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This one page on our website is an exception in that it's mostly not about our Cross Strap Spongy face mask sealer, it is comments on other things about the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic which I did not want to mix in with our pages about our unique face mask sealer or scientific research reports. This page will including things like analysis I haven't seen much of elsewhere, social and political leadership, and major factors in the spread of the COVID-19 coronavirus.
Please feel free to send any comments, including critiques or corrections of anything here or elsewhere on this website, so if I agree then I could revise the website accordingly.
Protect Yourself from the Reckless
Differences Between Countries, East vs. West
Why Do Officials and Governments Get Things So Wrong Despite Abundant Information Otherwise?
I think that lockdowns can be eased without creating a second wave, if they are done right. Lockdowns have given us not only a containment strategy, but also time to prepare for a relaxation.
Lockdowns will eventually need to be relaxed everywhere, though how to do so depends upon the local population and economy.
Already, many people are asking whether the cure is worse than the disease. Many businesses are failing, many people are going hungry, and there are longterm implications to the economy which could be very serious to our wellbeing otherwise. This is worst in places with a lot of unsalaried and poor people who need daily or weekly income. We cannot think only about ourselves.
If I were a politician, I would promote this:
Unfortunately, I'm seeing some places just asking for "social distancing" without masks or other concrete requirements.
Also, in some political protests in the USA for reopening the economy, a large percentage of protesters were not wearing face masks. They should be promoting face masks, if they want to promote an exit route from lockdown to maximize economic gains, as well as gain more sympathy from viewers and minimize risks. I interpreted the lack of face mask usage as probably an act of political defiance, but defiance from the laws of science is not smart.
Eventual exit routes from lockdowns must include usage of good face masks to have the best chance of success. We've had time to prepare, but I'm afraid that officials and political leaders may have not done enough.
There will be people around who defy the rules, or just are not careful enough, and you had better protect yourself as best you can against them.
Because there are so many people who break the rules, this epidemic will not go away until there is a vaccine, which might be a very long time from now. People will still be vulnerable until they are either vaccinated or else infected and survive and have immunity. Lockdowns can eventually reduce the rate of new infections, and reduce the number of currently infected and contagious (after they fully recover and are no longer contagious), to levels which existed at an earlier time, but this virus can come back if controls are relaxed too much.
It doesn't matter how much public education there is, and how many rules there are, many people will still break the rules, either out of desire for something (socializing, dating, gambling, etc.), or not believing the science (for political or religious or some other reason), or just because they don't feel like complying and don't care, or don't feel like complying and can rationalize easily and wrongly, or try to follow the rules but make mistakes with hygiene or wear a bad mask around an infected person. One of the reasons for curfews in some places was to cut out late night social life, such as for addicts.
Many people have said that masks don't protect you significantly, and you can choose to believe that if you wish without critical thinking and more in depth analysis. I don't need to convince people otherwise, and I know that there are many people who I will not convince.
Helping just some people against those idiots is good enough, such as how to make a quality face mask.
I write all this for the people who read and listen and can think by themselves. Hopefully, I can help a lot of people in this world. In any case, at least I've tried my best, and was not careless or negligent. I also won't be asking myself "what if I had tried ..." for the rest of my life, because I did try. I surely won't rationalize a reason not to try.
I am struck by the very high rates of spreading in some countries in the west, vs. low rates in other, Asian countries, as well as the much higher fatality rates in some countries.
I live and work in Thailand, which was the first country outside of China to confirm a case of the COVID-19 coronavirus, oj Nanuary 13, and one of the earliest hit with cases, because it is near China, Thailand is one of the most popular tourist destinations in the world, with Chinese now a main origin of tourists, and Thailand does a lot of business with China. Yet, Thailand is now way down the list in both confirmed cases and fatalities, including a very low rate per million people, with just 2518 confirmed cases and 35 fatalities total over all time up to the time I'm writing this (11 April 2020), compared to 503,177 cases in the US, over 100,000 cases in some other countries in Europe, and hundreds of fatalities PER DAY in some countries. Thailand has only 35 fatalities over all time up to today, while other countries have fatalities totaling in the thousands, some over 10,000 deaths. When viewed as infections and fatalities per million people, it is clear that western countries are doing far worse. So why?
I believe it's largely due to different percentages of face mask usage. Even if a face mask cannot filter 100% of viruses, it can still reduce the virus doses so that maybe those who do get infected so don't get as ill as they would otherwise, if sick at all. (See my page on "minimum infective dose".)
There is no question from the research data that good face masks can filter a lot of viruses to protect the wearer, as well as protect others from the wearer, which can prevent a lot of infections, and also reduce the virus dose.
In Bangkok and its suburbs where I drive around, almost everybody is wearing face masks, and face mask usage has been high since the coronavirus story first came out in the news. Surgical masks at stores quickly fell into short supply, but people made their own DIY home made masks, cottage industry vendors quickly stepped in to provide masks for sale on the streets and in little shops, plus larger scale commercial mask vendors other that surgical face masks had some supplies still available.
In contrast, a business associate I know commented that she flew to the USA and when she got off the airplane, she was shocked to see almost nobody wearing a face mask. Further, her son who lives in the US, told her to take off her face mask! She had just flown in from Asia, but there was neither support for her protecting herself, nor encouragement for her potentially protecting others from herself in case she was an asymptomatic carrier right off the airplane.
Today, already deep into the pandemic, I asked my sister in Texas about face mask usage there, and her reply was that almost nobody was wearing one besides her and her husband, and that they'd seen maybe a total of 10 masks when they went int two cities. Then she went on to tell a story of when she was at the grocery store about 2 miles from where a 45 year old man had already died from COVID-19, and a lady was just walking around coughing openly and nobody was seen expressing any concern while she was acting so smiley and friendly.
Since January, I have seen the disaster in Europe and the US unfold like a train crash in very slow motion, and it is frustrating to see the train speeding down the track insisting there's no significant danger ahead, little competent investigation and preparation, disbelief that things could change much, and very poor initial leadership by health care officials, politicians, and populations. It is frustrating to see these things but people not listening, in denial, and actually looking at you like you're crazy. Well, do you still think I'm the crazy one?
Even if there are face mask shortages, you can wear a scarf around your face, or anything.
It is simply carelessness, recklessness, and laziness. Also, maybe being poorly informed and bad leadership to some extent.
So many people have said that face masks don't really protect you against the virus, or don't protect you 100%. Well, wearing a seat belt in a car does not protect you 100% from injury or death. Many people in accidents who were wearing a seat belt were still injured or killed. So why wear seat belts? Because they can reduce injury and prevent many deaths. Same for face masks. They can reduce the dose of viruses you get, maybe below the "minimum infective dose", so can possibly prevent an infection entirely or else reduce the severity of an infection. It is not a black or white issue.
In both Thailand and the USA, and in many other places, the authorities have been educating the public about cleaning your hands, social distancing, and other things, but there are still huge differences in face mask usage, and from what I've seen in the statistics, there seems to be a correlation between face mask usage and lower rates of spread.
Actually, many people have noted the huge differences between Asian countries and western countries in the spreading of the virus. Why is it so high in far away countries like Italy, Spain, the US, France, etc., yet so low in places so close to China like Hong Kong, Taiwan, Vietnam, Singapore, Thailand, and some other countries? What differences are there between these countries? One of the biggest differences is face mask usage in the general public.
Some people who have resisted face mask usage have alleged that the difference in confirmed cases is largely because some advanced countries have done more testing. From the statistics I've seen, and my analysis, it's apparent that's note true, noting the above Asian countries have had fairly good testing and case tracing, including Thailand, from the beginning. For some African countries and elsewhere, yeah, but not in much of Asia, which is highly advanced and industrious.
In statistics below, you can see that Thailand has done 29 COVID-19 tests per person confirmed infected, versus just 5 for the USA, so that implies that Thailand has tested relatively well. Due to limitations on deploying test equipment, tests have tended to focus on people who are sick, to see whether they are sick from COVID-19 or something else. The USA has far more sick people, so you would expect more tests for that reason. When Trump says the US has tested more people than any other country, that would be expected, but it doesn't mean more tests per capita, or better testing.
Also, in Thailand, when a hospital confirms an infection as COVID-19, then authorities try to trace where the person was infected, and who they may have gotten the infection from. The officials in Thailand are still able to trace most new cases, such as a particular infected family member or friend or coworker, a particular sporting event (there are some which account for a big chunk of cases, both attendees and their associates later), or people who arrived in from overseas (who account for a lot of cases) and their immediate associates. When people get sick and are tested for COVID-19, and found to be infected, a high percentage of the infections can still be traced. However, many cannot, and 29% are still either just people working in or visiting crowded places or else still under investigation or just unknown. These are discussed in the media when there are new daily statistics, and also displayed on a government website. I consider that 71% to be fairly good tracing.
The lower spreading in Thailand is also not due to lockdown, because Thailand's lockdown has not been as strict as some places in Europe which were hit hard by the virus, mainly because Thailand has a high percentage of relatively poor people in nonsalaried, informal employment who must work day to day to survive, so the government has not been too strict in its lockdown, trying to balance the risks of the virus vs. the risks of poverty of many people.
"Google has recently published fascinating data on the reduction of activity in various sectors of the economy. Google's results show disruptions to normal life are less severe in East Asia."BP-1
Among confirmed infections, the mortality rate thus far in the USA is 3.7% which is more than twice that in Thailand at 1.4% even though the two have very different health care systems. In some European countries, the mortality rate is over 10% among confirmed infections. (However, all these statistics are rough, because many people who are infected but have no symptoms or who have symptoms so mild that they don't get tested and thus are not included in the statistics would mean a lower mortality rate, but on the other hand many current infections will become fatal which means the numbers will go up on that account, so overall, mortality rates are not to be seen as exact, they are to be seen as approximate ratios.) Is the difference in mortality rates partly due to a higher infectious dose from not wearing face masks?
So, looking at things in terms of both infections and deaths per million people, we have to ask why there is such a big difference between Asia and western countries. We can analyze many factors, but the biggest difference is simply usage of face masks. Therefore, it makes sense to me that we should (1) encourage face mask usage, and (2) work on making face mask designs to be more effective.
Here is the data as of April 11, 2020:
Source of data for some columns: Worldometers
Some columns are calculations by me.
Wearing a face mask is not a big deal. Why not take the precaution?
We need better leadership in some places in the world.
The Thai Prime Minister has long been photographed with a face mask on and has been on TV speaking while wearing a face mask as a role model, yet Donald Trump stands with his top American medical bureaucrats with nobody wearing a mask, and how many western leaders have you seen wearing a face mask? Which is better leadership?
The US Surgeon General on February 29 tweeted:
"Seriously people- STOP BUYING MASKS!
"They are NOT effective in preventing general public from catching #Coronavirus, but if healthcare providers can’t get them to care for sick patients, it puts them and our communities at risk!"
I would like to openly reply that if the general public wore face masks, then healthcare providers wouldn't have so many sick patients!
There are others in the US who have simply repeated this advice, that face masks are not effective, which goes so blatantly against common sense that it's shocking, and of course goes against scientific research data.
There are bad leaders in both parties. For example, the Democrat Mayor of New York City, Bill de Blasio, stated on Twitter: "Since I’m encouraging New Yorkers to go on with your lives + get out on the town despite Coronavirus, I thought I would offer some suggestions. Here’s the first: thru Thurs 3/5 go see 'The Traitor' @FilmLinc. If 'The Wire' was a true story + set in Italy, it would be this film." Despite criticism, he later persisted in a press conference, "So again, want to come back to this point, occasional contact, glancing contact, temporary contact, it does not, from everything we know about coronavirus, lead to transmission. It needs to be prolonged, you know, if not intimate, at least prolonged, constant contact." (source: National Review story)
As late as March 4, Dr. Oxiris Barbot, the commissioner of the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, stated "There’s no indication that being in a car, being in the subways with someone who’s potentially sick is a risk factor, because, again, it goes back to the issue of casual contact." (source: National Review story) I ask again, no "indication"???
And governor Andrew Cuomo on March 2: "...But the facts don’t back it up here. . . . What happened in other countries versus what happened here, we don’t even think it’s going to be as bad as it was in other countries." (source: National Review story) So, Mr. Cuomo, what's different, scientifically? Do the laws of physics recognize national borders? Of course, less than a month later and he's proven wrong, as now the US is the first to have passed the 100,000 cases statistic, and it hasn't slowed down.
No wonder New York City is in such bad shape now, with "expert" and political leadership in New York like that.
Many other US states performed much better. Many have stepped up to at least protect their own state with lockdowns of their particular states, regardless of the national leadership. Thank goodness for decentralized power to the states. However, the responses have varied widely from state to state, from strict rules to loose advisories, and many states have done very little as of now.
The US did not take the virus seriously enough in its early stages, and continued to blunder. That's why the US eventually became the epicenter of the virus. The world can question US leadership even more than before. The pandemic there is a constant reminder of that leadership question now.
The World Health Organization (WHO) has misled people. It was downplaying airborne transmission. Indeed, when other people were wearing face masks and cautioning against airborne transmission, just like with other viruses, the WHO tweeted this, as late as March 29:
Can you believe it? "FACT CHECK: COVID-19 is NOT airborne" ... Wow. And that was tweeted on March 29. (The stamped out "8 hours" is questionable as regards infectious dose, but to go further and say COVID-19 is NOT airborne at all is incredible.)
Elsewhere on this website, such as on the minimal infective dose page, I discuss the airborne nature of COVID-19 referencing scientific research studies, which strongly counters this WHO statement.
WHO obviously is NOT helping the situation. Why is the WHO ignoring the overwhelming scientific literature on the topic, carefully cherrypicked its own sources, and not considering the advice of scientists who have disagreed with the WHO -- and also still issuing such a strong opinion?
In one of the papers I cited on airborne transmission elsewhere on this website, I noticed that the author rather politely notes: "During the 2009 H1N1 pandemic, for example, a United States Institute of Medicine (IOM) panel recommended that healthcare workers in close contact with influenza patients wear respirators to avoid infectious aerosols [5]. This recommendation was subsequently adopted by some health authorities such as the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), but not by others, such as the World Health Organization (WHO)." Lindsley-et-al-1 Note that they're talking about the year 2009. The scientists note that "... the issue remains controversial" back then. It hasn't changed now, more than 10 years later. WHO is who they are in nature, haven't changed.
Many other scientists have not been so polite towards the WHO.
Even if the WHO disagrees, the WHO should at least respect the opinions of other experts, and not issue such strong statements against others.
I went to the WHO website to try to find out any basis to their conclusions, and was also curious to read any references of theirs so that I could gain a better scientific understanding. You can, too.
On the main WHO website, they guide you to a page titled "Advice on the use of masks in the context of COVID-19" WHO-face-masks-1 . On it, they state "There is limited evidence that wearing a medical mask by healthy individuals in the households or among contacts of a sick patient, or among attendees of mass gatherings may be beneficial as a preventive measure. 14-23" (Their references 14-23, not mine.) I went through all 10 references. I didn't see support for their statement. I saw some which contradicted their statement.
"The use of masks was strongly protective. ... Our finding that mask use lowered the risk for disease supports the community’s use of this strategy." their reference 22) "Our findings show a significant reduction in the rate of ILI [influenza-like illness] among participants randomized to the face mask and hand hygiene intervention during the latter half of the study period, ranging from 48% to 75% when compared to the control group." (Their 17) "... a reduction of 67% in influenza infection when masks were donned within 36 hours of the index case's symptom onset." (Their 17 referencing their 15) "... less contacts became symptomatic in the ‘mask’ tents compared to the ‘control’ tents (31% versus 53%" (their 18) "frequent mask use in public venues, frequent hand washing, and disinfecting the living quarters were significant protective factors" (their 21) "Facemask use seems to be beneficial against certain respiratory infections at MGs" (MG = Mass Gathering, their 23)
Some studies didn't look strongly relevant. Some were more like surveys than laboratory experiments. There was not laboratory verification in some of them. Some were home studies where they engaged with already sick people coming to clinics and then went to give out masks to some of their households but not to other households, and then compared infections of others in those households. Compliance of household people was an issue. (I had already seen some studies like this elsewhere, where compliance was an issue, so I didn't rely on their data, though found their studies very interesting and relevant in other ways.) Questionaires were relied on. As noted on my page on minimal infective dose, people have a much higher viral load and high contagiousness before they become sick, that is, before their immune system kicks in. What makes you feel really bad is your immune system after it has kicked in already ... and brought down the viral load. I found it very interesting the very low transmission rates overall, mask or no mask, from the housemates of somebody already sick and returning home from the clinic where they were recruited. Anyway, mask usage was still found to be beneficial in some studies. Weak statistical significance issues were raised in some. One study was cut short after it was started, and it was surprising that WHO referenced it (their 19).
These were all good and interesting studies. I am not criticizing the reports of the other scientific researchers. I just don't think the results support WHO's own statement.
The statement of WHO above was followed by this one: "However, there is currently no evidence that wearing a mask (whether medical or other types) by healthy persons in the wider community setting, including universal community masking, can prevent them from infection with respiratory viruses, including COVID-19." (No references cited after that sentence.)
"... the wide use of masks by healthy people in the community setting is not supported by current evidence and carries uncertainties and critical risks."
WHO repeatedly states a social distancing of 1 meter, e.g., "Any person who is in close contact (within 1 m) with someone who has respiratory symptoms (coughing, sneezing) is at risk of being exposed to potentially infective respiratory droplets." "... maintain physical distance of at least 1 m from other persons, in particular from those with respiratory symptoms (e.g., coughing, sneezing);..."
Regarding COVID-19 in particular, the WHO also relied heavily on Chinese statements early on. Anything from the Chinese government should be questioned. After all, the Chinese police harassed one of the first doctors to blow the whistle about this virus, accusing him of falsely alarming the public, has a history of political interference in reporting about the virus, and maintains a lack of transparency.
While I disagree with President Trump on many matters, I happen to agree with him that the WHO got it wrong and gave bad advice, and was also too "China centric". If I had been President, then I, too, would have moved the funding away from WHO and to other organizations which I trusted more to handle the COVID-19 coronavirus outbreak.
Both the WHO and the Chinese government suffer from authoritarianism, and then political defense of faulty positions and the political groups responsible for them.
I have seen an awful lot of this in my life before, when I was working in Washington, D.C., for both domestic and international organizations. (My work has ranged from advanced planning for various parts of national security, to international humanitarian aid and relief organizations.) I'm also well read on matters beyond my own realm, with a better understanding, as the patterns are quite similar.
Organizations tend to have two tracks -- the "technical" track and the "management" track.
The management track tends to be much more political and less technical. Those are the people you usually see in the public limelight, often with big egos. There are often political appointees at the top, promotions based on loyalty rather than competency (including sometimes promotions of people unlikely or unable to challenge the appointers above them), and a groupthink at the top among agreeable people. "Urban legends" can get established there.
The technical track is often at odds with the management / political track. The technical track is the researchers and others way down in the trenches.
Most importantly, we must consider all analyses and weigh them all, and change opinion if the data says so, not just take a position and pick only references which support our position while ignoring others. This is not politics, this is a virus following the laws of physics. This should not be about leaders and positions, it should be about the best interests of the general public.
Once a group of high level people have taken a position, in many organizations it is difficult for them to admit they were wrong, subject themselves to criticism, and put their own careers and political agendas at risk. With some organizations, leaders will defend their positions and narratives to the bitter end, regardless to the damage to the public. Sometimes, it's reasonable to ask are they linked to any financial / contracting special interests?
If you believe that all high level people will put the national interest or public interest above their own, you're wrong. Countless times, I have seen high level people putting their own careers, monetary interests, and political agendas first, which at the same time does not serve the national or public interest, and sometimes compromises the public interest and their job purpose. I have seen this in humanitarian organizations, national security, and other realms, and you can see it plainly in politics as well as cases of corruption. The vast majority of it does not go public, and remains hidden. There are nonetheless many books out there detailing a lot of it, but only a tiny percentage of the population read them, and well under a voting majority.
Many people in society are lazy or ignorant and like to simply trust established authorities. Indeed, a lot of the support for President Trump is people who tend to like an authoritarian strongman, and just continue to be "true believers", and not see so many of his obvious faults, like it's "fake news".
People on the technical track tend to be more cautious in their language, e.g., evidence "indicates", or something is "probably", and so on, whereas authoritarian people tend to be overconfident and conclusive, even when they are obviously ignorant. Many people will believe the people who seem confident and give them simple conclusions.
Not many people in this world would read this website, much less trace WHO's references or other scientific research. Many will simply follow authorities. If they follow WHO's advice on face masks, then they are putting the rest of us at risk.
As regards leaders, who are all too human, the instincts for "status" or "ego" play a big role in defending their positions.
Further, many people with credentials as doctors were also asserting their somewhat authoritative credentials, stepping up into the public limelight on this occasion and just repeating what other faulty authorities were saying, when it was obvious to me (from their choice of words) that they actually did not understand the physical details, and were simply grabbing public limelight.
So the "controversy" continued, with many researchers saying we probably should be a lot more careful about aerosol transmission and questioning the WHO, only to be hit back with simple authoritarian statements which were obviously contrary to the research results.
This is politics, money, and the selfish and self-centered nature of the human species.
It is not easy to do what is best for the community or the world when it requires we sacrifice personally.
Now the WHO wants more money, and who within WHO benefits from that? They now have the "COVID-Solidarity Response Fund for WHO" for anybody to donate to.
My strong recommendation is to instead donate to your local organizations, and if your locality is not hit hard, then to carefully select local organizations elsewhere in need -- and research them first.
Likewise, I recommend that policy makers and officials in all countries do your own independent research and apply your critical thinking skills towards WHO and others.
As regards individuals, you have to protect yourself against the wild and crazy nature of others, and understand the nature of our species. There will always be crazy leaders, and reckless people around us.
As for myself personally, I don't need to convince you or anybody, but I do want to present this information to many busy and considerate people who don't have the time or scientific experience to find and read research reports, so at least people have an opportunity to read an analysis which might not be consistent with what you've heard elsewhere, and take precautions accordingly, which may reduce the impact of the pandemic, for yourself and your own family and associates, as well as for the world.
At least I know I've tried to do my best.
Many people go by feelings which are actually animal instincts (status, ego, mating, excessive consumption...), rather than use the intellectual part of their minds which often tell us things we may not want to hear or believe. However, it's important to look at the purpose of life, the big picture, and our place in the world and the universe within our generation.
We are the most advanced species on Earth, and many may think that humans are great, but as a whole we fall far short of saints, and we are lowly animalistic for the most part. As a whole, we have proceeded to trash the environment callously, and indulge ourselves. Many fight to the death over their concept of "God", their own dogmatic authority, against others, not love and tolerance. I try to keep my focus on the people who try to do good, such as the environmentalists, who are themselves often under attack by special interests. There are so many good people in this world, and it is alarming to me when the authorities don't heed their guidance, and may even go against them because it does not conform to the position of the authorities who try to defend their positions on the top of the food chain and social pecking order.
So, if you can't save the world this year, then maybe you can save yourself and those you love, including the many good strangers out there on the internet.
Please feel free to send me a message or at least drop me a quick line on my contact form, even if anonymously.
| References and Footnotes: | |
| Ref: BP-1 | |
| Ref: CDC-1 | |
| Ref: Lindsley-et-al-1 | |
| Ref: Natl-Rev-1 | |
| Ref: Neeltje | |
| Ref: NPR-1 | |
| Ref: WHO-1 | |
| Ref: WHO-face-masks-1 | |
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