Can wearing a mask actually make you MORE sick? The Foegen Effect

https://brownstone.org/articles/the-foegen-effect-how-mask-wearing-can-make-you-sick/

So this article caught my eye because this study was actually done on the state of Kansas data!  As a state that had county and city mask mandates but not a state mandate, it is an easy place to evaluate the mask versus no mask mandate effects during covid.

The Foegen study was published the the Medicine Journal as well

https://journals.lww.com/md-journal/Fulltext/2022/02180/The_Foegen_effect__A_mechanism_by_which_facemasks.60.aspx

This MD compared covid data from August-October 2020.  Prior to vaccines.  When mask mandates were at an all time high across the world.  His hypothesis?  That the use of masks in people WITH covid actually led to deeper inhalation of the virions that collected IN the mask, causing the virus to go from the upper pharynx/larynx airway and be inhaled deeper into lung tissue.  A parallelization analysis based on county-level data showed that in Kansas, counties with mask mandate had significantly higher case fatality rates than counties without mask mandate, with a risk ratio of 1.85 for COVID-19-related deaths. Even after adjusting for the number of “protected persons,” that is, the number of persons who were not infected in the mask-mandated group compared to the no-mask group, the risk ratio remained significantly high at 1.52.  By analyzing the excess mortality in Kansas, this study determines that over 95% of this effect can solely be attributed to COVID-19.

These findings suggest that mask use might pose a threat to the user instead of protecting them, making mask mandates a debatable epidemiologic intervention.  The cause of this trend is explained herein using the “Foegen effect” theory; that is, deep re-inhalation of hypercondensed droplets or pure virions caught in facemasks as droplets can worsen prognosis and might be linked to long-term effects of COVID-19 infection. No-MMC = no mask mandate. MMC = mask mandate.

From the hypothesis/discussion in the scientific published journal: “A rationale for the increased deaths from mandating masks is probably that virions that enter or those coughed out in droplets are retained in the facemask tissue, and after quick evaporation of the droplets, hypercondensed droplets or pure virions (virions not inside a droplet) are re-inhaled from a very short distance during inspiration. This process will be referred to as the “Foegen effect” because a review of the literature did not yield any results on this effect, which has not been described earlier.

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 and glasses 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.

Moreover, the “Foegen effect” could increase the overall viral load because virions that should have been removed from the respiratory tract are returned. Viral reproduction in vivo, including the reproduction of the re-inhaled virions, is exponential compared with the mask-induced linear droplet reduction. Therefore, the number of exhaled or coughed out virions that pass through the facemask might, at some point, exceed the number of virions shed without facemasks. Furthermore, the hypercondensed droplets and pure virions in the mask might be blown outwards during expiration, resulting in aerosol transmission instead of droplet transmission. Moreover, these 2 effects might be linked to a resurgence of rhinovirus infections.

The use of “better” masks (N95, KN95) 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.

Regarding the proposed consequences of the “Foegen effect,” the question arises which share of the global death toll and long-term effects of COVID-19 can be attributed to widespread mask use.”

WOW.  This is a super interesting study.  He did the study very well.  He accounted for population density differences and excluded large cities so it would not skew the data. So think about this.  We’re we better off exhaling virus particles into open air versus containing them in a mask?  Did masking of kids create the reason for their repeated illnesses because what masks did with covid they also did with other respiratory viruses?  Why did mask mandate counties have HIGHER deaths rates from covid than non-mask mandate counties?

So what did masks do that was a positive?  Honestly, nothing.  Were masks ever a good idea?  Remember in the early covid days when Fauci said masks were not needed and then suddenly in the summer of 2020 mask mandates went into effect?  WHY did that happen?!  The CDC has already come out with the data that masks did not work. Are masks a good idea for ANY respiratory illness?  Not for the person WITH the illness wearing the mask they aren’t!  We are just sending more concentrated virus particles deeper into their lungs.  Ahhhh masks….They were great political and social theater though.

In closing: watch this lovely video of government opinions, including Fauci, on masks up until 2020……https://beckernews.com/watch-medical-experts-mock-the-idea-of-wearing-masks-to-stop-viruses-prior-to-covid-19-pandemic-45378/