Table of Contents
Introduction
For many months, accompanying arguments about the effectiveness of face masks, there has been a debate in the scientific community about the significance of airborne transmission of SARS-CoV-2, the virus novel coronavirus that causes COVID-19.
It is recognized that the primary mode of transmission is through larger respiratory droplets that can be expelled by a person coughing, sneezing, or vocalizing. These droplets can travel a certain distance before falling to the ground, which is the basis for the recommendation by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) for maintaining six feet of “social distancing” from others when out in public.
Some scientists, however, have been arguing that there is a significant role for tiny droplets, or aerosols, which can linger in the air longer and travel farther than larger respiratory droplets and can be generated even by just breathing. This is what is known as “airborne” transmission.
The scientific evidence clearly shows that close contact is a strong determinant in transmission risk. The CDC defines “close contact” as being within six feet of someone for fifteen minutes or longer.
The general view among infectious disease experts, including those from the World Health Organization (WHO), is that this strongly indicates that SARS-CoV-2 is not highly airborne transmissible, except possibly under certain circumstances. Specifically, the WHO acknowledges the risk to health care workers from aerosol-generating medical procedures when treating COVID-19 patients. It also has acknowledged the theoretical risk of airborne transmission in crowded and poorly ventilated indoor settings in which aerosols might become concentrated enough to deliver an infectious dose.
Among the scientists arguing that the spread of SARS-CoV-2 via aerosols is a significant mode of transmission in the community setting are physicists conducting mechanistic laboratory studies. They point out that just because proximity is a strong determinant of transmission risk doesn’t mean that aerosols don’t play a significant role. Just because most transmission events are readily explainable by droplet transmission doesn’t mean that aerosols aren’t contributing to infections.
Furthermore, there have been cases in which transmission appears to have occurred over greater distances, which typically involve crowds of people in poorly ventilated indoor environments, such as a restaurant that has no outdoor ventilation but has an air conditioner recirculating the same air over several tables.
Those who argue that SARS-CoV-2 should be considered an airborne virus also criticize the CDC’s social distancing guidelines for not going far enough. They also tend to advocate mask use even in situations where social distancing can be maintained.
Recently, the case for increasing the recommended distance for “social distancing” was elucidated at the 73rd Annual Meeting of the American Physical Society (APS) Division of Fluid Dynamics. A summary of the presenters’ findings was reported in SciTechDaily.
It’s an illuminating article not so much for what it tells us about how SARS-CoV-2 is transmitted but for what it tells us about the troubling cognitive dissonance that exists within the scientific community: some scientists are so intent on communicating the “Be afraid!” message and attaining obedience to government diktats that they fail to comprehend the significance of their own research findings.
The Case for Greater “Social Distancing” Plus Universal Masking
The title of the SciTechDaily article is “Social Distancing Isn’t Enough to Prevent Infection – How to Detect COVID-19 Super-Spreaders”. It reports that “exhalation” produces a turbulent gas cloud that can carry droplets farther than the six feet of distancing recommended by the CDC.
An important factor in determining transmission risk is the means by which droplets are generated: coughing, talking, laughing, or breathing. “Different types of speech can generate drastically different numbers and dynamics of droplets,” a biomedical engineer is quoted as saying.
This helps to explain why some individuals, known as “super-spreaders”, are responsible for most transmission, whereas most infected individuals don’t spread the virus to anyone. (I explained this further in my article “Facebook ‘Fact Check’ Lies about PCR Tests and COVID-19 ‘Cases’”.)
The SciTechDaily article asserts that “there is danger” of infection even from a person standing three meters—or nearly ten feet—away because “their droplets would almost certainly reach you in about a minute.”
A researcher is quoted as saying that studying the physics of these gas clouds has shown “how futile most social distancing rules are once we are indoors”.
The article then explains, “Research in the 1930s analyzed how long respiratory droplets survive before evaporating or hitting the ground. The nearly century-old findings form the basis of our current mantra to ‘stay six feet away’ from others.”
“Current social distancing rules are based on a model which by now should be outdated,” a physicist is quoted as saying.
“In a cold and humid space,” the article explains, “exhaled droplets don’t evaporate as quickly. The hot moist puff produced also protects droplets and extends their lifetimes, as do collective effects.”
Additionally, “Some droplets are more likely than others to make you sick.”
Researchers investigating why this is so “found that some of the most infectious droplets start out at 10 to 50 microns in size.”
One of the researchers is quoted as saying, “With certain assumptions, it appears that if everyone wears a mask that can prevent ejection of all droplets above 5 microns, the pandemic curve could be flattened.”
“Dried droplet residue”, the article adds, “also poses a serious risk: It persists much longer than droplets themselves and can infect large numbers of people if the virus remains potent.”
The way it’s presented in the article, this information sounds pretty alarming. The message is that we should be afraid of others even if they are keeping their distance and are not coughing, sneezing, or talking—and that we should maintain this fearfulness unless they are also wearing a mask.
Yet, if we pause to think about it for a few moments, we can see that the argument presented contradicts the conclusion that SARS-CoV-2 is readily transmissible from distances considerably farther than six feet through aerosols. Indeed, this information supports the conclusion SARS-CoV-2 should not be considered an “airborne” virus given the classical understanding of an airborne virus as one that readily spreads absent close contact.
Furthermore, the argument presented contradicts the conclusion that masks should be used universally by members of the public, even in settings where social distancing is easily maintained.
The Acknowledged Insignificance of Aerosols in Transmission
A valid criticism made by proponents of the hypothesis that SARS-CoV-2 is airborne transmissible is that there is a spectrum of droplet sizes, with no clear cut-off point at which a “droplet” can be distinguished from an “aerosol”. A particle size of under 5 microns has been generally accepted as a rule of thumb for aerosols, but this is somewhat arbitrary.
At the same time, there is a practical distinction between viruses considered to be “airborne” and those that are not. While it is true that aerosols may also contribute to transmission during circumstances of close contact, the practical questions are (a) whether the virus is able to be transmitted at a spatial or temporal distance from a carrier and, if so, (b) whether such spread of the virus accounts for a significant proportion of transmission events or only rarely or never occurs.
It is not clear from the SciTechDaily article whether the physicists whose research is being summarized are arguing that SARS-CoV-2 should be considered “airborne” because transmission can occur over greater distances via aerosols or whether they are presenting a new twist by arguing that larger droplets, too, can infect people at distances beyond six feet.
The article reports the finding that “droplets” can travel farther, but it doesn’t specify whether this is meant to refer to larger droplets or to aerosols.
Adding to the confusion, a visualization is presented with the article showing droplets circulating in a gas cloud extending about 0.7 meters, which is less than three feet, not farther than six. Moreover, the gas cloud is predominantly characterized by smaller droplets, whereas the larger droplets are those that tend to fall more rapidly to the ground in the simulation.
Hence, it appears that these scientists are contradicting themselves by arguing, on one hand, that the CDC’s current social distancing recommendation is insufficient because “droplets” can travel farther than six feet while acknowledging, on the other hand, that it is the larger respiratory droplets and not aerosols that pose the significant risk of infection.
In fact, according to their own reasoning, droplets below 5 microns in size are of such insignificance as a mode of transmission that masks that do not filter them out will still effectively reduce transmission by posing a physical barrier to the larger respiratory droplets.
The Utility (or Lack Thereof) of Face Masks
The suggestion that “the pandemic curve could be flattened” if everyone just wore a mask all the time is not supported by the information presented in the SciTechDaily.
That is not to say that there isn’t a time and a place for mask use. There are certain circumstances in which the scientific evidence suggests it does make sense to wear a mask to reduce the likelihood of droplet transmission.
Indeed, the WHO sensibly advises masks to be worn when there is community transmission and where close contact with others is unavoidable. The purpose is not to protect the wearer but for the wearer to protect others from their own respiratory droplets. This concept, which is different from the use of masks as personal protective equipment (PPE), is known as “source control”.
Health care workers are advised by the WHO to use an N95 respirator, which filters out smaller particles, in contexts where aerosol generating medical procedures are undergone. Surgical masks, on the other hand, have long been understood to be ineffective against airborne transmission but effective as PPE against transmission that might occur from a patient coughing, sneezing, or imperceptibly spitting on the health care worker during conversation.
By the same reasoning underlying the WHO’s advice to wear a mask where close contact is unavoidable, to wear a non-medical mask in circumstances where you aren’t within six feet of others for an extended duration—and you aren’t otherwise likely to be coughed, sneezed, or spit on—is pointless.
Indeed, the WHO observes that policies recommending (or mandating) the universal use of masks in the community setting are unsupported by scientific evidence.
As stated in the WHO’s guidance on mask use, still current as of the writing of this article, “At the present time, the widespread use of masks by healthy people in the community setting is not yet supported by high quality or direct scientific evidence and there are potential benefits and harms to consider.”
The potential harms include the risk of self-infection when worn improperly, which misuse is inevitable when members of the general public who are untrained in their proper use are ordered to wear them to do things like grocery shopping.
You’ll frequently hear the argument for mask mandates that it’s easy to do, so why not just do it? Apart from overlooking the senselessness of wearing a mask in circumstances where there is no risk of transmission and the frightening implications of surrendering liberty and acceding to government such authoritarian control over our bodies, it’s actually a huge inconvenience to wear a mask properly to do things like grocery shopping or eating out in a restaurant. Proper use under such circumstances is practically infeasible.
Indeed, even health care workers appear to have a hard time with proper use. Improper use is one of the explanations for findings from randomized controlled trials that medical masks are ineffective for preventing infection with respiratory viruses.
Again, it has been a longstanding understanding within the scientific community that neither surgical masks nor the kinds of cloth masks that the public have been told to wear by public health officials are effective for preventing aerosol transmission.
At the same time, the highest quality evidence available on the use of masks for preventing transmission of respiratory viruses shows that surgical masks are not effective for preventing infection even in the health care setting.
A systematic review and meta-analysis on mask use published in April by a team of researchers led by Tom Jefferson, a former top researcher for the Cochrane Collaboration who is now with the Centre for Evidence-Based Medicine out of the University of Oxford, included fifteen randomized trials. Their analysis of the available evidence found “no reduction of influenza-like illnesses” in health care workers who wore masks compared to those who did not.
Intriguingly, this was true not only for surgical masks but also for N95 respirators. As Jefferson and his coauthors observed, there was “no difference between surgical masks and N95 respirators” in effectiveness at reducing infection with respiratory viruses.
There was only one study included in their meta-analysis that examined the use of cloth masks, and it found that the rate of influenza-like illness “was higher in the cloth mask arm compared to medical/surgical masks and compared to no masks.”
Notably, the non-medical masks that government officials have ordered members of the public to wear, are not considered PPE by government health agencies, including the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC), the US Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA), and the CDC.
Contrary to the suggestion that transmission could be flattened if only there were universal mask use, a study examining data from 41 countries found that mask mandates had no significant effect on transmission.
That study was described as “The most comprehensive between-country study of masks for COVID-19 infection” by two of the authors of a literature review published on November 20 in the Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews. Also including Tom Jefferson as lead author, this was another systematic review and meta-analysis focusing on evidence from randomized controlled trials.
The key takeaway from the review is, in the words of its authors, that “We are uncertain whether wearing masks or N95/P2 respirators helps to slow the spread of respiratory viruses.”
Their meta-analysis “did not show a clear reduction in respiratory viral infection with the use of medical/surgical masks during seasonal influenza. There were no clear differences between the use of medical/surgical masks compared with N95/P2 respirators in healthcare workers when used in routine care to reduce respiratory viral infection.”
They emphasized the need for large, well-designed randomized controlled trials to determine the effects of interventions including mask use.
Commenting on the findings of their own analysis and the study examining data from 41 countries, two coauthors of the Cochrane review, in an article published at The Conversation, highlighted the lack of strong evidence supporting universal mask use.
“We carried out a comprehensive review of the evidence”, they wrote, “about how face masks and other physical interventions affect the spread of respiratory viruses. Based on the current evidence, we believe the community impact is modest and it may be better to focus on mask-wearing in high-risk situations.” (Emphasis added.)
In other words, just as the WHO has determined, the Cochrane researchers found the idea that masks should be used universally, regardless of variance in individual circumstances, to be unsupported by scientific evidence.
In addition to studies examining the use of masks as PPE, they also included in their review three studies assessing the use of masks as source control, “but none of them found an obvious effect.” (Emphasis added.)
Mechanistic studies conducted in the laboratory find masks to be effective. Epidemiologic studies also find the use of masks as part of a PPE regimen in health care settings to be effective. However, they emphasized, the protective effect of masks “appears diminished in community usage.” (Emphasis added.)
Consequently, “new research is urgently needed to unravel each of the reasons why laboratory effectiveness does not seem to have translated into community effectiveness.” (Emphasis added.)
“Until we have the needed research,” they wrote, “we should be wary about relying on masks as the mainstay for preventing community transmission. And if we want people to wear masks regularly, we might do better to target higher-risk circumstances for shorter periods. These are generally places described by ‘the three Cs’: crowded places, close-contact settings, and confined and enclosed spaces.”
In sum, the evidence on mask effectiveness, too, supports the conclusion that the predominant mode of transmission for SARS-CoV-2 is respiratory droplets as opposed to aerosols, with close contact being a key determinant in transmission risk.
The only published randomized controlled trial to date on the effectiveness of masks for reducing transmission of SARS-CoV-2 in the community setting was conducted in Denmark. Published on November 18 in Annals of Internal Medicine, it found no significant effect of masks in preventing the wearer from becoming infected.
There remain no such studies on SARS-CoV-2 to determine the effectiveness of masks as source control in the community setting.
The Predominant Role of Larger Droplets in Transmission
The SciTechDaily article also relays the argument from physicists that the residue remaining from evaporated droplets persists much longer than the droplets themselves, which poses an infection risk “if the virus remains potent.”
However, the conclusion that the virus doesn’t remain potent once the droplets have evaporated follows from the acknowledgment implicit in their advocacy for face masks that the risk of infection from droplets under 5 microns in size is insignificant.
They argue that cold, humid air increases the risk of transmission because droplets don’t evaporate as quickly, which also implies that aerosols are less important for transmission than larger droplets.
It’s true that temperature and humidity have an effect on the transmissibility of respiratory viruses. This, along with other factors, helps to explain the generally seasonal nature of viruses that cause colds or flu-like illness.
Of course, it’s cold and dry outdoors in the winter, and the risk of transmission outside is low anyway. The significant risk exists indoors, where the air is kept warmer. The article does not comment on the risk if the air is instead warm and humid.
It also does not specify what is meant by “humid”. While it is less humid indoors in the winter relative to the summer, it’s also still more humid indoors relative to outdoors. So what setting, exactly, did the researchers have in mind when they determined that cold, humid air increases the risk? A home that’s poorly heated but has a great humidifier?
It’s a finding that’s difficult to interpret for practical purposes. Notably, studies on influenza have shown that, while the virus remains viable in droplets at both high and low relative humidity, meaning greater than 60 percent or less than 40 percent humidity, respectively, in the intermediate range of humidity, the virus becomes inactivated.
Transmission that occurs from touching virus-laden surfaces is known as “fomite” transmission. While laboratory experiments have shown that the virus can remain viable on various surfaces for extended periods of time, the fomite route, like the airborne route, does not appear to be a significant mode of transmission for SARS-CoV-2 in real world settings.
Apart from the apparent self-contradictions in the argument presented, the physicists appear to be communicating a message of alarm without considering their findings from mechanistic research in the context of the available epidemiologic evidence, which, again, reinforces the conclusion that the risk of infection in the absence of personal close contact is minimal.
There also remains an open question about the infectious dose required for transmission to occur. It does not follow from the premise that the virus can remain viable in aerosols that therefore the risk of airborne transmission at a spatial or temporal distance exists. The physicists are warning about hypothetical risks based on mechanistic studies in which there is no demonstrated transmission.
As noted in a comprehensive review of the evidence on SARS-CoV-2 transmission published in Annals of Internal Medicine in September, “Although several experimental studies have cultured live virus from aerosols and surfaces hours after inoculation, the real-world studies that detect viral RNA in the environment report very low levels, and few have isolated viable virus.” (Emphasis added.)
Additionally, “Strong evidence from case and cluster reports indicates that respiratory transmission is dominant, with proximity and ventilation being key determinants of transmission risk. In the few cases where direct contact or fomite transmission is presumed, respiratory transmission has not been completely excluded.” (Emphasis added.)
The abstract also notes that “The virus has heterogeneous transmission dynamics: Most persons do not transmit the virus, whereas some cause many secondary cases in transmission clusters called ‘superspreading events.’”
Further into the paper, the authors note that “The few studies that have assessed the presence of replication-competent virus with culture have isolated it rarely in air particles of varying size.” (Emphasis added.)
It is true that “distinguishing between droplet and aerosol transmission is difficult in a clinical setting”.
There is also evidence that, “under certain circumstances, including during aerosol-generating procedures, while singing, or in indoor environments with poor ventilation, the virus may be transmitted at a distance through aerosols”.
However, again, there is also “abundant evidence that proximity is a key determinant of transmission risk”. (Emphasis added.)
The clearly increased risk of infection in close contact settings “suggests that classic droplet transmission is more important than aerosol transmission.”
The review authors also observed that the suggestion from some studies that masks are effective for reducing transmission of SARS-CoV-2 also “supports the dominant role of respiratory spread of the virus.”
This is because, again, neither surgical nor cloth masks are recognized as offering significant protection against aerosol transmission. Additionally, while these types of masks might catch larger droplets and thereby prevent them from evaporating into aerosols, directly expelled aerosols can still either pass right through or be ejected from around the edges of the mask.
As the review authors also observed, “There is currently no conclusive evidence for fomite or direct contact transmission of SARS-CoV-2 in humans.”
This is despite many months now of highly intensive scientific research into the transmission dynamics of SARS-CoV-2. So why would this be? The explanation proposed by the review authors is, “On the basis of currently available data, we suspect that the levels of viral RNA or live virus transiently remaining on surfaces are unlikely to cause infection, especially outside of settings with known active cases.” (Emphasis added.)
Conclusion
So, should you be afraid of being infected with SARS-CoV-2 even in circumstances where you are not in close proximity to others for an extended duration of time?
The conclusion that you should be fearful of this in any public setting is unsupported and even contradicted by the information provided. It is a conclusion that does not follow from these researchers’ own findings, as presented by SciTechDaily.
By these scientists’ own acknowledgment, it is the larger respiratory droplets that pose the highest risk of transmission.
According to their own reasoning with respect to utility of masks, the risk of transmission from aerosols is insignificant.
Their own visualization also shows that the larger droplets tend to fall relatively quickly to the ground rather than remaining suspended in the turbulent gas cloud—and the distance that the cloud extends in the simulation is considerably less than the six feet recommended by the CDC.
This is not to say that droplets cannot travel farther than that or even that there’s reason to doubt that this happens. Indeed, it does seem fairly inevitable that finer particles emitted by one person in an enclosed space will eventually reach another person due to dispersion and air circulation. But the physicists’ case is simply not made by the information presented in SciTechDaily.
While certainly smaller droplets that remain suspended in the air for an extended duration can also be carried farther in air currents, such as in the example of droplets being conveyed a distance of three meters in the period of about one minute, the evidence indicates that the risk of an infectious dose being delivered that way is minimal—especially in well ventilated environments (which of course includes the outdoors).
Consequently, the CDC’s recommendation to avoid situations in which you will find yourself within six feet of others for fifteen minutes or more remains sensible, as does the WHO’s recommendation to wear a mask as a courtesy to others in situations where close contact with others is unavoidable.
The idea that we should simply stop living our lives or always wear a mask wherever we go, on the other hand, apart from being dismissive of the threat of authoritarian governance, is also unsupported by the totality of scientific evidence.
Hi Jeremy,
After reading your article I checked the John Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center website where it is reported that 288,716 people in the US have died and over 1.5 million worldwide. Do you ever take the numbers of those whose deaths have been attributed to COVID-19 into account before writing your articles to gauge the relevance of the points you’re trying to make and whether there is any validity to your arguments?
What about… Tuberculosis DEATHS?? Is it not highly contagious? Live? Been isolated? Drops can kill? 1.5 million died in 2018 cdc says. Huh? No masks? No 6ft? Wtf? How come soros or his family aint gettin no vid? Hollywood folks.C E O of big opened for all companies like whole foods? Wait!! THE ultra rich. They aint dying like us useless bottom feeders. Nor are their lived family members old OR young. Very selective “Virus” no???
Genevieve Briand, assistant program director of the Applied Economics at John Hopkins University, critically analyzed the effect of COVID-19 on U.S. deaths using data from the Centers for Disease Control, only to find that there appear to be no excess deaths from COVID-19 in 2020, and that the data has been presented in a misleading fashion.
An article written by Yanni Gu, published on Nov. 22nd, 2020 in the Johns Hopkins Newsletter, a student publication, summarizes Genevieve Briand’s followings in detail as follows:
“According to new data, the U.S. currently ranks first in total COVID-19 cases, new cases per day and deaths. Genevieve Briand, assistant program director of the Applied Economics master’s degree program at Hopkins, critically analyzed the effect of COVID-19 on U.S. deaths using data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in her webinar titled “COVID-19 Deaths: A Look at U.S. Data.”
From mid-March to mid-September, U.S. total deaths have reached 1.7 million, of which 200,000, or 12% of total deaths, are COVID-19-related. Instead of looking directly at COVID-19 deaths, Briand focused on total deaths per age group and per cause of death in the U.S. and used this information to shed light on the effects of COVID-19.
She explained that the significance of COVID-19 on U.S. deaths can be fully understood only through comparison to the number of total deaths in the United States.
After retrieving data on the CDC website, Briand compiled a graph representing percentages of total deaths per age category from early February to early September, which includes the period from before COVID-19 was detected in the U.S. to after infection rates soared.
Surprisingly, the deaths of older people stayed the same before and after COVID-19. Since COVID-19 mainly affects the elderly, experts expected an increase in the percentage of deaths in older age groups. However, this increase is not seen from the CDC data. In fact, the percentages of deaths among all age groups remain relatively the same.
“The reason we have a higher number of reported COVID-19 deaths among older individuals than younger individuals is simply because every day in the U.S. older individuals die in higher numbers than younger individuals,” Briand said.
Briand also noted that 50,000 to 70,000 deaths are seen both before and after COVID-19, indicating that this number of deaths was normal long before COVID-19 emerged. Therefore, according to Briand, not only has COVID-19 had no effect on the percentage of deaths of older people, but it has also not increased the total number of deaths. [emphasis added]
According to new data, the U.S. currently ranks first in total COVID-19 cases, new cases per day and deaths. Genevieve Briand, assistant program director of the Applied Economics master’s degree program at Hopkins, critically analyzed the effect of COVID-19 on U.S. deaths using data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in her webinar titled “COVID-19 Deaths: A Look at U.S. Data.”
From mid-March to mid-September, U.S. total deaths have reached 1.7 million, of which 200,000, or 12% of total deaths, are COVID-19-related. Instead of looking directly at COVID-19 deaths, Briand focused on total deaths per age group and per cause of death in the U.S. and used this information to shed light on the effects of COVID-19.
She explained that the significance of COVID-19 on U.S. deaths can be fully understood only through comparison to the number of total deaths in the United States. [emphasis added]
After retrieving data on the CDC website, Briand compiled a graph representing percentages of total deaths per age category from early February to early September, which includes the period from before COVID-19 was detected in the U.S. to after infection rates soared.
Surprisingly, the deaths of older people stayed the same before and after COVID-19. Since COVID-19 mainly affects the elderly, experts expected an increase in the percentage of deaths in older age groups. However, this increase is not seen from the CDC data. In fact, the percentages of deaths among all age groups remain relatively the same.
“The reason we have a higher number of reported COVID-19 deaths among older individuals than younger individuals is simply because every day in the U.S. older individuals die in higher numbers than younger individuals,” Briand said.
Briand also noted that 50,000 to 70,000 deaths are seen both before and after COVID-19, indicating that this number of deaths was normal long before COVID-19 emerged. Therefore, according to Briand, not only has COVID-19 had no effect on the percentage of deaths of older people, but it has also not increased the total number of deaths. [emphasis added]
COURTESY OF GENEVIEVE BRIAND
Graph depicts the number of deaths per cause during that period in 2020 to 2018.
This trend is completely contrary to the pattern observed in all previous years. Interestingly, as depicted in the table below, the total decrease in deaths by other causes almost exactly equals the increase in deaths by COVID-19. This suggests, according to Briand, that the COVID-19 death toll is misleading. Briand believes that deaths due to heart diseases, respiratory diseases, influenza and pneumonia may instead be recategorized as being due to COVID-19. [emphasis added]
COURTESY OF GENEVIEVE BRIAND
Graph depicts the total decrease in deaths by various causes, including COVID-19.
The CDC classified all deaths that are related to COVID-19 simply as COVID-19 deaths. Even patients dying from other underlying diseases but are infected with COVID-19 count as COVID-19 deaths. This is likely the main explanation as to why COVID-19 deaths drastically increased while deaths by all other diseases experienced a significant decrease.
“All of this points to no evidence that COVID-19 created any excess deaths. Total death numbers are not above normal death numbers. We found no evidence to the contrary,” Briand concluded. [emphasis added]
In an interview with The News-Letter, Briand addressed the question of whether COVID-19 deaths can be called misleading since the infection might have exacerbated and even led to deaths by other underlying diseases.
“If [the COVID-19 death toll] was not misleading at all, what we should have observed is an increased number of heart attacks and increased COVID-19 numbers. But a decreased number of heart attacks and all the other death causes doesn’t give us a choice but to point to some misclassification,” Briand replied.
In other words, the effect of COVID-19 on deaths in the U.S. is considered problematic only when it increases the total number of deaths or the true death burden by a significant amount in addition to the expected deaths by other causes. Since the crude number of total deaths by all causes before and after COVID-19 has stayed the same, one can hardly say, in Briand’s view, that COVID-19 deaths are concerning. [emphasis]
Briand also mentioned that more research and data are needed to truly decipher the effect of COVID-19 on deaths in the United States.
Throughout the talk, Briand constantly emphasized that although COVID-19 is a serious national and global problem, she also stressed that society should never lose focus of the bigger picture — death in general.
The death of a loved one, from COVID-19 or from other causes, is always tragic, Briand explained. Each life is equally important and we should be reminded that even during a global pandemic we should not forget about the tragic loss of lives from other causes.
According to Briand, the over-exaggeration of the COVID-19 death number may be due to the constant emphasis on COVID-19-related deaths and the habitual overlooking of deaths by other natural causes in society. [emphasis added]
During an interview with The News-Letter after the event, Poorna Dharmasena, a master’s candidate in Applied Economics, expressed his opinion about Briand’s concluding remarks.
“At the end of the day, it’s still a deadly virus. And over-exaggeration or not, to a certain degree, is irrelevant,” Dharmasena said.
When asked whether the public should be informed about this exaggeration in death numbers, Dharmasena stated that people have a right to know the truth. However, COVID-19 should still continuously be treated as a deadly disease to safeguard the vulnerable population.”
[Below is a very important and perceptive comment made on the original article posted on the newsletter site that we are including and encourage everyone to read]
“Consider the following figures- US Total deaths by year per CDC:
2013: 2,596,993
2014: 2,626,418
2015: 2,712,630
2016: 2,744,248
2017: 2,813,503
2018: 2,839,205
2019: 2,855,000
2020: as of 11/14 total deaths= 2,512,880
At present the US is experiencing a 1.12% increase in overall mortality rates for 2020- not good- pandemicky numbers to be sure.
However, last year, 2019, there was also a 1.12% increase. Did we miss a pandemic in 2019?
But wait it’s even “scarier”- 2018 saw a 1.22% increase in mortality rates, 2017 saw a 1.24% increase, 2016 1.27% increase, 2015 1.27% increase, 2014 1.29% increase- all exceeding 2020’s increase in mortality rate- so does this mean we have had pandemics for the last 7 years?
Does this indicate non-stop pandemics every year for the last 7 years and we just weren’t paying attention and didn’t have an ‘honest” media to keep us pinned to our beds in a proper state of fear?
And BTW 2013 all the way back to 2009 all showed .09% increases in mortality rates- don’t know where the cutoff is but certainly even these years were “pandemic like” if you feel this year was truly a pandemic.
It isn’t until we go back to the year 2008 that we see a decrease in overall mortality rates in the US. For 20 straight years there were decreases in mortality rates and then in 2009 this changed- since then we have had an increase in mortality rates. Why is that? Could this point to the 2008 economic recession as being the leading indicator rather than some supernatural viral entity?
In reality this year at present seems to be no different in overall mortality rates compared to last year and less of an increase than 5 of the 6 the preceding years. How is this possible during a “pandemic of biblical proportions?”
It’s always important to look at the rates (populations are increasing and rates vary) and overall trends to get a clear picture.
Consider the following figures- US Total deaths by year per CDC:
2013: 2,596,993
2014: 2,626,418
2015: 2,712,630
2016: 2,744,248
2017: 2,813,503
2018: 2,839,205
2019: 2,855,000
2020: as of 11/14 total deaths= 2,512,880
At present the US is experiencing a 1.12% increase in overall mortality rates for 2020- not good- pandemicky numbers to be sure.
However, last year, 2019, there was also a 1.12% increase. Did we miss a pandemic in 2019?
But wait it’s even “scarier”- 2018 saw a 1.22% increase in mortality rates, 2017 saw a 1.24% increase, 2016 1.27% increase, 2015 1.27% increase, 2014 1.29% increase- all exceeding 2020’s increase in mortality rate- so does this mean we have had pandemics for the last 7 years?
Does this indicate non-stop pandemics every year for the last 7 years and we just weren’t paying attention and didn’t have an ‘honest” media to keep us pinned to our beds in a proper state of fear?
And BTW 2013 all the way back to 2009 all showed .09% increases in mortality rates- don’t know where the cutoff is but certainly even these years were “pandemic like” if you feel this year was truly a pandemic.
It isn’t until we go back to the year 2008 that we see a decrease in overall mortality rates in the US. For 20 straight years there were decreases in mortality rates and then in 2009 this changed- since then we have had an increase in mortality rates. Why is that? Could this point to the 2008 economic recession as being the leading indicator rather than some supernatural viral entity?
Khalil,
It seems to me that the means by which the virus is transmitted is highly relevant to the discussion of how best to approach mitigation. I cannot fathom how you would arrive at the opposite conclusion based on those numbers.
Maybe a little off topic. I was wondering if you had the chance to read this study in the NEJM:
Safety and Efficacy of the BNT162b2 mRNA Covid-19 Vaccine:
Original Article from The New England Journal of Medicine — Safety and Efficacy of the BNT162b2 mRNA Covid-19 Vaccine
https://www.nejm.org/doi/pdf/10.1056/NEJMoa2034577
Is this some of the raw data that many researchers have been requesting?
I don’t know what raw data you are referring to that you say many researchers have been requesting.
Sorry. Probably didn’t explain myself very well. I read this article and was wondering if this( Safety and Efficacy of the BNT162b2 mRNA Covid-19 Vaccine) is what other researchers are waiting for:
Peter Doshi: Pfizer and Moderna’s “95% effective” vaccines—let’s be cautious and first see the full data
https://blogs.bmj.com/bmj/2020/11/26/peter-doshi-pfizer-and-modernas-95-effective-vaccines-lets-be-cautious-and-first-see-the-full-data/
In other articles I’ve read researchers had questions, they referred to the information they feel is missing as raw data. Peter Doshi says full data. I would like to know what’s missing because when a manufacturer pays for its own peer review study, red flags go up for me.
Okay, so, no. That is not the data Doshi was referring to. That was an earlier phase trial. Doshi is talking about data from the Phase 3 trials.
I can invalidate all your verbal diarrhea article in two points – there are many more I could use.
1. There is no published peer-reviewed study to this date that shows a virus has been isolated, given to an organism and resulted in COVID symptoms AND death. None. Hasn’t been done. Doesn’t exist.
2. There is no published study anytime, anywhere that shows a flu virus (corona virus) has been proven to be contagious. Doesn’t exist. There are studies that tried to prove it (Spanish flu, Hong Kong flu) and proved that is was NOT contagious.
Inconvenient truths that you either don’t care about or are so ignorant that you have no idea about the actual science.
The question of whether SARS-CoV-2 is the cause of COVID-19 is a separate question from whether SARS-CoV-2 has been isolated. If you’d like to acknowledge that the virus has been isolated, I’d be happy to move on to have that other discussion and show you how you are wrong.
Research from the Human Genome Project has shown that 50% of human DNA is VIRALLY ATTACHED. Further, it has been determined that virus is not alive. Virus turns out to be the metabolic refuse of microbial life – germ poop. A virus is a targeted DNA package; surprise, surprise.
It would appear that “germ theory” is about to take a similar hit as the “stress causes ulcers” myth did.
It should be considered that medical knowledge is doubling at a less than 2 year rate, bound to be more “myths” exposed.