What’s been popular here lately:
That’s that.
By Rabbi Dr. Yosef P. Glassman, MD | February 04, 2021
Every life is sacred and should be saved when possible. Start there.
On Purim 5781 (תשאף=gematria for “take a deep breath in”) the Jewish community, along with the rest of the world, will mark a year of Nahafochu. Yet traveling to Lakewood, Monsey or Brooklyn, one might mistakenly think that the dreaded coronavirus has been eradicated. Masks are rare, except in supermarkets. It is not clear whether the animus is “Hashem ya’zor” versus “we’ve passed this test already” versus lack of trust in government.
However, the lack of public masking, en masse, is a notable flashpoint. Indeed, ultra-Orthodox Jews are in the spotlight as one of the many groups who seem to defy public health recommendations, both here and in Israel. It does indeed look like our compatriots are blatantly disregarding laws around the virus and perhaps, one might argue, bucking modern science in order to avoid the inconvenience of a mask. But are the Jews truly disregarding science? Is current practice and law purely based on science, and is it consistent? Let’s examine our view of the pandemic from a less emotional and more objective eye; this is demanded of us. The inconsistencies might make you reconsider your Purim plans or lack thereof.
Inconsistency #1: Plastic dividers. New plexiglass dividers, shower curtains and splash guards are now a common part of the scenery. To be sure, a virus could easily go around or through the hinge of the aliyah “penalty boxes” in most shuls. These dividers are notably new petri dishes that house many bacteria, viruses and other pathogens. Other than blocking a direct sneeze, they are highly symbolic at best. Not only are we not cleaning these surfaces often, but even worse, the supermarket touchpad for the debit cards are a bacterial and viral nest. Rarely are they cleaned between customers.
Inconsistency #2: Nursing home deaths. The statement, “Over 400,000 Americans dead from COVID-19 over the past year” is quite shocking. Yet, pre-COVID19, approximately 400,000 Americans nursing home residents died of other infectious diseases yearly. Picture CNN putting a tally of nursing home deaths on the screen as it is now with COVID. It would look similar in number. Additionally, 33 percent of nursing home residents die every year and 50 percent pass after three years of entering nursing home on average of all causes1. Alarm bells need to be consistent to be effective and believable. No one should die of preventable disease. We needed to wash our hands with soap for decades prior to 5780.
Inconsistency #3: Death rate. Americans are dying now at a rate of 8.977/1000 people/year. This is similar to 1978 America. Only two years ago, Americans died at a rate of 8.697/1000, which is still pretty high compared to the rest of the world (7.6/1000 people/year). Compared to China, whose death rate rose from 7.26 to 7.4/1000/year over the past year, we are doing poorly, but we were doing worse last year as well. That said, in 1950, the world was dying at a rate of 20/1000/year.2 One cannot place a cold number on the death of one person and we as doctors and society need to try to prevent every preventable death. Yet, it is truly hard to label this entire phenomenon as a pandemic as the CDC defines it: an event in which a disease spreads across several countries and affects a large number of people. Yes, over 100 million people worldwide have contracted the dreaded virus, and over 2 million out of a total 7.674 billion have sadly and unfortunately died. These numbers sound large, yet relatively speaking, this translates as a cold stat of 1.3% COVID + and and only 0.026% dying. All numbers are relative. Compare this to 2019, when 2.6 million people died of other communicable lower respiratory infections (0.034% of the world). Was that large? Sure it is larger than Bnei Brak and Meah Shearim combined, but it may not even qualify as a halachic magefa. Ask your local Orthodox rabbi. And, by the way, in case you needed another positive reason to make aliyah prior to Moshiach, one must know that in 2019 the overall death rate was 5.328/1000/year in Israel, dropping to 5.323 in 2020, COVID included. Food for thought.
Inconsistency #4: Selective alarm bells. Public health messaging alarm bells are quite arbitrary. Of course, the doctor’s individual and public health goal should always be ZERO preventable deaths, but if one is to be true to statistics and science, one must look at what the American government’s attitude truly is around public health at large. We are sounding the “public health” alarm bell at this time, but one of the greatest public health emergencies is far from contained—tobacco. Deaths from highly addictive cigarette related disease tops 500,000 per year in the U.S. in a typical year, (10 percent second hand). Nicotine ads are geared toward children and there is limited recourse. Additionally, run-of-the-mill alcohol remains, statistically speaking, more deadly and costly to society than crack and heroin; yet liquor stores remain thriving, while they often sell cigarettes and collect taxes for the American government. Do we see the paradox? Ban cigarettes to be true. Alcohol should still be open to responsible adult use, but needs heavy education and a cup of ice.
Inconsistency #5: School closings: German researchers have proposed that closing certain parts of society (e.g., schools) while leaving others open (e.g., liquor stores) has created a mushroom cloud effect and has spread the coronavirus even faster. By the way, kids have three times the greater risk of dying from flu, God forbid, than from COVID-19. Also children are 16 times less likely to die from COVID-19 than adults. Recent studies from Georgia have shown that schools are not superspreaders. Teachers should and could take caution, as they are older, but even this caution needs to be put into perspective.
Inconsistency #6: Deadliness of COVID-19 itself. The truth is that the deadly nature of COVID-19 is not necessarily the virus itself, but the underlying inflammatory state of the host. Deaths were 12 times higher among patients with reported underlying conditions compared with those without reported underlying conditions (19.5% versus 1.6%)3. Very often, “previously healthy” patients with COVID-19 became hospitalized as the virus unmasked an underlying dormant illness. We Americans were already at risk, overweight and carrying an inflammatory sac of fat around our pancreas (myself included), literally poison to all organs. COVID-19 triggers the attention of the already overdriven immune system and makes a big surprise party around the lungs and many blood vessels. Couple that with the inflammatory plaques around the coronaries and aortas building up since age three. Thus, COVID-19, in its thrombotic and clotting nature, has allowed these fatty plaques to clog further into heart attacks and strokes. Yes, the disease itself hits the lungs and even leads to blood clots in the lungs, but the real culprit is the immune response combined with underlying inflammation. COVID-19 is the unmasker of baseline inflammation. It is the unmasker of a poor diet. It is the unmasker of lack of exercise. Indeed, deaths from non–COVID-19 causes (e.g., Alzheimer disease, diabetes, heart disease) increased sharply in five states with the most “COVID-19 deaths.”4 The real alarm bell is the underlying conditions that put us at risk.
Inconsistency #7: Masks. The World Health Organization tells us that it is hard to expect the gold standard of a randomized controlled trial comparing mask wearers to non-mask wearers. This is for ethical reasons. It would be similar to comparing the building homes with a flowing sewage system versus those without sewage systems, and seeing which household contracted more disease. Public health measures often can only be observed for results. Causality is difficult to ascribe despite the obvious. This is similar to masking. We only have some studies that are not robust. Only one observational study has directly analyzed the impact of mask use in the community on COVID-19 transmission. The study looked at the reduction of secondary transmission of SARS-CoV-2 in Beijing households by face mask use.5 It found that face masks were 79 percent effective in preventing transmission, if they were used by all household members prior to symptoms occurring. That said, the source of 80 percent of all COVID infections remains unknown. The remaining known 20 percent is likely at home and restaurants, or any other place you can think of that one hangs out in crowds with potential prolonged exposure.
It is clear that masks must help to at least stop infected drops from exiting a person’s dalet amos; whether they prevent infection likely depends on the mask itself (N95 versus shmatte). Yet, know that any place that people feel the most comfortable, they take masks off for long periods (e.g., restaurants and home, most commonly), where virus can linger and spread. Sure, your fellow family diners don’t mean to spread COVID-19 to you, but if infected, it is very likely from your nearby loved one, not the passing haredi at Whole Foods. And perhaps the optics aren’t good when black and white Jews are maskless, but true mask advocates need to be consistent, wearing them round the clock, even at home. Lack of societal rule consistency leads to both conscious and subconscious questioning of the sincerity of public health recommendations and rightly screams hypocrisy.
Every life is sacred and needs to be saved, but COVID-19, overwhelmingly and scientifically speaking, is not the death sentence that is projected on the news. It is real. It is not a hoax. Be careful. Protect the elderly and immunocompromised. But at the end of the day, the Infinite Creator is the Dayan HaEmet, even with all our efforts.
1 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6143238/
2 https://www.macrotrends.net/countries/USA/united-states/death-rate
3 Coronavirus Disease 2019 Case Surveillance — United States, January 22–May 30, 2020. Weekly / June 19, 2020 / 69(24);759–765)
4 Woolf SH, Chapman DA, Sabo RT, Weinberger DM, Hill L. Excess deaths from COVID-19 and other causes, March-April 2020. JAMA. 2020; 324 (5): 510-513.
5 Y. Wang et al., Reduction of secondary transmission of SARS-CoV-2 in households by face mask use, disinfection and social distancing: A cohort study in Beijing, China. BMJ Global Health 5, e002794 (2020)
Rabbi Dr. Yosef P. Glassman, M.D. lives in Bergenfield and is the director of hospital medicine at a community hospital in Lakewood, where he leads the COVID-19 unit. He is also CEO of HADARTA.org, which encourages elder aliyah specifically to Safed.
From Jewish Link, here.
With COVID-19 cases running out of control in North Dakota in mid-November, Gov. Doug Burgum intervened, installing a statewide mask mandate. A month and a half later, the state’s pandemic status is nearly unrecognizable: Active virus cases have descended from more than 10,000 at the time of the mandate to fewer than 2,000 today.
But neighboring South Dakota, which had vied with North Dakota for the worst-in-the-nation per capita metrics for much of October and November, has experienced a similarly remarkable turnaround, and without any significant state-level intervention.
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Read the source to see how biased “experts” try and muddy up “simplistic” facts…
Corona bologna and some of its attendant evils (like the vaccine) have turned many otherwise-respectable mainstreamers into conspiracy believers, like me (though most will soon move on).
This is great. But, as wide-eyed newcomers to the idea, they tend to make some errors. This article is my quick guide for the beginner.
Some newbies both vastly exaggerate the recency of conspiracies, minimize the number of contemporaneous competing and conflicting conspiracies, and vastly overestimate both the conspirators’ power and time horizons.
This can also lead to rejecting out-of-hand the notion Corona was manufactured by the U.S. since this quickly “backfired”, as though the “U.S.” is either a reified, uniform body or sensible (Ha!).
But the same U.S. originally trained the mujahedeen (a.k.a. Al Qaeda) in Afghanistan to oppose the Soviets, and handed them ground to air missiles – and built the highway for the Soviets, too. America sold guns to border drug cartels the better to shoot border guards, trained both ISIS and its defectors, etc., etc.
The people who started the British Empire also quickly ran it into the ground by helping start the World Wars (they weren’t known as “Milner’s kindergarten” for nothing…) to bankrupt their own empire, by running out of other people’s money. They were and still are “too clever by half”, as Brits say.
“Migdal Bavel” didn’t work, and Nevuchadnetzar of Bavel wasn’t much better; “the more things change, the more they stay the same“.
Also, it’s important to understand the threat is never the private individuals (lots of money is no substitute for accurate knowledge – always widely distributed among people), but the great enabler: the regime. And the regime rests upon (at least begrudging) acceptance by the public. So, the public is the problem (Quick tip: don’t be shocked when exposing some secret plan is greeted by the listeners with yawning yawns!). And you’re part of the public in a sense.
And the very case for conspiracy thinking rests on universally correct assumptions about human behavior. But then, those very axioms also inform us that the State will fail (as elaborated by Austrian School praxeology), per the Misesian Economic Calculation Problem, bureaucracy, and more.
As Dr. R. J. Rushdoony wrote:
The important question to ask is this: What makes a conspiracy work? Let us suppose that a number of us conspired together to turn the United States into a monarchy, and ourselves into its nobility; let us further suppose that we could command millions from our own circle to achieve this goal. Or, let us suppose that, with equal numbers and money we conspired to enforce Hindu vegetarianism on the country. In either case, we would have then, not a conspiracy, but a joke. A successful conspiracy is one which is so in tune with the faith and aspirations of its day that it offers to men the fulfillment of the ideals of the age. It is an illusion to believe that dangerous or successful conspiracies represent no more than a small, hidden circle of diabolical men who manipulate the world into ruin. Such groups often exist, but they only exist and succeed because their plan and hope is closely tied to the public dream and the faith of the age. If the threat were only from small circles of hidden men, then our problem would be easy. Then, as Burton Blumert has observed, “if we only unmasked the conspiracy, all our problems would be solved, but if the trouble is in all of us, then we really are in trouble.”
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If tomorrow the secrecy were stripped from all conspiracies, and their goals revealed, most people would merely say, “Well, isn’t that what we all believe?” and go on with their daily lives.
Please ponder that for a few seconds…
Or, as we wrote about the Fabians, quoting Murray Rothbard defending non-interventionism during the Cold War, no less:
… The danger is statism. I don’t think communism is any particular danger except insofar as it is statism. We’ve got enough statism to try to roll back here, and part of that rolling back is the sort of foreign policy and anti-military policy that I advocate. I don’t think that anybody really thinks Russia or China or Albania are out to conquer us militarily. If you press the cold warriors hard enough, they will admit that.
But they’re worried about so-called subversion. In other words, they’re worried about internal communism, either here or abroad. And what I’m saying is that the internal problem we have to worry about is statism. The main objection I have to communism is that communism is statism. And American statism is what’s oppressing us.
It’s a moral\religious problem, not one of economic education, either. The majority prefers rule by politicians to a true theocracy, as Shmuel Hanavi discovered much to his dismay. Most people hate anarchy (even if they aren’t Backroom-dealing Big Businessmen), no matter how much they stand to gain in the narrow sense.
As for questions about the government’s narrative, don’t assume you can easily know the answers to good questions. And if others are “dupes” (vastly oversimplified), then certainly some of those same forces, can be dupes, too! (But don’t exaggerate that line of logic, either.)
Bottom line (to quote Subbota‘s father): Never Fear Them!
Yeshaya 8:12-13:
לא תאמרון קשר לכל אשר יאמר העם הזה קשר ואת מוראו לא תיראו ולא תעריצו. את ד’ צבאות אתו תקדישו והוא מוראכם והוא מערצכם.
Malbim there:
לא תאמרון, שיעור הכתוב, לכל אשר יאמר העם הזה קשר לא תאמרון קשר, מה שיחלטו העם שהוא קשר של קיימא, אני מצוכם בל תאמרו שהוא קשר, כי אינו קשר ולא יתקיים. ואת מוראו, של הקשר לא תיראו, כי לא יוכל להרע לכם, ואף גם בל תעריצו, בל תחשבו אותו לדבר חזק ועריץ כי חלוש הוא בעצמותו, (כי לפעמים ייראו מחלש אם יוכל להזיק. ולא ייראו מגבור בלתי מזיק ומ”מ יחזיקו אותו לגבור, לכן כפל דבריו)…
So, brush up on your Bitachon (and “Serenity Prayer” or equivalents)!
As for spying concerns, I strongly recommend my older article: Stop Being So Paranoid!
Far more to say; let’s leave some for later.
By John C. A. Manley
Global Research
January 26, 2021
Nine Potential and Proven Dangers to Muzzling Yourself
1. Cavities: New York dentists are reporting that half their patients are suffering decaying teeth, receding gum lines and seriously sour breath from wearing masks. “We’re seeing inflammation in people’s gums that have been healthy forever, and cavities in people who have never had them before,” Dr. Rob Ramondi told FOX News.
2. Facial Deformities: Masking children triggers mouth breathing which as been shown to cause “long, narrow faces, narrow mouths, high palatal vaults, dental malocclusion, gummy smiles, and many other unattractive facial features,” according to the Journal of General Dentistry.
3. Acne Vulgaris: Moisture and germs collecting in the mask cause “facial skin lesions, irritant dermatitis… or worsening acne” (according to Public Health Ontario) which stresses the immune system, can lead to permanent scarring and has been linked to depression and suicidal thoughts (according to the Journal of Dermatologic Clinics). Children also develop impetigo, a bacterial infection that produces red sores and can lead to kidney damage (according to the Mayo Clinic).
4. Increased Risk of COVID-19: “Mask use by the general public could be associated with a theoretical elevated risk of COVID-19 through… self-contamination,” states Public Health Ontario in Wearing Masks in Public and COVID-19. “By wearing a mask, the exhaled viruses will not be able to escape and will concentrate in the nasal passages, enter the olfactory nerves and travel into the brain,” theorizes nationally recognized board-certified neurosurgeon, Dr. Russell Blaylock, MD (in an article at The Centre for Research on Globalization).
5. Bacterial Pneumonia: At an Oklahoma Press Conference, Dr. James Meehan, MD testified: “Reports coming from my colleagues all over the world are suggesting that the bacterial pneumonias are on the rise” as a result of moisture collecting in face masks.
6. Immune Suppressing: Masks are often worn by criminals trying to hide their identity while perpetuating an offence (theft, violence, rape, murder, etc.). They produce subconscious anxiety and fear. Fear and anxiety activate the fight-or-flight nervous system which down-regulates the immune system, as shown in a study by the American Psychological Association.
7. Germophobia: Masks create an irrational fear of germs and a false sense of protection from disease, leading to antisocial (or even hostile) behaviour towards those not wearing a mask. (See the paper in the Journal of Obsessive-Compulsive and Related Disorders titled “COVID-19, obsessive-compulsive disorder and invisible life forms that threaten the self”).
Medical Doctor Warns that “Bacterial Pneumonias Are on the Rise” from Mask Wearing
8. Toxic: Many (if not most) masks and face coverings (including cloth) are made with toxic and carcinogenic chemicals including fire retardant, fibreglass, lead, NFE, phthalates, polyfluorinated chemicals and formaldehyde that will outgas and be inhaled by the wearer. (See “5 main hazardous chemicals in clothing from China named” by Fashion United).
9. Psychologically Harmful: “I believe the real threat right now is what we’re doing to sabotage the mental, emotional and physical health of… our children, whose development is dependent on social interactions, physical contact and facial expressions,” writes Dr. Joseph Mercola of Mercola.com. “Between mask wearing and social distancing, I fear the impact on children in particular may be long-term, if not permanent.”
Six Proofs Masks Do Not Reduce Infections
1. Insubstantial: A CDC-funded review on masking in May 2020 came to the conclusion: “Although mechanistic studies support the potential effect of hand hygiene or face masks, evidence from 14 randomized controlled trials of these measures did not support a substantial effect on transmission of laboratory-confirmed influenza… None of the household studies reported a significant reduction in secondary laboratory-confirmed influenza virus infections in the face mask group.” If masks can’t stop the regular flu, how can they stop SAR-CoV-2?
2. Unreasonable: “Evidence that masking as a source [of] control results in any material reduction in transmission was scant, anecdotal, and, in the overall, lacking… [and mandatory masking] is the exact opposite of being reasonable,” ruled a hospital arbitrator in a dispute between The Ontario Nurses’ Association and the Toronto Academic Health Science Network.
3. Ineffective: “Oral masks in healthy individuals are ineffective against the spread of viral infections,” write Belgian medical doctors in an open letter published in The American Institute of Stress, September 24, 2020.
4. Unsanitary: “It has never been shown that wearing surgical face masks decreases postoperative wound infections,” writes Göran Tunevall, M.D. in the World Journal of Surgery. “On the contrary, a 50% decrease [in bacterial infection] has been reported after omitting face masks.”
5. No Protection: “There were 17 eligible studies.… None of the studies established a conclusive relationship between mask ⁄ respirator use and protection against influenza infection,” concludes a research review in the journal Influenza and Other Respiratory Viruses.
6. Unproven: Dutch Minister for Medical Care, Tamara van Ark, asserted that “from a medical perspective there is no proven effectiveness of masks” after a review by the National Institute for Health on July 29, 2020 (according to Reuters).
Five Ways Forced Masking is Immoral
1. Reckless: “By making mask-wearing recommendations and policies for the general public, or by expressly condoning the practice, governments have both ignored the scientific evidence and done the opposite of following the precautionary principle,” writes Denis Rancourt, PhD in his 2020 paper Masks Don’t Work.
2. Manipulative: Dr. Andreas Voss, member of the World Health Organization expert team and head of microbiology at a Dutch hospital in Nijmegen, on July 24, 2020, told I Am Expat that masks were made mandatory “not because of scientific evidence, but because of political pressure and public opinion.”
3. Fear-Mongering: “In fact, there is no study to even suggest that it makes any sense for healthy individuals to wear masks in public,” write Drs. Karina Reiss, Phd and Dr. Sucharit Bakdi, MD in Corona, False Alarm? “One might suspect that the only political reason for enforcing the measure is to foster fear in the population.”