Kids Are Not A Biohazard — Dirty Face Masks On The Ground Are The True Biohazard
Reason #176 that Face Masks Hurt Kids
Dear Reader,
The wearing of a face mask to protect against a respiratory virus is an act of grand deceit. It is a behavior that defies research on the topic. Wearing a face mask, as this article (one of many) points to — is unsafe to do and is ineffective.
Until the narrative around mandatory masking has changed, each day by 6am Eastern, I will both post here and send out a science-based reason why no one should wear a face mask.
I ask that you help me circulate these pieces to those around you who you believe could most benefit from them. It is important not to remain silent on this topic. These are important discussions to be having with friends, family members, business owners, healthcare practitioners, public servants, and others in the community.
-Allan
Children are not a biohazard. Used face masks are a biohazard and suddenly they seem to appear in every grocery store parking lot and every busy urban sidewalk. We are supposed to treat this as acceptable, when this is really another reason these awful one-size-fits-all, heavy-handed public health policies should be done away with, and those who implemented them permanently removed from all positions of public trust.
Further elaborating on the concerns of the previous chapter, in the article “Covid-19: Each discarded face mask is a potential biohazard,” James H. Bamber and Tracey Christmas state:1
“Javid and colleagues say that ‘population benefits are plausible and harms unlikely’ if the public are encouraged to wear face masks.2 In one week (17-24 April) both of us, however, came across discarded surgical face masks on public roads on our way to work. On a single day, one of us (TC) came across six discarded masks on a cycleway. This is before any encouragement from the government for the public to wear masks. Each of these discarded masks represents a potential biohazard3 that must be managed in a similar way to discarded hypodermic needles and syringes.”
These authors properly point to the biohazard that face masks are. They are a breeding ground on which normal bacterial load in, on, and around a person is concentrated. Without face masks, this biohazard would not exist. Normal human interaction is not dangerous the way face masks are. Without face mask mandates, these biohazards would be far less in number. The policy creates biohazards all around us, which would otherwise not exist. If face masks are to be worn, they should be treated as the biohazard that they are. Even better, though, is to not wear the unsafe and ineffective things.
Bamber and Christmas also point to other concerns with this biohazard:
“Such as contamination by touching the mask then touching other surfaces and fomites.”
And while the incorrect wearing of a mask has been covered elsewhere in this book, Bamber and Christmas point to their own experiences in hospital settings with improper mask use among trained personnel.
“Additionally, the value of masks to protect other members of the public is diminished if they are incorrectly worn. As anesthetists we have seen other health professionals in our hospital wear masks in a variety of ways — below the nose, on the chin — because of the discomfort they cause.”4
Appropriately, given this firsthand experience Bamber and Christmas cite, they seek to limit expectations for anyone who thinks the general public is going to wear a mask properly when highly trained professionals do not:
“Why should we expect the public to exhibit greater care in their mask wearing to ensure that the benefits outweigh the risks?”
The face mask biohazard is harmful to the wearer and to others in a way that a healthy human simply is not. Here is yet another reason why no one should wear, or be around, an unsafe and ineffective face mask, least of all your children.
Bamber J H, Christmas T. Covid-19: Each discarded face mask is a potential biohazard BMJ 2020; 369 :m2012 doi:10.1136/bmj.m2012
Javid B, Weekes MP, Matheson NJ. Covid-19: should the public wear face masks?BMJ2020;369:m1442. doi:10.1136/bmj.m1442 pmid:32273278FREE Full TextGoogle Scholar
Chughtai AA, Stelzer-Braid S, Rawlinson W, et al. Contamination by respiratory viruses on outer surface of medical masks used by hospital healthcare workers. BMC Infect Dis2019;19:491. doi:10.1186/s12879-019-4109-x pmid:31159777CrossRefPubMedGoogle Scholar
Shenal BV, Radonovich LJ Jr., Cheng J, Hodgson M, Bender BS. Discomfort and exertion associated with prolonged wear of respiratory protection in a health care setting. J Occup Environ Hyg2012;9:59-64. doi:10.1080/15459624.2012.635133 pmid:22168256CrossRefPubMedGoogle Scholar”
The bestselling book "Face Masks In One Lesson" by Allan Stevo describes how to never wear a face mask again. The follow-up to the book, "Face Masks Hurt Kids," describes why to never wear a face mask again. We must defeat the awful, narrative around the mandates.
Examples of how face masks hurt kids will be posted to the Lockdown Land Substack each morning by 6am Eastern until the narrative around this ineffective and harmful medical intervention has shifted. Face masks are, in fact, not just harmful to children. Face masks are harmful to everyone. Thank you so much for helping me circulate this research.