Here’s Where The President Got His Latest Dumb Anti-Mask Talking Point
"The Pandemic’s Wrongest Man -- [ Alex Berenson ] "
Note this from 2020. Posted as just one more example of misinformation arising from a deliberate or misguided misinterpretation of study data.
US President Donald Trump holds masks before throwing them to supporters as he arrives to hold a Make America Great Again rally as he campaigns at Orlando Sanford International Airport in Sanford, Florida, October 12... MORE
President Donald Trump on Thursday night cocked his head and spewed viral misinformation all over the American people, potentially infecting millions with a bit of anti-mask propaganda completely void of scientific substance.
On two separate occasions Thursday night, the President said that the CDC reported “that 85% of the people that wear masks catch it” — that is, catch COVID-19. He made the same claim earlier Thursday, telling a largely maskless rally crowd that “85% of the people wearing the masks catch it.”
That statistic and similar ones have gripped the COVID truther community in recent days, and, as has often been the case during this pandemic, emerged from a wildly misconstrued real report.
[Insert: Trump would pick up much of his bs from similar sources to those misinformation mongers as dropdeadfred gets his from, either directly or indirectly. Study results are published. An anti-vaxxer misrepresents the data on Facebook or twitter, wherever. It goes viral in certain conservative circles. Trump and or dropdeadfred jumps on to it.]
What the report really emphasized — shocker — is that people were more likely to have tested positive for COVID-19 if they 1) went out to eat or drink at a restaurant or bar, and 2) were in close contact with someone else who has COVID-19.
“Findings from a case-control investigation of symptomatic outpatients from 11 U.S. health care facilities found that close contact with persons with known COVID-19 or going to locations that offer on-site eating and drinking options were associated with COVID-19 positivity,” the report noted.
“Adults with positive SARS-CoV-2 test results were approximately twice as likely to have reported dining at a restaurant than were those with negative SARS-CoV-2 test results.”
The mask disinformation comes from distorting some numbers that were also included in the report. Specifically, this bit:
The column on the left represents those who tested positive for COVID, the column on the right is the control group.
There are some inherent flaws in relying on responses to small surveys like this, specifically that people feel social pressure to lie and report wearing a mask more often than they did. But even accounting for that, the data in fact show that the non-COVID control group wore masks “always” and “often” in greater numbers than COVID patients surveyed: 88.7% versus 85%.
Nonetheless, anti-maskers in recent days have used these numbers to tell a different story: 85% of the infected respondents wore masks “always” or “often,” they say — so what good are masks!
And yet, here we are: The only way to conclude from this report that mask wearing is ineffective is through a misreading of the numbers. And boy, the Internet is chock full of that.
One Facebook post on Monday .. https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10224115197886612&set=a.10200959846577301&type=3 .. that was shared nearly a thousand times claimed of the report, “This means that people who wear masks, are actually ‘collecting’ the virus in their masks” and “A clear indication there is a correlation to more infected people wearing masks than those who do not.”
Facebook flagged the post as “false information,” but it was hardly the only one.
Former TV journalist Ben Swann, for example, falsely said on his platform Truth In Media .. https://ise.media/video/new-cdc-study-70-always-3-never-wore-face-masks-contracted-covid-43.html .. Tuesday that “that’s what this study seems to be showing, that those who always wear the face masks or often wear the face masks seem to be putting themselves at more of a risk for contracting a virus. The study does not explain to us why this is.”
“We know the masks don’t protect you…” said popular anti-masker Justin Hart of the report, “but at some point you have to wonder if they are PART of the problem.” --- So the CDC just reported that 70% of those who came down with #COvId19 symptoms had been wearing a mask. We know the masks don’t protect you… but at some point you have to wonder if they are PART of the problem. pic.twitter.com/jknfZBqGxC .. https://t.co/jknfZBqGxC
— Justin Hart (@justin_hart) October 11, 2020 --- Some just selectively left out the crucial context in the report: Non-COVID patients reported more mask-wearing, but more importantly, less attendance at restaurants and proximity to sick people!
“There’s a tremendous amount of conflicted data there, including one that just came from the CDC, that identifies — this is their own report — that 70-plus percent of the people who died always wore masks in public!” he said.
For all of the nonsense surrounding this report, its conclusion is simple, and the exact opposite of what Trump and others have cited it to say: “Exposures and activities where mask use and social distancing are difficult to maintain, including going to locations that offer on-site eating and drinking, might be important risk factors for SARS-CoV-2 infection.” 169
Matt Shuham(@mattshuham) is a reporter in TPM’s New York office. Prior to joining TPM, he was associate editor of The National Memo and an editorial intern at Rolling Stone.
Fact Check-COVID-19 vaccines do not weaken people’s immune systems ‘like chemotherapy’
"The Pandemic’s Wrongest Man -- [Alex Berenson] [...] * He has blamed the vaccines for causing spikes in severe illness, by pointing to data that actually demonstrate their safety and effectiveness. * He has blamed the vaccines for suppressing our immune systems, by misrepresenting normal immune-system behavior. * He has suggested that countries such as Israel have suffered from their early vaccine rollout, even though deaths and hospitalizations among vaccinated groups in Israel have plummeted. * He has implied that for most non-seniors, the side effects of the vaccines are worse than having COVID-19 itself—even though, according to the CDC, the pandemic has killed tens of thousands of people under 50 and the vaccines have not conclusively killed anybody."
By Reuters Fact Check December 14, 20215:21 AM Updated 9 months ago
A British funeral director who has previously spread misinformation online has made multiple false claims about COVID-19 vaccines and their side effects in a video shared widely on social media.
The footage has attracted hundreds of thousands of views on Twitter (here), and tens of thousands of views on Facebook and Bitchute (here, here, here, here, here and here , here, here, here and here).
It features Milton Keynes-based John O’Looney, who claims COVID-19 vaccines stop immune systems from fighting off the Omicron variant, which he says is another name for the common cold.
O’Looney also compares this alleged effect to chemotherapy, a treatment for cancer that can hinder immunity due to reducing white blood cells produced by the bone marrow (here .. https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/chemotherapy/what-happens/ .. and here).
“So, they’ve had the jabs maybe six to eight months ago and it’s been eating away at their immune system – and now they’re struggling to fight off things like the common cold,” O’Looney says in the clip.
“The government are very quick to label it the Omicron… they’re sick with the common cold. Their immune system is decimated.
“If you think about it logically much like, for example, a cancer patient. So, when you get a cancer patient and they’re on chemotherapy, it decimates their immune system and one of the things that they have to be extremely careful of, is - because they’ve got no immune system - a basic common cold or flu can kill them. And this is what we’re seeing now in these jab recipients up and down the country.”
“COVID-19 vaccines do not weaken your immune system’s ability to respond to other infections so getting your jab will not make you more susceptible to colds or flu,” said Dr Doug Brown, chief executive of the British Society for Immunology.
“After COVID-19 vaccination, your immune system is just as able to fight off infections by cold or flu viruses, and it will be better prepared to protect you against COVID-19.”
Meanwhile, Professor Neil Mabbott, personal chair in immunopathology at the University of Edinburgh, said O’Looney’s claim was “very dangerous” and the reality of the shot’s effect was “quite the opposite”.
He told Reuters: “There have been several key studies showing how our immune response to the coronavirus vaccine is significantly strengthened by subsequent booster vaccinations… Our experience is showing that a third COVID-19 vaccine provides high levels of immunity, and this is the rationale for the current booster programme in the UK.”
Explaining why the common cold may be in wider circulation this year, he added: “Last winter we were in lockdown and social mixing, especially indoors, was very limited. This was very effective in limiting the spread of the coronavirus but also had other consequences. At the same time, it reduced our exposure to common cold viruses. Cases were very low indeed, meaning that the annual immunity top-up we normally received through virus infection did not occur.
“Unfortunately, our natural protection to the common cold will have declined to some degree, and this is reflected in the reports of increased severity of symptoms. But this is not at all due to impacts of the COVID-19 vaccination on our immune systems.”
A spokesperson for the University of Oxford COVID-19 Vaccine Team said: “There is no truth at all that vaccines weaken the immune system and that this causes death. This suggestion goes against every scientific principle of vaccination.”
VERDICT
False. COVID-19 vaccines do not weaken immune systems and leave recipients more susceptible to the common cold or flu.
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