The Corona-Vaccine Question ?

When making an informed and intelligent decision about a drug or a vaccine, there are three primary questions which I tend to ask - Is this actually necessary, is it truly effective, and is it safe?

Is the eagerly anticipated new SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus vaccine all that many people are hoping it will be, or are the public just looking for a quick fix to a frustrating and fearful situation?

This post aims to focus on only one concern about the coronavirus vaccine - a phenomenon known as Antibody Dependent Enhancement (ADE).

The following is from Dr Corrigan, Ph.D. in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology:

"For a vaccine to work, our immune system needs to be stimulated to produce a neutralizing antibody, as opposed to a non-neutralizing antibody. A neutralizing antibody is one that can recognize and bind to some region (‘epitope’) of the virus, and that subsequently results in the virus either not entering or replicating in your cells.

A non-neutralizing antibody is one that can bind to the virus, but for some reason, the antibody fails to neutralize the infectivity of the virus. This can occur, for example, if the antibody doesn’t bind tightly enough to the virus, or the percentage of the surface area of the virus covered by the antibody is too low, or the concentration of the antibody is not high enough. Basically, there is some type of generic binding of the antibody to the virus, but it fails to neutralize the virus.

In some viruses, if a person harbors a non-neutralizing antibody to the virus, a subsequent infection by the virus can cause that person to elicit a more severe reaction to the virus due to the presence of the non-neutralizing antibody.  This is not true for all viruses, only particular ones.  This is called Antibody Dependent Enhancement (ADE), and is a common problem with Dengue Virus, Ebola Virus, HIV, RSV, and the family of coronaviruses.  In fact, this problem of ADE is a major reason why many previous vaccine trials for other coronaviruses failed. Major safety concerns were observed in animal models. If ADE occurs in an individual, their response to the virus can be worse than their response if they had never developed an antibody in the first place."

ADE is addressed in this short video - 

"An antibody can be rendered a non-neutralizing antibody simply because it doesn’t bind to the right portion of the virus to neutralize it, or the antibody binds too weakly to the virus. This can also occur if a neutralizing antibody’s concentration falls over time and is now no longer of sufficient concentration to cause neutralization of the virus. In addition, a neutralizing antibody can subsequently transition to non-neutralizing antibody when encountering a different strain of the virus.

The exact mechanism of ADE in SARS is not known, but the leading theory is described as follows: In certain viruses, the binding of a non-neutralizing antibody to the virus can direct the virus to enter and infect your immune cells. This occurs through a receptor called FcγRII. FcγRII is expressed on the outside of many tissues of our body, and in particular, in monocyte derived macrophages, which are a type of white blood cell. In other words, the presence of the non-neutralizing antibody now directs the virus to infect cells of your immune system, and these viruses are then able to replicate in these cells and wreak havoc on your immune response. One end of the antibody grabs onto the virus, and the other end of the antibody grabs onto an immune cell. Essentially, the non-neutralizing antibody enables the virus to hitch a ride to infect immune cells." 

You can see this in the following diagram:

"This can cause a hyperinflammatory response, a cytokine storm [as reported among many COVID-19 patients], and a generally dysregulation of the immune system that allows the virus to cause more damage to our lungs and other organs of our body.  In addition, new cell types throughout our body are now susceptible to viral infection due to the additional viral entry pathway facilitated by the FcγRII receptor, which is expressed on many different cell types.

What this means is that you can be given a vaccine, which causes your immune system to produce an antibody to the vaccine, and then when your body is actually challenged with the real pathogen, the infection is much worse than if you had not been vaccinated.

Again, this is not seen in all viruses, or even in all strains of a given virus, and there is a great deal that scientists don’t understand about the complete set of factors that dictate when and if ADE may occur. It’s quite likely that genetic factors as well as the health status of the individual may play a role on modulating this response. That being said, there are many studies (in the reference section below) that demonstrate that ADE is a persistent problem with coronaviruses in general, and in particular, with SARS-related viruses. Less is known, of course, with respect to SARS-CoV-2, but the genetic and structural similarities between the SARS-CoV-2 and the other coronaviruses strongly suggests that this risk is real.

ADE has proven to be a serious challenge with coronavirus vaccines, and this is the primary reason many have failed in early in-vitro or animal trials. For example, rhesus macaques who were vaccinated with the spike protein of the SARS-CoV virus demonstrated severe acute lung injury when challenged with SARS-CoV, while monkeys who were not vaccinated did not.  Similarly, mice who were immunized with one of four different SARS-CoV vaccines showed histopathological changes in the lungs with eosinophil infiltration after being challenged with SARS-CoV virus.  This did not occur in the controls that had not been vaccinated.  A similar problem occurred in the development of a vaccine for FIPV, which is a feline coronavirus.

For a vaccine to work, vaccine developers will need to find a way to circumvent the ADE problem.  This will require a very novel solution, and it may not be achievable, or at the very least, predictable.  In addition, the vaccine must not induce ADE in subsequent strains of SARS-CoV-2 that emerge over time, or to other endemic coronaviruses that circulate every year and cause the common cold.

A major trigger for ADE is viral mutation.  Changes to the amino acid sequence of the Spike Protein  (which is the protein on the virus that facilitates entry into our cells via the ACE2 receptor) can cause antigenic drift. What this means is that an antibody that was once neutralizing can become a non-neutralizing antibody because the antigen has slightly changed. Therefore, mutations in the Spike protein that naturally occur with coronaviruses could presumably result in ADE. Since these future strains are not predictable, it is impossible to predict if ADE will become a problem at a future date.

This inherent unpredictability problem is highlighted in the following scenario: A coronavirus vaccine may not be dangerous initially. If the initial testing looks positive, mass vaccination efforts would presumably be administered to a large portion of the population. In the first year or two, it may appear that there is no real safety issue, and over time, a greater percentage of the world population will be vaccinated due to this perceived “safety”. During this interim period, the virus is busy mutating. Eventually, the antibodies that vaccinated individuals have floating around in their bloodstream are now rendered non-neutralizing because they fail to bind to the virus with the same affinity due to the structural change resulting from the mutation. Declining concentrations of the antibody over time would also contribute to this shift towards non-neutralization.  When these previously vaccinated people are infected with this different strain of SARS-CoV-2, they could experience a much more severe reaction to the virus.

Ironically, in this scenario, this vaccine made the virus more pathogenic rather than less pathogenic. This is not something that vaccine producers would be able predict or test for with any level of real confidence at the outset, and it would only become evident at a later time."

"Does this vaccine industry know about this problem? The answer is yes, they do.

Quoting a Nature Biotechnology news article published on June 5^th, 2020:

““It’s important to talk about it [ADE],” says Gregory Glenn, president of R&D at Novavax, which launched its COVID-19 vaccine trial in May. But “we can’t be overly cautious. People are dying. So we need to be aggressive here.””

And from the same article:

“ADE “is a genuine concern,” says virologist Kevin Gilligan, a senior consultant with Biologics Consulting, who advises thorough safety studies. “Because if the gun is jumped, and a vaccine is widely distributed that is disease enhancing, that would be worse than actually not doing any vaccination at all.””

The vaccine industry is aware of this problem. The degree to which they are taking it seriously, is another question.

While many vaccine developers are aware of the problem, some of them are approaching the problem with more Laissez-faire attitude. They see this problem as “theoretical,” and not guaranteed, with the idea that animal trials should rule out the potential of ADE in humans.

As a side note, it is not ethical to conduct “challenge” studies in humans. However, challenge studies are conducted in animals. In other words, a clinical trial for a vaccine does not include administering the vaccine to a person, and then exposing this person to the virus post-vaccination to monitor their reaction. In clinical trials, humans are only given the vaccine, they are not “challenged” with the virus afterward. In animal studies, they do conduct a challenge test to observe how the animals respond to being infected with the actual virus after being vaccinated.

Will conducting animal studies solve the issue and remove the risk?

Not at all.

Anne De Groot, CEO of EpiVax argues that testing for vaccine safety in primates does not guarantee safety in humans, mainly because primates express different major histocompatibility complex (MHC) molecules, which alters epitope presentation and the immune response. Animals and humans are similar, but they are also very different.  In addition, as pointed out above, the development of different viral strains in subsequent years could present a major problem not noticeable during the initial safety trials in either humans or animals.

What about unvaccinated people who are naturally infected with the virus and develop antibodies? Could these people experience ADE to a future strain of SARS-CoV-2?

The ADE response is actually much more complicated than the picture I outlined above. There are other competing and non-competing factors in our immune system that contribute to the ADE response, many of which are not fully understood. Part of that equation is a variety of different types of T-cells that modulate this response, and these T-Cells respond to other portions (epitopes) of the virus. In a vaccine, our body is normally presented with a small part of the virus (like the Spike protein), or a modified (attenuated or dead) virus which is more benign. A vaccine does not expose the entirety of our immune system to the actual virus.

These types of vaccines will only elicit antibodies that recognize the portion of the virus which is present in the vaccine. The other portions of the virus are not represented in the antibody pool. In this scenario, it is much more likely that the vaccine-induced antibodies can be rendered as non-neutralizing antibodies, because the entire virus is not coated in antibodies, only the portion that was used to develop the vaccine.

In a real infection, our immune system is exposed to every nook and cranny of the entire virus, and as such, our immune system develops a panacea of antibodies that recognize different portions of the virus and, therefore, coat more of the virus and neutralize it. In addition, our immune system develops T-Cell responses to hundreds of different peptide epitopes across the virus; whereas in the vaccine the plethora of these T-Cell responses are absent. Researchers are already aware that the T-Cell response plays a cooperative role in either the development of, or absence of, the ADE response.

Based on these differences and the skewed immunological response which is inherent with vaccines, I believe that the risk of ADE is an order of magnitude greater in a vaccine-primed immune system rather than a virus-primed immune system. This will certainly become more apparent as COVID-19 progresses over the years, but the burden of proof rests on the shoulders of the vaccine industry to demonstrate that ADE will not rear its ugly head in the near term or the far term. Once a vaccine is administered and people develop antibodies to some misrepresentation of the virus, it cannot be reversed. Again, this is a problem that could manifest itself at a later date."

Currently, the IFR (infection fatality rate) of the virus is estimated to be approximately 0.26%, or 0.02% if under 70 years of age (WHO), and declining as the virus is naturally attenuating itself through the population. It doesn't make medical sense to attempt to vaccinate the entire World against a virus with such a low IFR, especially considering the risk presented by ADE. The risk of developing ADE in a vaccinated individual may be much greater than 0.26%.

The actual evidence of a need for inoculation of the entire general population against SARS-CoV-2 is also very weak as studies suggest people who have recovered from natural coronavirus infections have a stronger protection against the disease than those who take the vaccine. (Ref, Ref, Ref)

"COVID-19 vaccines designed to elicit neutralising antibodies may sensitise vaccine recipients to more severe disease than if they were not vaccinated. Vaccines for SARS, MERS and RSV have never been approved, and the data generated in the development and testing of these vaccines suggest a serious mechanistic concern: that vaccines designed empirically using the traditional approach (consisting of the unmodified or minimally modified coronavirus viral spike to elicit neutralising antibodies), be they composed of protein, viral vector, DNA or RNA and irrespective of delivery method, may worsen COVID-19 disease via antibody-dependent enhancement (ADE). This risk is sufficiently obscured in clinical trial protocols and consent forms for ongoing COVID-19 vaccine trials that adequate patient comprehension of this risk is unlikely to occur, obviating truly informed consent by subjects in these trials.

Conclusions drawn from the study and clinical implications: The specific and significant COVID-19 risk of ADE should have been and should be prominently and independently disclosed to research subjects currently in vaccine trials, as well as those being recruited for the trials and future patients after vaccine approval, in order to meet the medical ethics standard of patient comprehension for informed consent." - https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33113270/

Dr. James Lyons-Weiler at PA Medical Freedom Press Conference, 10/20/20:

 

  

Additional reading:

"Vaccine-induced enhancement of viral infections" - https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7131326/

"Immunization with SARS coronavirus vaccines leads to pulmonary immunopathology on challenge with the SARS virus" - https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/22536382/

 "Pathogenic priming likely contributes to serious and critical illness and mortality in COVID-19 via autoimmunity" - https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7142689/

"Informed consent disclosure to vaccine trial subjects of risk of COVID-19 vaccines worsening clinical disease" - https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33113270/

The HPV vaccine (Gardasil, Cervarix)

Human papillomavirus vaccine is said to prevent infection by certain types of human papillomavirus (HPV).   The pharmaceutical industry claims that the vaccine can prevent 70% of cervical cancer, 80% of anal cancer, 60% of vaginal cancer, 40% of vulvar cancer and possibly even some mouth cancers.

This vaccine is now in widespread use but to my surprise its efficacy in preventing cancer has never actually been proven, while adverse reactions to it are blighting and even ending the lives of girls and young women across the world.  Yet, its manufacturers and many health authorities are refusing to acknowledge that there is a problem and the medical community is continuing to offer and administer the vaccine.

Simply discussing this in your community or amongst friends can be difficult due to the way in which the topic of vaccinations has strangely become an emotionally loaded and taboo subject.  One is almost immediately seen as an heretic 'anti-vaxxer' if this belief system is even slightly questioned.  But, as we'll see, it's far from a binary matter and deserves thoughtful consideration and detailed analysis.

The videos included in this post are informative and interesting, but for those who prefer a less paraphrased path of research and may wish to dig deeper, may I recommend this book - "The HPV Vaccine On Trial: Seeking Justice for a Generation Betrayed" written by Mary Holland.

 

This book's reviews include:

“Vaccines are one of the most important revolutions in medicine, leading to reduced morbidity and mortality, as well as the eradication of some deleterious viral and bacterial-associated diseases. Yet to expect that injecting foreign substances, especially immersed in adjuvants, will not cause any side effects in some genetically prone individuals is a historical mistake. This book, written in clear language, explains how the US government has given vaccine manufacturers almost blanket liability protection, leading to unreasonably risky vaccines, including HPV vaccines. This book should lead regulatory institutions and medical journals to recognize vaccine adverse effects more completely.” - Professor Yehuda Shoenfeld, MD, Sheba Medical Center, Tel Aviv University

“The reader will see the truth: the side effects are underreported by medical personnel, while there are a growing number of parents suing manufacturers and governments for inducing lifelong handicaps, even death, of their loved ones. In fact, this is the tragic example of various segments of our society, worldwide, placing economic interests before the health and protection of our younger generation. I congratulate the authors of this book, who are showing the world this scandal.”  - Luc Montagnier, MD, Nobel Prize winner for discovery of the HIV virus.

“This book is the most informative source you will find on the sordid machinations that went into convincing the public that Human Papillomavirus (HPV) vaccination is a wise health choice. The clinical trials never showed that it protects from cervical cancer. There is overwhelming evidence that the vaccine causes harm, both in terms of autoimmune disease and infertility or even death in rare cases. Please read this gripping book before deciding whether to allow your son or daughter to receive the HPV vaccine.” - Stephanie Seneff, PhD, Senior Research Scientist, MIT  

“Having worked with HPV-vaccination studies in Denmark and subsequently with severely disabled patients attributing their disorder to possible side effects of vaccination, it is both fascinating and scary to read such a thorough unraveling of the faulty processes and the hidden facts behind the development and marketing of the vaccine. A real page-turner that anyone ought to read before considering vaccination.” - Jesper Mehlsen, MD, Senior Medical Consultant, Denmark 

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The following film, is a three-part series of films combined into one for this post.  It was first launched on 11 September 2017.  It goes into questions such as:  Is there an honest necessity for the vaccine?  Is there proof that it provides an actual benefit to justify its risks?  Is it possible that HPV virus fragments are merely being associated with these cancers without proof of actual causation?   What adjuvant is used and was a proper control placebo employed?

 

The Association of HPV Vaccine Injured Daughters (AHVID) was established at the beginning of 2015.  From their website - "Families and their daughters from the north of Scotland to the south of England, Wales and Northern Ireland have joined together to give support to each other and raise awareness of the dangers of the HPV vaccines, Cervarix and Gardasil.  The primary focus of this organisation is to assure our members that they are no longer on their own and by working together we can achieve so much more. In our opinion, these vaccines have caused many serious health issues which need immediate investigation."

Some of the boys who receive this vaccine are also injured.  The following is the Gardasil section from the documentary - 'Vaxxed II: The People's Truth', which can be streamed in it's entirety at vaxxed2.com.  This Section features Dr. Suzanne Humphries, Del Bigtree, Robert F. Kennedy, JR, and Dr. Brian Hooker spliced with testimonials from parents and young adults describing their own ordeals with adverse reactions to the Gardisil vaccine.

The lives of thousands of girls, and some boys have been ruined by this vaccine.  Some have died, others put in wheelchairs, and others debilitated by chronic fatigue and neurological conditions.

There is still no evidence that this vaccine actually prevents cancer.  Some research even indicates that it could increase the risk of cancer.  The HPV vaccine is a big money maker for Merck, the corporation which manufactured Vioxx, which is now proven to have killed many thousands of people.  Merck lied and covered up the truth over Vioxx.  Why would anyone trust them with this?

Listen here as Milinda Messenger's concerns about the HPV vaccine are belittled and confronted with lies and omissions from the mainstream pseudo-experts at ITV.  They claim that there is no evidence of links to harm, yet as the first video above details legal cases which have proven this and awards have been made to HPV vaccine injured victims.  They claim the vaccine has passed safety tests yet fail to mention that the placebo includes the very substance that is the prime suspect in causing the harm - the aluminium adjuvant.

This vaccine was never tested against a true adjuvant-free placebo and therefore the safety studies are misleading, whilst the benefits are unproven.   The risks of vaccine injury are real enough, the claimed benefits of the vaccine have no real proof, and the cancer being targetted is avoidable via routine smear tests and treatable.

Smoking COVID

Many common diseases are spread through the air by tiny particles called aerosols; these include influenza, chicken pox, mumps, measles, pertussis, tuberculosis, diphtheria, rhinovirus and the coronaviruses (Ref). 

The preponderance of scientific and epidemiologic evidence supports that SARS-CoV-2, is transmitted via infectious airborne aerosol particles, both near and at a distance from the source, especially in shared indoor spaces. (Ref, Ref, Ref, Ref, Ref, Ref, Ref, Ref) 

Science Direct, respected journal of peer reviewed scientific literature, states in its article – ‘Airborne transmission of SARS-CoV-2: The world should face the reality’:

“Hand washing and maintaining social distance are the main measures recommended by the World Health Organization (WHO) to avoid contracting COVID-19. Unfortunately, these measures do not prevent infection by inhalation of small droplets exhaled by an infected person that can travel distances of meters or tens of meters in the air and carry their viral content. Science explains the mechanisms of such transport and there is evidence that this is a significant route of infection in indoor environments. Despite this, no countries or authorities consider airborne spread of COVID-19 in their regulations to prevent infections transmission indoors. It is therefore extremely important, that the national authorities acknowledge the reality that the virus spreads through air" (Ref)

This virus’s predecessor, SARS-CoV-1, was also spread via airborne transmission. This was reported in several studies which retrospectively explained the pathway of transmission.  These studies concluded that airborne aerosol transmission was the main route of infection in the indoor cases examined. 

Early studies of airborne transmissions were hampered by the fact that the investigators did not have the technology to detect small particles less than 5 μm near an infectious person.  Therefore, they assumed that it was the exposure of the face, eyes and nose to large particles over 5 μm in size, or “droplets”, that transmitted the respiratory condition to a person near the host (Ref).  This became known as “droplet infection”, and 5 μm or greater became established as the size of large particles and led to the traditional belief that such particles could, in theory, be trapped by something like a face mask.

The early researchers concluded that since only large particles were detected near an infectious person any small particles would be transmitted via air currents, dispersed over long distances, remain infective over time and might be inhaled by persons who never had any close contact with the host (Ref).  This became known as “airborne transmission” against which a face mask would be of little use due to the microscopic size of the airborne particles.

Through the use of highly sensitive instruments it is now appreciated that the aerosols generated and transmitted from the respiratory tract due to breathing, range in size and are indeed microscopic at less than 5 μm (Ref). 

An aerosol is an "aero-solution", and can be defined as a suspension of fine solid particles or liquid droplets in air or another gas.  Examples of aerosols include fog, mist, dust, forest exudates, tobacco smoke, vape smoke and exhaled human breath.  

As both smoke and viruses (Ref) travel through the air as aerosols of comparable size, an understanding of the behaviour of smoke might help in our understanding of how airborne viruses like coronavirus are spread, therefore assisting us in knowing what measures might work and what measures won’t.

The aerosols of smoke can contain both liquid and solid particles, which can usually be smelt quite easily, providing a useful perspective of how far and at what rate aerosols can travel through the air.

It is known that viruses are exhaled in our breath as tiny aerosolized particles of less than 5μm and can remain in the air for at least 3 hours and travel long distances. (Ref, Ref) 

It has been demonstrated that, through normal breathing, over 80% of infected and symptomatic individuals produce sub-5μm aerosol particles which carry viral RNA. (Ref)

Before going on, it is necessary to discuss sizes and scales for comparative purposes.  It's not very often that people need to talk about something as small as a virus.

Viruses are so small they can only be seen with an electron microscope, and have to be measured in millionths of a metre - micrometres (μm). There are 1000 μm in a single millimetre.

The following diagram provides us with some graphical context.  A typical coronavirus is the smallest little red dot on the bottom left.  SARS-CoV-2, the coronavirus which can lead to the diseased state known as COVID-19, is reported to measure only 0.125 μm.  Which means you could stand 8,000 of these viruses side-by-side within a single millimetre.

The SARS-CoV-2 particle is 56 times smaller than a red blood cell, which is one of the smallest cells in the human body, at only 7μm.  A single red blood cell is invisible to the naked eye. 

For scale, the diagram below shows a single human hair as a benchmark on the upper end of the size range.  Look at how thin a human hair is, yet it is 1,200 times wider than a SARS-CoV-2 virus.

To the right of the coronavirus in the diagram we can see a smoke particle at 0.4 to 0.7 micrometres, which is 3-6 times bigger than a SARS-CoV-2 virus particle.
 Tobacco smoke as it comes from a cigarette is an extremely concentrated aerosol with a distribution of sizes larger than SARS-CoV-2, ranging from 0.1 to 1.0 μm.  Most people are well aware of the distances which tobacco smoke can travel because its easy to smell, which gives some perspective of the ability of aerosols to travel in and permeate the air.

View the full-size version of this infographic.

When breathing, small airways close and the reopening process produces minute aerosol particles ranging in diameter from only 0.7 to 1.0 μm (Ref).

 

These tiny aerosols we breath out cannot normally be seen.  However, during the winter months, when the air is crisp and cold, the warm moist breath and its copious aerosols are clearly visible.

 

The moist bioaerosols in the breath can also be observed at any other time of year by breathing onto a cold piece of glass.  The wet opaque surface layer that you breathe onto the glass is scientifically termed as ‘exhaled breath condensate’. It has been found to contain exhaled water, dust, cell particles, proteins, DNA, bacteria and viruses.

The same moist aerosols in someone’s breath can be seen as they follow the path of least resistance up and around the sides of a mask and onto a person’s glasses, annoyingly causing them to fog up.

Millions of aerosol particles can be exhaled with every breath. Once released, they loyally obey the laws of physics, taking the quickest and least obstructive path into a lower pressure space. The attempt to contain, filter or prevent the diffusion of millions of microscopic aerosols from an exhaled breath, using only a loose-fitting piece of cloth in front of one's nose and mouth, is like trying to hold onto fog with your hands.

 
The World Health Organisation defines droplets as being equal to or greater than 5-10 μm in diameter, and aerosols as being less than 5 μm. However, this arbitrary 5-10 µm threshold commonly used to dichotomise airborne and droplet transmission has been criticised as it has never been supported theoretically or experimentally.

   

It may be argued that by stopping some of the largest droplets, the infectivity of an individual may be reduced.  This is true to a degree but also tantamount to saying that, if on the battle field you were being fired upon by the occasional cannon ball, in amongst the sweeping machine gun fire of thousands of bullets, maybe stopping some of the cannon balls might prevent the bullets from harming you, when in fact it would make more sense to be more aware of the real dangers of both, and stay out of range of both.  "There is no evidence that some pathogens are carried only in large droplets." (Ref) 

The notion that some protection must be better than none is tantamount to wearing a woolly hat instead of a proper safety-certified helmet on a motorcycle. Only a very low level of 'minimal infective dose' (MID) is required to cause an infection, with a handful of airborne virus particles being enough to meet MID for a respiratory virus infection such as SARS. (Ref)

Attempting to temporarily trap some larger droplets in a face-covering, which will continue to evaporate into bioaerosols anyway, sounds good but makes no sense. We know from history that airborne viruses cannot be contained. It is the strength and health of the population which determines the outcome, no political interventions.

"The 2-metre social distancing rule assumes that the dominant routes of transmission of SARS-CoV-2 are via respiratory large droplets falling on others or surfaces.

A one-size-fits-all 2-metre social distancing rule is not consistent with the underlying science of exhalations and indoor air. Such rules are based on an over-simplistic picture of viral transfer, which assume a clear dichotomy between large droplets and small airborne droplets emitted in isolation without accounting for the exhaled air. The reality involves a continuum of droplet sizes and an important role of the exhaled air that carries them."   - Oxford University Centre of Evidence Based Medicine

Source - Airborne transmission of SARS-CoV-2: The world should face the reality

A belief in the safety of wearing a mask to protect us from the dangers of large droplets, whilst ignoring the danger posed by aerosols, is a dangerous false belief system, as almost all masks in popular use are unable to filter out the microscopic 'bioaerosol bullets' (Ref). 

In the following video, Doctors talk about airborne disease transmission and physically demonstrate how a wide variety of masks and face-coverings are unable to prevent virus bioaerosol transmission.  The masks may temporarily catch the 'cannon balls' but not the thousands of 'bullets'. A vape is used for demonstration purposes as it produces aerosols which are very easy to see. The aerosol particles emitted from a vape measure 3.4μm, which is 27 times larger than the SARS-CoV-2 virus. But if the virus is contained within the normal water-based aerosols of our breath, measuring 0.3 to 3μm, the comparison is fair and reasonable. As you will see, the vape aerosols go through and around all the masks and face-coverings with ease. 

Typically, the popular counter argument against masks is that surgeons wear them, and as high-ranking professionals, they must know better.  This is of course based upon the fallacious assumption that surgeons wear masks in surgery to prevent virus transmission. This is not true.  Please read this extensive document produced by the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons for a detailed analysis of the question of masks as protection against virus transmission.

A good understanding of aerosol physics, airflow, and dilution is helpful to interpret the behaviour of potentially infectious aerosols in complex real-world situations.  Research in aerobiology, physics, and computational fluid dynamics has advanced the understanding of aerosol generation and the carriage and fate of respiratory particles. 

According to aerosol scientist, Dr. Jose-Luis Jimenez, the theoretical limitation of aerosols to less than 5 μm is not scientifically supported.  Experiments demonstrate that significantly larger particles (~50 μm ) can be exhaled and carried in the breath, remaining airborne and floating through the air.   Smaller aerosol particles (≤5 μm), are light enough to remain suspended in the air for hours, analogous to pollen, which ranges in size from 15 to 200 μm.  He states that particles of 5 μm or smaller in size can remain airborne indefinitely under most indoor conditions (Ref).

One infected person will produce about 2.5 million particles per 8-hour period just from breathing, which is more than capable of saturating a normal domestic or office internal air space. These aerosols containing infectious virus can travel considerably farther than 2 metres and accumulate in poorly ventilated indoor air. (Ref)   

"There’s no reason to be walking around with a mask. When you’re in the middle of an outbreak, wearing a mask might make people feel a little bit better and it might even block a droplet, but it’s not providing the perfect protection that people think that it is. And, often, there are unintended consequences — people keep fiddling with the mask and they keep touching their face" - Dr. Anthony Fauci, (USA Coronavirus Task Force), March 2020.

A 2008 UK Government Health & Safety Executive (HSE) report - “Evaluating the protection afforded by surgical masks against influenza bioaerosols”- clearly stated:

“In principle, surgical masks provide adequate protection against large droplets, splashes and contact transmission. There is a common misperception that they will provide protection against aerosols”… “they should not be used in situations where close exposure to infectious aerosols is likely.” (Ref)

The fact that basic and surgical masks only reduce large droplets and provide no protection from bioaerosols is confirmed by multiple sources, including the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons, which states:

“[A]any respiratory protection respirator or mask must provide a high level of filtration and fit to be highly effective in preventing the transmission of SARS-CoV-2. [Ability to block Mycobacterium tuberculosis (3μm)]” (Ref)

Professor Beda Stadler, emeritus Professor of Immunology from the Medical Faculty of the University of Bern, states that the masks being worn by the public “gives a false sense of security and its just ridiculous”…”People have no idea how small a virus is, it is like expecting a football goal to stop a ping-pong ball”…”it has become a belief system, like a religion”.  

Another factor which appears to be missed, is the fact that airborne viruses can and will infect a person via the air which makes contact with the eyes. A typical grain of pollen measures 15μm, which is 120 times larger than the coronavirus [Ref].  As any hay fever sufferer will attest, pollen floats invisibly through the air and gets into the eyes, lungs and sinuses; as will SARS-CoV-2.

Only a sealed breathing system, with an independent clean air supply and a mask which seals to the face and incorporates the eyes, is going to properly protect a person from microscopic viruses expelled in the tiny aerosols generated by the breath of an infected individual.  A face-covering and standard surgical mask might actually endanger a person by creating a false sense of security.

Normal masks and face-coverings don't control virus infection, they control you.

__________________

For a complete dissection and explanation of aerosols and airborne particles, please see Understanding Particle Size and Aerosol-based Transmission by Steve Probst.