In response to a piece of writing entitled “Surgical Face Masks Were Made For Surgery And Might Not Even Work For That,” a reader has written to share a reason that face masks are good to wear. A reader writes:
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Dear Allan,
I think surgical face mask are at least an important reminder to practice sterile technique, when you have to cut away so many of the natural layers of protection against infection to operate on a patient. There is a certain common sense aspect to it. As to how effective the surgical face mask is, I suspect, but only suspect, it provides limited protection for at least something. Dr. Semmelweis demonstrated the importance of sterile technique rather conclusively. Maternity wards in America today, alas, have a significantly higher rate of infection and complications than his.
Regards,
-A Reader
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Ignaz Semmelweis
Thank you, dear reader, for your note. Ignaz Semmelweis is a hero of mine. My years spent in Central Europe after college have served to further grow my appreciation for him, as I so intimately understand the stultified social environment in which he operates.
Semmelweis believed something bad was on the hands of doctors who walked all day long between the birthing suite and the dissection laboratory, something that was making women of that era sick after childbirth. He suggested hand washing, and proved its effectiveness in that particular situation.
The man sounded crazy to the men of his era who reasoned that the hands of gentlemen doctors could not possibly be dirty, by virtue of the hands being the hands of gentlemen. You could call it the social station theory of disease that they practiced. If you exist in a certain social station you cannot possibly transmit disease.
Semmelweis pointed out that there was a problem with taking your hands out of a cadaver one minute and rushing to the maternity ward the next minute to deliver a baby, with the filthy smell of rotting putrescence still on your hands. Many women were becoming sick in that environment and even dying. Had they simply opted for the standard home-birth with the midwife, they could rest assured that no one would smear cadaver goop either on their baby or on their private parts. But those who wanted to let the learned men of the era deliver their baby received exactly that treatment.
Semmelweis Did Not Prove “Sterile Technique”
To be clear, Semmelweis did not demonstrate that a face mask needed wearing. Also, Semmelweis did not demonstrate the effectiveness of all techniques that contemporary establishment scientists and medical professionals call “sterile technique.” Semmelweis demonstrated that a doctor should wash his hands when moving between cadaver and birthing mother in order to protect the mother from illness. Dear reader, you have taken the concept of sterile technique and used it to fit face masks. Sterile technique has grown into a beast all its own, and the various parts of the technique are not always led by the best science.
The Unfortunate Abandonment Of Nuance Among The Educated
The face mask was already a talisman to some in the medical community before 2020. At the same time, others were willing to point out the limitations of that talisman. The effectiveness of face masks were already understood to be quite limited. Those nuances have all been thrown out the window. Part of my work on face masks is an effort to further highlight those nuances.
This is vital for each of us to understand. We each have tools that we work with in our professional careers and in our daily lives. We must know the purpose of each tool and the limitation of that tool so that we can most effectively use that tool rather than abuse that tool. One definition of abuse is to use something outside of its purpose. I address this at greater length in my forthcoming book Eagle Eye Katie.
Things That Work For Staying Healthy, And Things That Don’t Work (Such As Face Masks)
If you understand the limitations, through sober application of analysis, you can better use the tool as it was intended, and make up for the shortcomings of that tool. For example, a face mask is largely worthless in stopping a person from getting the condition we called Covid-19. However, sleeping a little more, losing weight if overweight, consuming less sugar, and optimizing blood serum vitamin D levels, all help.
By being sober about the limitations of the face mask, we are able to focus on what works.
Diligent use of hand sanitizer, nasal swab tests, and mRNA injections do not make it less likely you will suffer from the condition we called Covid-19, but, again, sleeping a little more, losing weight if overweight, consuming less sugar, and optimizing blood serum vitamin D levels, all help. When we are not sober about the limitations of a tool, we miss the ability to use other tools that work far more effectively at doing what we need.
Surgical face masks exist to stop the doctor from drooling in a patient with an open wound. Surgeons stand over you in a surgery, focusing all their mental efforts on you, head tilted down, mouth slightly open, and like any of us in that position, summoning all our powers of concentration, often enough they actually start to drool — into you. That is why they exist. That is why surgical face masks exist. The rest of the purported powers of face masks are aspirational at best. The purported powers of face masks are far more often disproven, or even a net negative to the wearer of a face mask, as well as a net negative to those around the wearer.
Three Additional Counter-Arguments
I understand the theory you propose, dear reader, but in addition to the above, it does not address the following counter-arguments.
1.) The false sense of security from wearing a face mask — When people believe a mask will do more to protect than it actually does, they will trust in the mask to do the hard work, rather than themselves focussing on basics that actually work. To understand what actually works, we must be willing societally to recognize the mask does not work. While the wearing of a mask may put some on a heightened sense of awareness around sterile technique, I believe it is more likely to be an example of an individual placing faith in a lie. What other lies about sterile technique is that person, then, willing to practice? It is bad for us to allow lies anywhere in our presence. They bring decay. It is not acceptable to force face mask compliance simply because it will make it less likely that a doctor will go from the cadaver to the birthing mother with the filthy smell of rotting putrescence still on his hands. Rather than rely on a lie to enforce that, there are a nearly unlimited number of other tools for encouraging that behavior and which are not based on a lie.
2.) The propensity of a face mask to project saliva — When you sneeze in a mask, the mask projects saliva under greater pressure further and in smaller droplets. It has strangely become common in the post-2020 era to see people no longer covering their mouths when they sneeze in public, whether they be masked or unmasked. This seems to have to do with the several years of mask wearing, and trusting that the mask is fool-proof, because you were told so. Also, seemingly more common at present, is for people not to turn away from others when sneezing. The act of mask wearing seems to have taught society that the mask is enough and that sneezes are not rude to project at another. These are, of course, two separate matters. First — the mask projects a sneeze further. Second — covering of the mouth and turning away during a sneeze does little to “protect” the room from a sneeze, but it is polite. The mask is neither polite nor does it protect from a sneeze, yet some people have come to trust in the mask. In the process of placing the trust in a mask, some people have additionally become poorly re-trained to stop practicing good etiquette around others.
3.) The short-term cognitive impairment experienced by a mask wearer — Detectable cognitive impairment occurs among those wearing a mask. The supra-threshold effects (such as a headache, reduced mental acuity, and drowsiness) are relatively easy to measure. The sub-threshold effects, by their nature, evade detection, but certainly exist. Cognitive effects occur before they are detected. It is fair, therefore, not to want a mask on the driver of your car. It is fair, therefore, to also not want a mask on the person cutting into your body. It is bad, statistically, to have a surgery on a Friday or weekend, rather than a Monday. It is prudent, then, not to schedule a Friday surgery, because you want the best possible outcome from your surgery. It is prudent to want your healthcare provider at his best level of mental acuity, as well, by being unmasked. While, for the sake of brevity, I have limited myself to only three counter-arguments here, for those seeking more thoroughness, I point to some additional 600 counter-arguments against mask wearing in the book Face Masks Hurt Kids.
Getting Down To The Root Of The Matter
Absent God, people will find themselves promoting all kinds of strange ideas in search of meaning. That is at the heart of the mask issue: meaning and control being grasped at by a hurting individual who needs Jesus. We must not be so blind to the core issue, as to entertain discussions such as, “Well, if a mask helps 4% of people in the latest study everyone should wear them.”
We cannot let the lost lead us. They will lead us into a pit. They have no authority to lead. The mask is a distraction. When you are looking into the eyes of a masked person, you are standing in front of a deeply wounded individual who longs to know God, though he or she might not even realize that.
The mask is ultimately a distraction. I know this detail so well, because I once was that person. More than 1,000 people, I estimate, were sent by the Lord to knock on my callous heart during those years. I reacted in all kinds of ways — warmly, gratefully, cruelly, critically, mockingly. I was that hurting human. I needed God. I grasped at many straws in vain in an effort to fill that God-sized hole in my heart. The mask is two things: 1.) An outward symbol of that, 2.) A distraction.
If you stop digging once you reach the mask issue, you are missing the point. A mask should not be allowed in your presence without you using the opportunity to provoke a far more serious discussion. In gratitude, I have found myself surrounded by lions since the Ides of March 2020, who, to this day, even use the mask to provoke far more serious discussions. The face mask on a person’s face is a cry for help. Will you help?
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