runs Bath & Body Works. Apparently, they tried to spin off VS a few months ago but the deal fell through.

  • wayne

    “Leftist News Says People Who Don’t Like BLM Have A ‘Warped’ Sense Of Reality, According To ‘Science'”
    Tim Pool
    Timcast IRL June 19, 2021
    https://youtu.be/2rvginNRlA4
    16:46
    “Tim, Luke, Lydia, and Seamus of FreedomToons, join forces to scrutinize the leftist news source that boldly claims that people who don’t like certain political views are ‘warped’.”

  • Edward

    Why are people afraid of Wuhan flu? Bill Whittle has a thought:
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DO5rBNB_vx8 (15 minutes)

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