18 Comments

We need to start listening to the Industrial Hygienists who actually do PPE for a living. Masks don't work against viruses. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I3dor-4Af2A

Expand full comment

Video account terminated...

Expand full comment

Dear Gato,

Something I cannot understand today which you perhaps are most qualified to educate me about. So I ask, how is it the clinical, academic and institutional doctors in the US and Europe too it seems, so utterly cowed into submission to say or not say anything to support "the narrative". Seriously, is it threats to loose licenses? Yet a very few like flccc are very vocal and remain licensed (but have lost jobs I think). Or student loan debt? Or, is weekly waterboarding part of medical school for some time now???

I wonder what hold exactly "they" have on them to render smart people, trained in nuanced thinking to destroy the hard won credibility of their profession to protect such obvious frauds. And thanks to you for pointing out many examples.

Expand full comment

Hey! I’m a pediatrician in private practice. I can speak to this a little. 1. A lot of physicians get their information from a web site called Medscape. Very msm. Eric topol is their expert. I’m amazed at the bias that is spewed from that source. If you weren’t looking anywhere else, you would be biased to believe the New York Times or cdc for that matter. Also, cdc is considered “the Bible” and most don’t realize it’s bias either.

2. For some who are enlightened, they may be employed and risk losing their livelihood for speaking out. I’m in a minority because I am self employed and thus my own boss.

3. Physicians in infectious disease and epidemiology are left leaning in the neighborhood of 60-70%. As you know, this is a political issue not a scientific one, so they can not reason beyond their left leaning status. Pediatricians as well - left leaning. I feel as a pediatrician I have the best boots on the ground viewpoint does this pandemic. But most peds would rather use their wokeness and double mask after vaccination like my partner. I’m offering to my patients the option of taking off their mask. If they do, I tell them I’m vaccinated and most are like “take off that mask.” Which I gladly do.

Expand full comment

Thank you for your consideration. That makes complete sense... And yet to me it doesn't begin to explain the extreme nature of current "politics" nor it's religious character. "The narrative" overpowers all facts. It's quick and extreme defense ensues without any limiting principles of civility. It's way beyond what in the past was called political bias. They are God fighting **evil**.

I DO see how busy people can for a while get caught up in this, even be blind to it. People can get drawn into cults. But it's gone on too long, too far. Why can't smart people see it? Medicine is turning COVID into an array of weird sacraments of cult like wokism. Masks, vaccines, lockdowns, shunned unclean early treatments, the Fauci high priests most wise and persecution of heretics. COVID for ever and ever. Amen.

And the blindness to all the collateral damage from COVID NPIs. For a year!

If I had to say... In the last 400 years, we've banished knowledge of God and theology from education, and now, even much of society. And it seems to have left "a God-like hole" in us that wokism, or whatever it is, has quickly managed to fill. Which unconsciously powers it. Without any of the benefit of centuries of refinement. Which is a very confusing for me to say, since I'm not, never been, a church goer and confused by whatever all that even means. It's just a guess, though one which a lot of people are discussing too.

Thank you for your charity to the confused! lol

Expand full comment

My opinion is that at the start of the panic, everybody was delivered a blow to their amygdala, including the medical profession. Our frontal lobes have been trying to regain control ever since, but have been hampered by the never-ending fear mongering from MSM and social media. Then, in addition, to step out of line with the current consensus, upsetting your professional group, becomes virtually impossible. We are suffering from long-term amygdala hijack (google it).

Expand full comment

As an elementary teacher (in-person in a lockdown state, half my students in the classroom with me, half on zoom simultaneously — it’s nuts)....I can attest to the adverse impact that masking has on me and I think on my students. My colleagues largely seem chipper about masks — doing their duty and “keeping everybody safe” — but the losses in human communication add up hourly, daily, and even though I have been compliant with the school rules I am not shy about reminding my students this is not normal. I have resisted cloth masks because the cutesy designs and “personalization” serve to distract from the supposed emergency and abnormality of this....but now with new reports about carcinogenic effects and massive pollution resulting from use of these surgical-style masks, Indint know what to do.

Oh and by the way the effectiveness of masks must be part of the cost benefit analysis. After a year wearing these damn things when required (but never outside unless I am with my students and following school rules) — three weeks ago, I, as a healthyish middle aged teacher with no major co-morbidities, woke with a strange headache and popped a + PCR test later that day. Been teaching from home since then as required and will be back in the classroom on Monday. (Sense of smell still affected but feel okay.).

The shame is that my positive test meant that every in-person kid in class had to get tested, and several of them are now relegated to “at-home learning” via zoom for a few more weeks, with or without symptoms.

At least I get to see them smile now, from home on camera....if I can get them to smile. Some of them are undoubtedly now saddled with guilt for having “brought corona into the classroom” — and I have to undo that psychological abuse while still enforcing a mask policy that on the one hand is obviously ineffective and on the other hand is a prerequisite to in-person attendance in school.

Thank you for your important work.

Expand full comment

I find your work invaluable, if sometimes challenging to explain to people why I attribute so much credibility to a cat I've never met. I raise this with that in mind: the NCBI study you cite was retracted. Now, I have no trouble believing and agreeing with 99% of the things a cat writing *free* content puts forth. But if I'm going to convince the school board, the underlying stuff has got to be solid. (Says the guy contributing nothing and gaining much from someone volunteering their time and talent...)

Expand full comment

I found an article about the retraction here: https://lockdownsceptics.org/2021/05/01/mask-harms-study-retracted-by-journal-claiming-science-clearly-shows-masks-work-but-fails-to-cite-any-evidence/

According to the post, it would appear that there was some fishy business with regard to the retraction.

Expand full comment

I can't understand why they haven't solved the spread of cholera with butt plugs. Same science, surely?

Expand full comment

Excellent work Gato, is insane how even if you give all this data to the "authorities" they most likely ignore you, I'm not even gonna mention their main ally, mass media. I guess our only hope is to spread this knowleage to our most loved ones, friends and family (though some of them are already hard-brainwashed).

Expand full comment

I am forwarding this to my daughter who works 10-12 hour shifts at a behavioral health center fro children. She is required, currently to double mask. It's insane. And it's not helping the kids (many of whom are on the autism spectrum) understand and interpret her directions as they cannot see her face. These are kids who have experienced trauma and the facility is adding more...it's wrong. But I doubt if her superiors will listen as they are following "CDC guidlines" whatever those are at the moment. Breaks my heart for her, her co-workers and the chilren.

Expand full comment

Children....typo

Expand full comment

Test

Expand full comment

I can't imagine how hard this all is for educators, such as yourself, and your students. I am a retired teachers (41 yrs) and still sub once in awhile, but I haven't been back for over a year for many reasons, and the biggest one is seeing kids masked. I hate it.

Expand full comment

Thank you. Another irony for me is, it’s my first regular year teaching! I had subbed last year while making a career change. I feel like I have never really experienced the normal rewards of teaching and this year has been so exhausting/depressing I may not get that chance in the future. God bless your daughter who has a tough job for sure.

Expand full comment

This too shall pass....and hopefully you will be back in a classroom face to face soon. I don't know in what state you reside, but many schools have been in session for months. Your district's parents and school board need to meet and find out what is happening, without incident, across the nation and see how these schools are functioning successfully. Sorry you became ill...glad it wasn't serious!

Expand full comment

I've got a lot of experience shopping in close quarters for the last 6 months and it's clear to me that most of the public in Florida believes that they are suffieiently protected by a cloth mask worn losely and not even covering the nose, to make the 6 foot distancing rule irrelevant. Seems to me it's common sense the farther away you are from an infected person the better if you're not protected any other way. If people believed that the cloth masks offered little or no protection, then I'm sure many more would not crowd others and the infection rate would be less.

Expand full comment