And What’s with the Stupid Facemasks?

Source: US CDC (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention);  The Beeb

Okay, with all of the irresponsible reporting and mass hysteria over H5N1 (Bird Flu) and H1N1 (Swine Flu) and the likely emergence of H7N7 and H3N8 (Equine Flu),  (Okay, I may be teasing about that last one, but it’s real.  Look it up), one naturally wonders, what’s up with the surgical masks? Should we all be walking around like the late Michael Jackson or any stock media photo of a Tokyo Subway stop?

CDC says No. More officially, “Very little is known about the benefits of wearing facemasks and respirators to help control the spread of pandemic flu.”  Oh they say other helpful things of course like, “Facemasks are loose-fitting, disposable masks that cover the nose and mouth.”  But echoing a prior post here in this very blog, WASH YOUR HANDS seems to be the real mantra.

Very important sounding Professor John Oxford, a virologist at The Barts and London Hospital (because Oxford would have been too serendipitous) says, because everything sounds better in a British accent, “Really, there is very little evidence that masks actually offer much protection against flu.“  Right O.

That plus, apparently most people take masks off to sneeze which, well, sort of defeats the entire purpose.  Any questions? Good.  So now we can add surgical masks to the list of unnecessary medical/fashion accessories for the general public.

posted by David Marc Schwadron, Esq.