STORY AT-A-GLANCE
- Using CDC data, no significant differences were found in COVID-19 case growth between states with or without mask mandates, during periods of low or high transmission
- The widespread use of masks did not reduce COVID-19 transmission in Europe, and a moderate positive correlation was found between mask usage and deaths in Western Europe
- An update to a CDC study on school mask mandates, using nearly six times more data, found no significant relationship between mask mandates in U.S. schools and COVID-19 case rates
- In Kansas, counties with a mask mandate had significantly higher COVID-19 case fatality rates than counties without a mask mandate
- One way masks cause harm may be the “Foegen effect” — the idea that deep re-inhalation of droplets and virions caught on facemasks might make COVID-19 infection more likely or more severe
During the COVID-19 pandemic, 80% of U.S. states mandated masks to slow the spread of SARS-CoV-2, but accumulating research shows mask mandates and use do not lower the spread of the virus.1 While rules requiring masks did increase compliance, they didn’t translate to lower transmission growth rates, whether community spread of SARS-CoV-2 was low or high.
Even before COVID-19 was declared a pandemic, mask mandates were put in place without ever properly evaluating efficacy, but that didn’t stop them from dividing communities and being used as a form of virtue signaling and a visible reminder of compliance with the “new normal.”
Now, with research showing not only that masks don’t protect you but may actually make you sick, the rationale behind their widespread mandated usage must be questioned.
Mask Mandates Didn’t Lower COVID-19 Cases
Using CDC data, researchers with the University of Louisville calculated total COVID-19 case growth and mask use for the U.S. No significant differences were found in case growth between mandate and non-mandate states during periods of low or high transmission.
“Surges were equivocal,” they noted, concluding, “Mask mandates and use are not associated with slower state-level COVID-19 spread during COVID-19 growth surges.”2 While stating that their findings “do not support the hypothesis that SARS-CoV-2 transmission rates decrease with greater public mask use,” they did note that “masks may promote social cohesion as rallying symbols during a pandemic.”3
Similarly dismal results from mask mandates were demonstrated in Europe. A study published in Cureus analyzed data from 35 European countries, including morbidity, mortality and mask usage, over a six-month period. The researchers noted:4
“Mask mandates were implemented in almost all world countries and in most places where masks were not obligatory, their use in public spaces was recommended … These mandates and recommendations took place despite the fact that most randomized controlled trials carried out before and during the COVID-19 pandemic concluded that the role of masks in preventing respiratory viral transmission was small, null, or inconclusive.”
When the data were analyzed, the study also revealed that the widespread use of masks did not reduce COVID-19 transmission. Worse, a moderate positive correlation was found between mask usage and deaths in Western Europe, which “suggests that the universal use of masks may have had harmful unintended consequences.”5
Mask Mandates in Schools Didn’t Reduce COVID-19 Cases
As part of the government sponsored propaganda campaign, a widely cited CDC study, published in October 2021, reported that counties without school mask mandates had larger increases in COVID-19 case rates in children after the start of school compared with counties that had school mask mandates.6
The study was used to support school mask mandates, but a team of researchers revisited the research, incorporating a larger sample size and longer study period. The updated study,7 published in May 2022, used nearly six times more data compared to the original study and found no significant relationship between mask mandates in U.S. schools and COVID-19 case rates. According to the researchers:8
“We failed to establish a relationship between school masking and pediatric cases using the same methods but a larger, more nationally diverse population over a longer interval. Our study demonstrates that observational studies of interventions with small to moderate effect sizes are prone to bias caused by selection and omitted variables. Randomized studies can more reliably inform public health policy.”
On Twitter, surgeon and public policy researcher Dr. Marty Makary pointed out that the CDC’s original study appeared to include cherry-picked data and the agency refused to publish an update using the more extensive data:9
“This study demonstrates how the CDC was cherry-picking data to support their school mask dogma. The article states that CDC’s MMWR journal rejected publishing this re-analysis. Most likely because it exposed the CDCs salami-slicing of data & use of science as political propaganda.”
It should be noted that a previous CDC study found mask requirements for students had little effect on COVID-19 incidence in Georgia schools, while improved ventilation, such as opening a window, reduced cases more than mask mandates for staff and teachers.10
The Foegen Effect: Mask Mandates Increased COVID-19 Deaths
A profoundly important study was conducted by German physician Dr. Zacharias Fögen to find out whether mandatory mask use influenced the COVID-19 case fatality rate in Kansas from August 1, 2020, to October 15, 2020.11 He chose the state of Kansas because, while it issued a mask mandate, counties were allowed to either opt in or out of it.
His analysis revealed that counties with a mask mandate had significantly higher case fatality rates than counties without a mask mandate. “These findings suggest that mask use might pose a yet unknown threat to the user instead of protecting them, making mask mandates a debatable epidemiologic intervention,” he concluded.
That threat, he explained, may be something called the “Foegen effect” — the idea that deep re-inhalation of droplets and virions caught on facemasks might make COVID-19 infection more likely or more severe.
“The fundamentals of this effect are easily demonstrated when wearing a facemask and glasses at the same time by pulling the upper edge of the mask over the lower edge of the glasses. Droplets appear on the mask when breathing out and disappear when breathing in.”
“In the “Foegen effect,” the virions spread (because of their smaller size) deeper into the respiratory tract. They bypass the bronchi and are inhaled deep into the alveoli, where they can cause pneumonia instead of bronchitis, which would be typical of a virus infection.
Furthermore, these virions bypass the multilayer squamous epithelial wall that they cannot pass into in vitro and most likely cannot pass into in vivo. Therefore, the only probable way for the virions to enter the blood vessels is through the alveoli.”12
Wearing Masks Could Be Related to Long COVID
Fögen explained that wearing masks could end up increasing your overall viral load because, instead of exhaling virions from your respiratory tract and ridding your body of them, those virions are caught in the mask and returned. This might also have the effect of increasing the number of virions that pass through the mask, such that it becomes more than the number that would have been shed without a mask.
The fact that “hypercondensed droplets and pure virions in the mask might be blown outwards during expiration, resulting in aerosol transmission instead of droplet transmission” is another issue that could make transmission worse instead of better, and the use of “more protective” masks could also backfire, making COVID-19’s long-term effects worse. Fögen explained:13
“The use of “better” masks (e.g., FFP2, FFP3) with a higher droplet-filtering capacity probably should cause an even stronger “Foegen effect” because the number of virions that are potentially re-inhaled increases in the same way that outward shedding is reduced.
Another salient point is that COVID-19-related long-term effects and multisystem inflammatory syndrome in children may all be a direct cause of the “Foegen effect.” Virus entry into the alveoli and blood without being restricted to the upper respiratory tract and bronchi and can cause damage by initiating an (auto) immune reaction in most organs.”
Clear Risks of Prolonged Mask Use
Two expert reports spoke out against the use of masks for children in 2021. The first, a psychology report,14 stated that masks are likely to be causing psychological harm to children and interfering with development.15 “The extent of psychological harm to young people is unknown,” the report stated, “due to the unique nature of the ‘social experiment’ currently underway in schools, and in wider society.”16
The second report focused on health, safety and well-being,17 noting potential permanent physical damage to the lungs caused by fibrosis from inhalation of fibrous nanoparticles.
“There are real and significant dangers of respiratory infection, oral health deterioration and of lung injury, such as pneumothorax, owing to moisture buildup and also exposure to potentially harmful levels of an asphyxiant gas (carbon dioxide [CO2]) which can cause serious injury to health,” the authors explained.18
Normally, the CO2 then dissipates into the air around you before you take another breath. In the open air, carbon dioxide typically exists at about 400 parts per million (ppm), or 0.04% by volume.
The German Federal Environmental Office set a limit of CO2 for closed rooms of 2,000 ppm, or 0.2% by volume. If you’re wearing a facemask, the CO2 cannot escape as it usually does and instead becomes trapped in the mask. In a study published in JAMA Pediatrics, researchers analyzed the CO2 content of inhaled air among children wearing two types of masks, as well as wearing no mask.19
While no significant difference in CO2 was found between the two types of masks, there was a significant elevation when wearing masks compared to not wearing them. CO2 in inhaled air under surgical and filtering facepiece masks came in between 13,120 ppm and 13,910 ppm, “which is higher than what is already deemed unacceptable by the German Federal Environmental Office by a factor of 6,” the researchers noted.20
Also important, this level was reached after only three minutes, while children wear masks at school for a mean of 270 minutes at a time. Even the child who had the lowest measured CO2 level had a measurement three-fold greater than the closed room CO2 limit of 0.2%. However, younger children appeared to have the highest CO2 values; a level of 25,000 ppm was measured from a 7-year-old wearing a facemask.21
Bacterial Infection Risk, Problems With Social Learning
The full consequences of prolonged mask use are only beginning to be understood. The University of Louisville researchers noted, however, that using a mask for more than four hours per day “promotes facial alkalinization and inadvertently encourages dehydration, which in turn can enhance barrier breakdown and bacterial infection risk.”22 Other reported adverse effects include:23
- Increase in headaches and sweating
- Decreased cognitive precision
- Association with medical errors
- Interference with social learning in children
- Obscured nonverbal communication
- Distorted verbal speech
- Removal of visual cues, which is detrimental to people with hearing loss
After a lawsuit was brought by Leslie Manookian’s Health Freedom Defense Fund (HFDF), U.S. District Judge Kathryn Kimball Mizelle finally voided the CDC’s U.S. mask mandate on airplanes and public transit in April 2022.24 The U.S. Department of Justice (DoJ) has appealed the court order,25 however, making it clear that they don’t intend to give up on mask mandates without a fight. In response, HFDF issued the following statement:26
“DoJ’s statement [that it would appeal] is perplexing to say the least and sounds like it comes from health policy advocates not government lawyers. The ruling by the US District Court ruling is a matter of law, not CDC preference or an assessment of ‘current health conditions.’
If there is in fact a public health emergency with clear and irrefutable science supporting CDC’s mask mandate, does it not warrant urgent action? Why would DoJ and CDC not immediately appeal?
HFDF is left with no option but to conclude that the Mask Mandate is really a political matter and not at all about urgent public health issues or the demands of sound science. While DoJ and CDC play politics with Americans’ health and freedoms, HFDF trusts individual Americans to make their own health decisions.
HFDF is confident that Americans possess ample common sense and education to understand that there are real questions about mask efficacy and risk and that CDC’s policy reflects neither.”
You can support the Health Freedom Defense Fund and push back against the DoJ and CDC by taking to social media. Please follow and/or like the HFDF on the following platforms, share their content, and invite your followers to do the same:
- Instagram: @healthfreedomdefensefund
- Twitter: @theHFDF
- Facebook: @healthfreedomdefensefund
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- MeWe: Health Freedom Defense Fund
Sources and References
- 1, 2, 3, 22, 23 MedRxiv May 25, 2021
- 4, 5 Cureus. 2022 Apr; 14(4): e24268
- 6 MMWR October 1, 2021
- 7, 8 The Lancet May 25, 2022
- 9 Townhall June 1, 2022
- 10 U.S. CDC, Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report May 21, 2021
- 11 Medicine February 18, 2022
- 12, 13 Medicine February 18, 2022, 4.1
- 14, 16 Psychology Report in respect of Civil Proceedings April 9, 2021
- 15 Express April 11, 2021
- 17, 18 Health, Safety and Wellbeing Report in respect of Civil Proceedings April 9, 2021
- 19, 20, 21 JAMA Pediatrics June 30, 2021
- 24 US District Court Middle District of Florida Case No: 8:21-cv-1693-KKM-AEP
- 25 KHN June 1, 2022
- 26 Health Freedom Defense Fund April 20, 2022
Two Storms, One Harvest
Every food crisis in living memory has been a one-shock event. The 2008 price spike was a commodity bubble. The 2020 shortages were a logistics failure. The 2022 grain scare was a war on one exporter’s ports. Each time, the system bent, adjusted, and recovered, and each time the experts assured us afterward that global markets are simply too big and too diversified to fail.
What nobody in Washington seems eager to discuss is that 2026 is shaping up to be something the modern food system has never actually faced. Two independent shocks, one climatic and one geopolitical, are converging on the same harvest cycle at the same time. Not sequentially. Simultaneously.
Start with the weather. The Pacific Ocean is currently building toward what forecasters now openly call a record event. NOAA’s Climate Prediction Center puts the odds of at least a strong El Niño near 88 percent, with roughly two in three odds it reaches “very strong” status, the tier reserved for perhaps three or four events in the entire satellite era. Every major global model now projects a median peak in Super El Niño territory, and most of them project it exceeding the 2015-16 event, which until now held the modern record. Sea surface anomalies were already brushing the super threshold in mid-July, months before these events normally peak. The atmosphere has already shifted into El Niño mode, and the event is forecast to crest in late fall and early winter.
This is not about “climate change.” It’s about the standard cycles of weather, and the cycle we’re currently in is one that has likely devastated societies in the past. We’re better prepared as a society today, but not all Americans are equally prepared.
Serious households have started doing the quiet math on their own. Grocery bills tell part of the story, and the forecast maps tell the rest, which is why long-term food storage has moved from fringe hobby to mainstream line item in the family budget, with established suppliers like Heaven’s Harvest seeing demand from people who five years ago would have rolled their eyes at the idea. That instinct is not paranoia. It is pattern recognition, and the pattern is worth walking through carefully.
Editor’s Note: Heaven’s Harvest IS a sponsor, but the warnings of this article are real and would be written even if we didn’t have a survival food sponsor. With that said, those who take advantage of what they offer can use promo code “Patriot” for 15% off.
The Fertilizer Clock Is Already Running
While the Pacific warms, the second shock has been unfolding in the Strait of Hormuz. The conflict with Iran turned the world’s most important energy chokepoint into a contested waterway, and the consequences reach far beyond the gas pump. Roughly a third of global fertilizer trade moves through Hormuz, and the disruption sent urea prices up 86 percent year over year by March, with a 53 percent jump in a single month.
The World Bank projects energy prices rising about 24 percent in 2026 and fertilizer about 31 percent. By its own accounting, fertilizer prices ran 35 percent higher in the first five months of this year than the same period last year.
Here is the mechanism the nightly news will not explain. Fertilizer is not a grocery item. It is a time-delayed input. The nitrogen a farmer in Iowa or Punjab could not afford to apply this spring does not show up as a problem this spring. It shows up as a thinner harvest six to twelve months later.
The World Bank’s own food security brief concedes that the effects of reduced applications earlier this season “are likely to become visible only later in harvest outcomes.” Translate that from institutional language into plain English and it means this. The damage is already done, it is already in the ground, and we are simply waiting for it to arrive on the shelf.
Now check the calendar. Six to twelve months from the spring planting season lands us squarely in late 2026 and early 2027. Which is precisely when the strongest El Niño in the instrumental record is forecast to peak, bringing its signature droughts to Southeast Asia, Australia, southern Africa, northern Brazil, and South Asia, the very regions that grow the world’s rice, sugar, and oilseeds.
The World Bank warns openly that a strong El Niño “could disrupt multiple crop belts simultaneously” on top of the conflict-driven input costs. Their baseline projection assumes the Middle East disruptions ease by autumn. What in the last two years of Middle East history suggests that assumption is safe?
The System Has No Slack Left
The comfortable answer is that global markets always adjust. But adjustment requires slack, and the slack is gone. Global cereal production is expected to decline from last year’s records even before El Niño does its work. The UN World Food Programme, hardly a den of right-wing preppers, is calling this the most significant disruption to its supply chains since Covid and the invasion of Ukraine, and its supply chain director put the stakes bluntly.
Today’s supply chain challenges are tomorrow’s hunger crisis.
There is also a political dimension that markets cannot price. When food gets scarce, governments do not behave like economists. They behave like politicians. Export bans, hoarding mandates, and panic buying at the national level turned the modest rice shortfall of 2008 into a global crisis, and analysts are already warning that import-dependent nations are the first dominoes.
The 2015-16 Super El Niño, a far weaker event than what is now forecast, threw tens of millions into food stress across Africa and Asia. This one is projected to be stronger, and it arrives with fertilizer already rationed by price and shipping lanes already contested by missiles.
What Joseph Knew
Scripture does not treat preparation for lean years as faithlessness. It treats it as wisdom delivered in advance to those willing to act on it.
Behold, there come seven years of great plenty throughout all the land of Egypt: And there shall arise after them seven years of famine; and all the plenty shall be forgotten in the land of Egypt.
Joseph did not respond to that warning with a hashtag or a committee. He stored grain during the years of abundance, and when the famine came, Egypt stood while its neighbors begged. The lesson is not that famine is certain. It is that the time to prepare is precisely when preparation still looks optional.
Nobody who filled a pantry in a year of plenty has ever regretted it, and nobody standing in an empty aisle has ever been glad he waited for certainty.
None of this calls for panic, and panic is the enemy of sound judgment anyway. It calls for the same unglamorous prudence our grandparents considered ordinary. Keep some cash margin, know your local growers, and put real food in deep storage while it is cheap and available, because the entire arc of this story is that cheap and available is a closing window.
Families looking for a straightforward place to start can visit Heaven’s Harvest and use promo code Patriot for 15 percent off long-term storable food. The forecasts may yet soften, the strait may yet reopen, and we should pray they do. But hope is a fine thing to hold and a foolish thing to eat.
