Can Any Company or Government Agency Justify Their Own C0VID Mask Policy?
By Steve Kirsch
I don’t think so. I’m willing to bet any of them $1M that their mask policies aren’t justified by science. Will any of them accept? I doubt it. They all know that they would lose. Badly. Very badly.
Executive Summary
My two offers:
- I will bet any of the “authorities” listed below $1M that there is no scientific evidence that support their absurd COVID masking policies
- I am also offering $10K to any public health official to go on camera and show the world just how effective cloth, surgical, and N95 masks are compared to my P-3 PAPR unit when tested with bear spray (which is much bigger than the virus). I’ll be wearing the PAPR. They’ll be wearing the protection they mandate. We’ll see how they do.
My objectives are:
- I want to show that none of the management or employees of any US company with a mask policy actually believes they are based on science. All of these COVID public mask policies are based on what the CDC says, and not what the science says.
- I want to make it clear to the world that the world’s health authorities are staying silent on PPE that is protective against COVID, while encouraging and/or mandating PPE that isn’t protective (and is likely harmful).
- I want to show the world that not a single US health authority trusts their own recommendation and is willing to show it works in a simple test.
Introduction
I’m writing this on Monday morning, after the Defeat the Mandates rally in Los Angeles in the back seat of a Lyft on the way to the Burbank airport.
I’m riding with Ernest Ramirez. Ernest lost his only son to one dose of the Pfizer vaccine and is speaking publicly about it.
It turns out that our Lyft driver is also impacted by the vaccine. She lost her husband in May, 2021. He died shortly after his second vaccine due to a new cancer that suddenly emerged after he got vaccinated with the “safe and effective” vaccine. But that’s a story for another day.
Lyft and Uber mask policy
Both Lyft and Uber require passengers and drivers to wear a mask. So do the FAA, the airports, and the airlines.
What for? There is no science that justifies this. The science says masks are completely useless, a big fat zero.
Lyft and Uber put in place mask policies voluntarily
Thanks to Brian Mowrey who Writes Unglossed for noting the following:
Both companies’ websites portray their policy as being shaped by CDC/WHO “guidance” (Uber) or “federal order” (Lyft), as if they have no choice in the matter (and as if both don’t have a history of defying legal restrictions).
The “federal order” refers to the CDC’s assertion that it has authority to mandate masks in taxis / rideshares (https://www.cdc.gov/quarantine/pdf/Mask-Order-CDC_GMTF_01-29-21-p.pdf); naturally it has no such authority. Nothing in US Code Title 42 nor the Federal Code grants any entity of the Federal gov authority over private intrastate transport, and if it did that would be unconstitutional.
Again, both companies are comfortable defying the law anyway. So that doesn’t explain the policy.
You can read Brian’s full opinion here.
Disney’s mask policy is even more mysterious
Here’s another mask story that is baffling to me. Bill Rice Jr. wrote:
I just returned from a family vacation to Disney World. Our family stayed at one of the Disney-operated resorts and we were ferried to the parks by Disney-owned buses, where everyone was required to wear a mask. Fortunately, as of recent weeks, we were not required to wear masks on property. Well, as anyone who has been to Disney knows, patrons stand in endless snaking lines – people packed like sardines – while they wait to get on some ride. True, sometimes these lines are outside, but these lines also weave through countless enclosed spaces. That is, 10 times a day I was surrounded by far more people in an enclosed space than I was on our bus trips. Is the virus a threat only on buses and not inside the tight spaces where we wait to get to the front of the line? Anyway, you might also challenge Disney executives to cite the evidence that justifies this nonsensical safety protocol.
Can any Disney employee explain why the virus is a threat on Disney buses, but not when you are anywhere inside the theme park?
Perhaps Disney could hire Jimmy Dore (or JP Sears) to explain this to us. For example, Dore recently disclosed why you can’t catch COVID when you are sitting down.
Or maybe the reason you don’t need a mask in the theme park is as simple as “there’s a reason we call it “The Most Magical Place on Earth””?
Properly worn and fitted PPE can reduce your risk of infection, but none of the pubic mask policies pass the bar
I’m not against using PPE, but it should be used as a last resort only when necessary, not mandated.
There is well known “hierarchy of controls” for protection against a respiratory threat:
Eliminate > Substitute > Isolation/Engineering controls > Administrative controls > PPE
In other words, PPE is always the “last resort” of every competent industrial hygiene professional I’ve ever talked to.
So if you resort to it, you need to be serious about what you deploy.
Watch this classic video of two Marines and bear spray. It clearly shows that industrial strength PPE (in this case, a military respirator) does work if it is properly deployed.
The minimum PPE that my experts would recommend for protection against SARS-CoV-2 would be a PAPR with two P-3 filters. You can buy all the gear you need at Mira Safety for less than $800 (get the mask, the P-3 cartridges, and the PAPR unit). It’s a bit bulky, but it is super-comfortable to breathe due to the power-assist provided by the PAPR unit.
Note that even with this investment, it will only protect you, not anyone else. So there is no reason to mandate it. Get it?
And the bonus with wearing this gear is that you’ll look really cool. You will get noticed, trust me on this.
Check out this video of me in my PAPR unit.
Is that cool or what? It’s even cooler when I add my lightsaber.
My $10K bear spray challenge
I’m happy to do the Marine bear spray test when I’m wearing the gear pictured above. No problem.
Here’s the $10,000 question: will any doctor in America who has told people that masks work show us that he can wear a cloth, surgical, or N95 mask to challenge me and show the world that their masks are just as effective as my mask?
I don’t think so. Their mask will fail instantly. Mine won’t fail at all.
But none of them will do it because they know it would end their career.
Think about it.
Public health hypocrisy
If your public health authorities actually cared about YOUR health, they’d tell you that masks don’t work at all and direct you to use these PAPR units when needed. But they don’t.
They tell you to use something that they know doesn’t work. Not only do they tell you to do this, they force you to do it. They let you believe you are being protected when you aren’t at all.
And to make matters worse, the gear that protects me against getting COVID is illegal to wear on a plane.
So the FAA mandates the junk that doesn’t work, and disallows the gear that does. That’s really unethical if you ask me.
I’ll pay $10K to the first Uber or Lyft executive, public health official, CDC or FDA official, COVID fact checker, or infectious disease professor in the US who has been telling people that masks work to join me on camera to prove that they are right.
The science says there is no effect on virus transmission in either direction for any of the public mask policies
There is simply no scientifically measurable effect on the spread of SARS-CoV-2 for any public mask policy.
There have been just two randomized trials on masks and SARS-CoV-2 (in Denmark and Bangladesh) and both failed to find a statistically significant effect (all the “effects” are just statistical noise). Whoops!
It’s all political theater.
Read the testimony associated with this video of Stephen Petty testifying at the New Hampshire State Senate: “It’s like trying to stop a mosquito with a tennis net.”
It is so obvious that cloth and surgical masks don’t work that even the CDC admits it
Even the CDC admits surgical masks are useless for stopping a virus.
According to the CDC, surgical masks do NOT provide the wearer with a reliable level of protection from inhaling smaller airborne particles and are not considered respiratory protection (Source: CDC, published 8/12/21). Check out the filtration row.
It’s hard to hold public officials accountable
If you’ve been reading my Substack for a while, you know that I have been trying to give away millions of dollars in exchange for a little accountability.
For example, I gave MIT $2.5M and I asked if I could give a talk in the auditorium I funded where I would explain that MIT students were only being told one side of the story. They said no, nobody on the MIT faculty would sponsor me. Are you *#$#($U& kidding me?!!? For $2.5M I can’t get a faculty sponsor to talk about an issue that affects everyone on campus?!?! OK, fine. That goes against science which is supposed to allow narratives to be challenged. No more donations to MIT. I’m done with that.
I also offered $1M to the members of the CDC and FDA outside committees if they would be kind enough to answer a few questions I had. Nobody was interested, not for any amount of money (I changed it to a “name your price” offer). I was bummed.
Recently, at the suggestion of FDNY firefighter Sophe Medina, I offered $1M to NYC Mayor Eric Adams and the top 10 Mayors in the US if they could defend their COVID policies in public. Like my CDC/FDA offer, they would get the money just for showing up! They don’t even have to win the debate. Nobody accepted that one either. Darn!
To be honest, I feel like a failure as a philanthropist. I seem to be unable to reward people for their transparency and for public accountability.
But I always remember the old saying, “if at first you don’t succeed, try, try again.”
So here’s my latest offer.
I’m offering $1M if you can show any scientific proof of a measurable effect that justifies their mask policy
To prove my point that NOBODY actually believes their own policies, I’m going to make an irresistible offer.
I’m willing to bet anyone listed in the section below their public COVID mask policy isn’t justified by science, i.e., the effect, if any, is too small to measure.
Nobody will accept my bet because nobody believes their mask policies are justifiable so nobody is willing and able to defend them. This is why there are no debates (with this one exception which didn’t end well for the senior author of the Bangladesh study).
This is also why they can’t cite a single valid scientific study to justify their mandates. They all blindly trust whatever the CDC says because they are all too busy or lazy or unqualified to check the science for themselves. Check out this article which tells the story of a UCLA medical school Dean who has no time to read the data and admits he just follows whatever the CDC says.
Of course I realize that many people don’t have a spare $1M lying around. However, they can easily borrow the $1M from their friends for a quick 100% ROI. Who could resist that? I’d guess that 90% or more of people are totally convinced masks are effective because the CDC and their doctors say so and they can’t all be wrong, can they? So finding backers should be easier than shooting fish in a barrel.
Steve Perez, $1M is waiting for you
The interim president of San Jose State University wrote the following message where he claims that masks work without any need for any sort of controlled scientific study. That’s impressive.
Steve, I’m calling you out specifically in my offer below.
Individuals who qualify for my $1M bet on COVID mask policy
If your institution requires the public to wear cloth, surgical, or N95 masks to protect against COVID spread, you can accept right here, in public view in the comments and we’ll work out the details of the wager.
To reiterate, my offer is extended to employees/members of the following (all US-based except where noted):
- Uber (employees and drivers)
- Lyft (employees and drivers)
- FAA
- CDC, FDA, NIH
- Any airline
- Any airport
- Any hospital
- Executive management of any US college or university with a mask policy including Steve Perez, Interim President of SJSU
- The executive management of any US company with a mask policy
- The Ireland judge who sentenced a grandmother to 6 months in jail for not wearing a mask
- Any member of Congress or Congressional staff
- Any member of any state legislature in the US
- Any state governors (you can spend your winnings to fund your re-election campaign)
- City Mayors
- Sanjay Gupta (CNN misinformation spreader)
- State and county public health officers
- White House employee
- President of the United States
- Puerto Rican Governor Pedro Pierluisi and his predecessor Wanda Vasquez
- Any professor at any US medical school
- Any judge of any court, including the US Supreme Court
- Any member of the DHS who thinks I’m spreading misinformation or disinformation (this will also prove to the world that nobody at DHS thinks I’m spreading misinformation).
- Any employee of CCDH (this is the organization who officially called me a misinformation spreader) especially their chicken-shit CEO Imran Ahmed who blocked me when I challenged him to defend their list
- Any management or employee of any “fact checker” organization anywhere in the world
- Any bus driver or their management of any busses with a sign saying “No mask, no ride”
- Librarians of any public library where you have to wear a mask to enter the public library.
- ZDoggMD (who is both last and least)
The point is this: None of them truly believes that the mask policies they are responsible for forcing upon us (or promoting) really work.
NONE of these people will put their money where their mouth is. Not a single one.