The CDC about-faced on face masks!

Last updated on January 3, 2023

Come, sew some CDC face masks!

Let’s get real – the CDC about-faced on face masks after they got the coronavirus  stimulus $153 billion!

After listing why the public does not need to wear them,  they say go right ahead, kids!

And Is the CDC colluding with Etsy? I just wondered if CDC and our favorite craft source, Etsy, have some sort of sweetheart deal (kidding), because CDC’s latest update on the coronavirus  is how to sew (or sell!) your very own handmade cloth face masks. In any colors and fabrics! Embroidery and lace trim are optional.

Etsy is going wild. Josh Silverman, CEO of Etsy had to issue a disclaimer:

Silverman said he wanted to be “very clear” that Etsy was not claiming masks bought from its marketplace will prevent people from contracting COVID-19.

These simple sewing lessons remind me of Girl Scout Manuals, or old Vogue or Butterick dress patterns. But really, what is the CDC, Center for Disease Control and Prevention, thinking? How does sewing nose clothes help public health, and will cloth masks really help stop the spread of Covid-19? And here’s a good one: why did they change their minds about masks last week? It was a complete 180 degrees. I’ve seen a lot of people asking that question – but not the media, unfortunately.

How to sew Nose Clothes

If you want to get crafty, the CDC suggests using cotton in layers, coffee filters, rubber bands, and elastic. Whatever you have lying around the house! Just stitch it, decorate it, hang it on, and you’re good to go!

Anyone see any problems with this? How about breathing through several layers of fabric strapped to your nose? Inhaling cotton fibers directly into your lungs? Getting the rubber bands and elastic stuck in your hair? Putting it on or off while never touching your face? That will never happen.

I’ll let Mikey try it.

CDC says they don’t know much of anything about COVID-19

Here’s all you need to know, straight from the source: CDC. Important: before they discuss how coronavirus spreads, they highlight and bold a disclaimer:

COVID-19 is a new disease and we are still learning about how it spreads and the severity of illness it causes.

It’s reminiscent of William Goldman’s advice on how to write a screenplay in Adventures in the Screen Trade: “No one knows anything.”

So if the CDC says they are just guessing how the virus spreads, why are we on lockdown again? Why have we lost jobs, businesses, family, friends, culture, libraries, education, Starbucks, nice grocery stores, parks and beaches???

They also state that this virus may be spread by asymptomatic people: Some recent studies have suggested that COVID-19 may be spread by people who are not showing symptoms.

And it may be gotten from touching surfaces, but not likely:

This is not thought to be the main way the virus spreads, but we are still learning more about this virus.

Their disclaimers and meager facts are not what you find in most media, is it? In fact, quite the opposite! Sometimes I burst out laughing at how dramatic (and wrong) even the major news sources are.

CDC’s final advice:

• The virus that causes COVID-19 is spreading very easily and sustainably between people.
• Information from the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic suggest that this virus is spreading more efficiently than influenza, but not as efficiently as measles, which is highly contagious. [again, they are not sure.]

Notice that masks are not suggested at all.

Why did the CDC change their minds about face masks?

On March 26 the White House approved the $2 trillion dollar coronavirus aid package. $153.5 billion of that goes towards public health. A couple days afterwards, CDC decided people should breathe through cloth and they looked up some old sewing patterns and applied them to masks. This almost seems like…a way to keep the women in this country busy, so they don’t question their loss of freedom.

Is this the kind of science the CDC wants to spend their $153 billion dollars on? Home economics and fashion for the possibly infected? The CDC claims they about-faced because some studies say the coronavirus may be asymptomatic. Well, duh – not everyone gets a cold or flu at the same time, but some people do. So what? Yes, this Covid is more deadly. For people in certain categories, who need extra care. That is not able-bodied healthy adults.

Time Magazine wrote about this on April 3: Why is the public health so wishy-washy about masks?

And why do people continue to wear them, even when WHO and the CDC says don’t bother? Because they believe in magic.

…so it’s no surprise that face masks are in short supply—despite the CDC specifically not recommending them for healthy people trying to protect against COVID-19.

From Dr. William Schaffner:

The only problem: that’s not likely to be effective against respiratory illnesses like the flu and COVID-19. If it were, “the CDC would have recommended it years ago,” he says. “It doesn’t, because it makes science-based recommendations.”

“Seriously people- STOP BUYING MASKS!” tweeted Dr. Jerome Adams, the U.S. Surgeon General, on Feb. 29. “They are NOT effective in preventing general public from catching #Coronavirus, but if healthcare providers can’t get them to care for sick patients, it puts them and our communities at risk!”

Fear makes fools

Now we get to what I said when I started this series: Fear is the enemy. It’s pretty obvious, since science shows the masks don’t work (read OSHA reports) that face masks are really a psychological crutch to those people living in fear. From the Time article:

Lynn Bufka, a clinical psychologist and senior director for practice, research and policy at the American Psychological Association, suspects that people are clinging to masks for the same reason they knock on wood or avoid walking under ladders. “Even if experts are saying it’s really not going to make a difference, a little [part of] people’s brains is thinking, well, it’s not going to hurt.”

She calls it a “superstitious behavior.” Dr. Schaffner said the same: that it just gives people a sense that they can control a virus they can’t see.

The article describes a lot of silly photos on social media of people wearing masks to get attention. Stars, too. This is called virtue signaling.

A more influential celebrity post, perhaps, would glorify the simple, unsexy practice of handwashing.

A lot of experts have spent a lot of time trying to explain an unknown virus, its unknown activity and patterns, unscientific modeling predicting millions dead, and the like. From this tenuous data, they have made hasty, life-altering decisions affecting everyone in the country. This is as far from science as you can get.

The CDC is one of the problems. They decided to foist the burden onto the people, and most Public Health Departments copied them: “Hey, stop watching us! Go do something constructive and buy masks, even though you don’t have a job now! We have no legal powers, but we’ll appeal to your conscience: do you want your Grandma to die?”

Next up: Why did the CDC decide some nameless people were invisible carriers of a virus no one suffered from? (Asymptomatic) Let’s look at that “research”!