Emails for the month of November 2020 have now been posted. Here is the Introduction. I call it The Masquerade
The diary for my first year as a Covid innocent is drawing to a close. Overnight, we all became amateur virologists, epidemiologists, psychologists ... Informed (or even uninformed) outsiders took an unhealthy interest in the defining features of this game and those who had imagined they were going to run the show became uneasy. Inevitably, a lot of professional noses were put out of joint. The little people were asking questions they were never supposed to ask. More questions, I think, than our Masters ever anticipated. Perhaps they should have read that folk story about letting things out of bottles, but I won’t go there.
Did you know that there existed in the UK a well-honed plan for what to do in a pandemic? The only question worth asking in 2020 was why wasn’t it used? Did anyone ask? If so, there has not been a convincing answer yet (and no, the fact that “Covid” and ‘flu” are different words won’t quite do). I have worked with the people who do such things in the UK - they are generally brilliant. The best, honestly, and I imagine their equivalents in France are equally good. The UK document is a model of its kind and you can easily find it on the web as “The UK Influenza Pandemic preparedness strategy, in its 2011 instantiation:
(https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/213717/dh_131040.pdf).
You will have worked out by now that I have a particular interest in “masks”. For personal reasons, because I am profoundly deaf, but also for professional reasons, because I have spent my academic career trying to understand the cognitive process called reading. It is a subject I shall return to, but please be warned right now, our collective failure to follow the plan may well have made reading a lost art. Do you care about that?
The Pandemic Plan had quite a bit to say about the use of facemasks and respirators, agreeing they “have a role in providing healthcare worker protection, as long as they are used correctly and in conjunction with other infection control practices.” Masks (by which they don’t mean bits of old pants run up on the sewing machine) provide a modest physical barrier to large droplets (sneezes and the like). You may recall the newspapers told us more than we really wanted to know about those “droplets” without really explaining. Perhaps they thought we already knew - "droplets" are the bits of high velocity flying snot and goo that hit you in the face if somebody sneezes on you. I suppose they meant "if you must sneeze, sneeze into your mask" - a proposal I find revolting, but perhaps I'm being precious.
However, note well, masks – of any kind - won't filter aerosols. That’s “won’t” as in “don’t” as in "can't, as in “ever”. Please don’t start arguing about this. If you’re so inclined, rather take your inclination as evidence that you have fallen victim to a mild psychological disease. Go and look it up and treat yourself – there is a cure.
The Pandemic Plan goes on to say, “although there is a perception that the wearing of facemasks by the public in the community and household setting may be beneficial, there is in fact very little evidence of widespread benefit from their use in this setting.”
For a mask to “work” (and see above for what that means) they must be (and I quote again from The Plan) “worn correctly, changed frequently, removed properly, disposed of safely and used in combination with good respiratory, hand, and home hygiene behaviour.” Now tell the truth – did you keep a mask in the car just in case? Is it possibly still there, lurking like the corpse of some expired animal festering at the back of the glove box? Did you ever keep one in your pocket? Did you ever touch the bloody thing while you were wearing it? Did you ever actually wash one and wear it again? (I don’t believe you).
There is, in fact, a vast amount of evidence on the Cochrane website assessing the use of face coverings during an outbreak of a ‘flu-like disease.” I quote: “Evidence from 14 trials on the use of masks vs. no masks was disappointing: it showed no effect in either healthcare workers or in community settings. We could also find no evidence of a difference between the N95 and other types of masks but the trials comparing the two had not been carried in aerosol-generating procedures.”
Importantly, it goes on to say “a mask can become dirty with excessive moisture, and contaminated with airborne pathogens. And because your voice is muffled; individuals may have to get closer to people, particularly the elderly, to hear from you.” And you can say that again, say I.
Notwithstanding all this, the mask became a focus of interest for social psychologists in 2020 because it was a potent symbol of compliance and, as the diaries here indicate, also a useful proxy for political allegiance. Hmm …
Mask Theatre became embedded in our social and intellectual life. It never made sense that one should wear a mask only when standing in a restaurant and only when seated in the House of Commons. Looking back, why did you accept that? Would you accept it again? Injunctions to wear a mask when riding a bicycle outdoors but not when riding a horse (presumably outdoors) made no sense. Would you obey next time (or get a horse)? It made no sense that a President should remain bare-faced while his attendant lackeys wore masks. And next time?
The mask has a long history as a means of engendering fear and this is a topic that will be more and more evident when we move into 2021.
Meanwhile, (thanks to “What If There Had Been No Covid Coup?" by Debbie Lerman, Browstone Institute, August 15, 2023), here is what US medical and public health experts were saying in January, February and early March 2020:
“Americans are too worried about the new coronavirus that’s spreading rapidly across China.” He added: “Everyone in America should take a very big breath, slow down and stop panicking and being hysterical.” And he explained: “I think we need to put it into context, the death rate is much lower than for SARS.” Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel, President Obama’s White House health advisor.
[I have] “a simple message for Americans: No, you shouldn’t be afraid.” Dr. Robert Redfield, CDC Director.
“Most people who get coronavirus will have mild to moderate symptoms and will be able to stay home, treating it like the severe flu or cold.” … “ the CDC does not recommend Americans wear surgical masks in public. Surgical masks are effective against respiratory infections but not airborne infections.” Dr. Alex Azar, NIH Director.
“The case fatality rate may be considerably less than 1%” and “the overall clinical consequences of Covid-19 may ultimately be more akin to those of a severe seasonal influenza (which has a case fatality rate of approximately 0.1%).” … “either children are less likely to become infected, or their symptoms were so mild that their infection escaped detection.” Drs. Anthony Fauci and Robert Redfield.
“All the evidence available at the time suggests that COVID-19 is a relatively benign disease for most young people, and a potentially devastating one for the old and chronically ill, albeit not nearly as risky as reported.” … the mortality rate was “zero in children 10 or younger among hundreds of cases in China” … “it was important to divert our focus away from worrying about preventing systemic spread among healthy people—which is likely either inevitable, or out of our control.” Dr. Jeremy Samuel Faust, Harvard emergency physician.
But, of course, all this was to suffer a terrible change.