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The shadowy group that brought mask mandates to the UK
The shadowy group that brought mask mandates to the UK
22 Dec 2022 dailysceptic In our
supposedly liberal and transparent democratic country, it appears that a group of remote and unnamed scientists outside the official SAGE infrastructure actually forced masks on for British citizens. Were they well-intentioned academics offering their expertise, or controversial ideologues engaged in a global effort to control the masses? You decide.
The U-turn on mask recommendations and regulations by the UK government and public health experts in 2020 is one of many puzzling policy decisions in the Covid era. In just over a month, our ministers, leading scientists and medical leaders have switched from the position of repeatedly encouraging us not to wear masks in the community environment to the totalitarian position of imposing regulations on masks. Who was primarily responsible for this remarkable turnaround?
Based on recent statements by former Health Secretary Matt Hancock, it appears that he may have been influenced by the political whims of Dominic Cummings (former government adviser) and Nicola Sturgeon (Scotland's First Minister). However, the whims of political actors were probably not enough to achieve a masked turnaround, and the support of expert scientific advisors would have been necessary. Which academics filled this mask-enforcer role? Surprisingly, a close examination of the SAGE records - and a timeline of decision-making - during the antecedents of the policy turn found an obscure, multidisciplinary group that most people had never even heard of: DELVE, which stands for "Data Evaluation and Learning for Viral Epidemics" ( Data evaluation and learning for viral outbreaks).
What did the experts think before March and early April 2020?
In the early spring of 2020, public health experts spoke with one voice. Here are some reminders of their collective wisdom:
When it comes to wearing a mask, our advice is clear: wearing a mask, if you don't have an infection, does almost nothing to reduce your risk. So we don't advise this. Professor Chris Whitty, Chief Medical Officer for England (4 March 2020).
"For the average person, 'masks' are really not a good idea ... people are putting themselves at more risk than less ... the virus can actually get trapped in the mask and they can start breathing it in. Dr Jenny Harries, England's deputy chief medical officer ( 12 March 2020).
Global evidence suggests that masks do not work in the general population. Professor Jason Leitch, Clinical Director for Scotland (3 April 2020)
We do not recommend the general wearing of masks. Professor Jonathan Van Tam, Deputy Chief Health Officer for England (3 April 2020)
The experts were so clearly united in their anti-mask position that around this time the Advertising Agency (ASA) banned the advertising of two companies because, according to false claims, their face protectors provide protection against the coronavirus. The ASA's intervention won the unequivocal support of Professor Stephen Powis (Chief Medical Officer of the NHS), who said: "Callous companies seeking to maximize profits by promoting products that go against official advice are downright dangerous and have rightly been banned put them in." The professor clearly supported the ASA's intervention.
It is clear that the requirements of mass masking were not taken into account at that time. What happened next?
The lukewarm phase: April 7-20, 2020.
After the all-too-brief period of sobriety - when wearing face shields in community settings was recognized as ineffective and probably more harmful than useful - SAGE undertook a period of information gathering, surveying the scientific community, ostensibly in search of justification for widespread masking. Two weeks after the first shutdown, they may be thirsting for more restrictions, or simply responding to media pressure to "do something." However, expert feedback received between April 7 and April 20 was generally lukewarm about the potential value of forcing masks on healthy people. A report
from UNCOVER - a group based at the University of Edinburgh - dated 7 Aprilbased on a review of the evidence, it concluded that "wearing face masks in the community was not associated with a significant reduction in influenza-like illness" and that "wearing masks alone, in the absence of other preventive measures, is unlikely to be effective." The SAGE minutes of the same day also cite the work of the New and Emerging Respiratory Virus Threats Advisory Group (NERVTAG), which apparently concluded that "increased use of masks would have minimal impact (in terms of preventing infection in the uninfected population)."
Given this unanimous advice that masks are a poor barrier to the virus, have SAGE experts now accepted that no further mask policy is warranted? No: two days later, as recorded in their April 9 minutes, SAGE requested more information and asked NERVTAG to produce another document on masks, "including behavioral aspects of masks" (emphasis added), " relying on SPI-B if necessary". NERVTAG members included such staunch supporters of Covid restrictions as Professors Neil Ferguson, Malcolm Semple and John Edmunds. SPI-B (the Behavioral Science Subgroup of SAGE) would have recognized the potential power of masks to "persuade" people to comply with public health dictates.
But perhaps surprisingly, both NERVTAG and SPI-B were unconvinced about the net benefits of routinely masking healthy people's faces.
NERVTAG's April 13 paper, "Face Masks in the Community," concluded overall: "Overall, there is insufficient evidence to recommend the general use of face masks in the community." Specifically, the policy options were summarized as follows:
- General face masks in the community: NOT RECOMMENDED
- Face masks for everyone for short-term unavoidable close contact: ALLOWED
- Face masks for vulnerable individuals in the community for short periods: RECOMMENDED
So, with the exception of those with a pre-existing significant risk, these experts opposed the requirement of general masking of the population. SAGE's April 16 main report echoes this conclusion, reiterating that "evidence from RCTs is inconclusive regarding the protective effect of face masks when worn in a household or community setting" and raising further concerns about community regarding masking, including due to: supply constraints; transport and shop workers wearing masks all day; and the potential to increase complacency around other restrictions (such as social distancing). Interestingly, after reiterating the research findings and their reservations about the introduction of additional mask requirements in an addendum to SAGE's April 16 minutes, SAGE commits to submitting revised mask guidelines by the week of April 20. In addition, in this addendum, the Chief Medical Officer should specifically arrange to "produce a summary of recommendations for wearing face masks based on the DELVE evidence synthesis" [Emphasis added]. Perhaps they were already aware that the Masked Cavalry was coming over the horizon?
Meanwhile, behavioral science "nudgers" from the SPI-B group published their study on April 20, highlighting both the potential benefits and negative consequences of recommending the use of masks in communities. Predictably, face-covering is advocated as "demonstrating that the individual is concerned for the well-being of others and conforms to desired social norms"—an effective enforcer of "ego" and "normative pressure," to use the language of behavioral science. However, they also point out some of the unintended consequences of mask requirements, including "negative evaluation and harassment of people who do not wear face masks, which can lead to divisions that can undermine collective solidarity."
Then came DELVE.
DELVE: Mask Enforcers
On April 21, 2020, DELVE submitted the "Report on Face Masks to the General Public" to SAGE. Given the strongly pro-mask content and tone of the report - which stands in stark contrast to previous analysis by other sources - it is reasonable to assume that this group of academics, far removed from the mainstream Covid decision-making apparatus, was primarily responsible for the forced silencing of the British people.
It evokes the ragged spoils of highly selective laboratory and observational studies.
Citing a rag bag of highly selective laboratory and observational studies, as well as wild overestimations of asymptomatic transmission and a violation of the precautionary principle (assuming that intervention is the safe, default position), the DELVE group demanded that the public cover their faces with plastic and clothes. Their intention was clear from the first sentence of their report:
Face masks are an important tool for managing the spread of COVID-19 among the population.
DELVE's flawed rationale is that it ignores consistent findings from randomized controlled trials that community masking does not result in significant reductions in viral transmission, ignores the widespread harms associated with mass masking, and then makes three implausible claims:
Claim 1: 80% of infected people have no symptoms. This largely reflects a failure to recognize that an asymptomatic person who tests positive is not necessarily infectious; moreover, according to research, asymptomatic people contribute very little to the spread of the pandemic.
Statement 2: Droplet infection is one of the main ways of spreading. However, there is a growing consensus that the SARS-CoV-2 virus spreads mainly through microscopic aerosols, so the expectation from face protectors is like expecting a tennis net to be impervious to sand.
Claim 3: Face masks reduce the spread of droplets. Even so, the invalidity of the previous two claims makes this claim largely irrelevant.
Based on this trio of false claims, DELVE set out to influence national policy by promoting that "widespread use of surgical and homemade face masks among the general public could have a significant mitigation effect on the spread of COVID-19." In the wake of the DELVE report, other groups that have previously called for tighter restrictions have joined the clamor for masking in the UK. A study by the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, for example, reported that - based on no less than their own modeling - a high level of adherence to face coverings may have a "modest effect" on the spread of the virus. On April 21, the SAGE minutes included a statement that "there is sufficient evidence to
Predictably, the government gave in to the request. Starting from June 15, 2020, the use of masks was one by one required on public transport, in indoor retail and leisure facilities, and - shamefully - in schools. If British citizens do not give in to this state coercion, they risk fines, exclusion from work and everyday life. People were regularly harassed and slandered for choosing not to cover their airways with cloth or plastic. Based on the timeline described above, it is reasonable to conclude that DELVE was primarily guilty of imposing a restriction that was both ineffective and harmful, and a gross violation of basic human rights and freedoms.
But what exactly is DELVE, this obscure group that peddles half-truths and controls the narrative of the mainstream mask?
DELVE: membership and relationships
DELVE is an initiative launched by the Royal Society (a British scientific academy dedicated to "promoting excellence in science for the benefit of humanity"). This scientific society with ambitious goals describes DELVE as: "A multidisciplinary group... promoting a data-driven approach to learn from the different approaches countries have taken in dealing with the pandemic" (sic). The work of this group appears to have been "discussed with the government and welcomed by the government, which provided it with input through SAGE". I don't recall this arrangement being shared with the UK public at Whitty and Vallance's 2020 press conference, but maybe I missed it?
The Royal Society has been steadfastly in favor of restriction throughout the Covid era, and its commitment to mask-like coercion is demonstrated by welcoming and promoting DELVE's policy-changing output on its website on 5 May 2020. True to form, the Royal Society followed this up with its own strongly pro-mask document on 26 June 2020, in which it particularly praised the value of masks in conveying psychological messages to promote general compliance with restrictions, lending further weight to the notion that face coverings are primarily people control as a method, not to limit the spread of viruses. On 10 July 2020, Venki Ramakrishnan (President of the Royal Society) told the Guardian that "
Examining the people participating in DELVE is also instructive. A review of the membership list of the "Steering Committee" - "a high-level expert group that oversees the work and communicates the results to the Government's Chief Scientific Adviser and networks within the Government" - reveals that many of them have close links not only to the Royal Society, but also with other pro-restriction and highly controversial organizations such as the Wellcome Trust and Imperial College London (the latter home of the chief modeller, Professor Neil Ferguson). Members include: Devi Shridar, Professor of Global Health at the University of Edinburgh, Wellcome Trust Research Fellow, Founding Director of the Global Health Governance Programme, who previously participated in the Health Industry Council of the World Economic Forum; Demis Hassabis, an artificial intelligence expert whose mission is to solve "the problem of intelligence" and then use artificial intelligence to "solve everything else"; and Daniel Kahneman, professor of psychology at Princetown University and world-renowned behavioral scientist. So these are the scientists who decided to force the British to cover their faces: a media darling who takes a "lock them up and vaccinate them" approach to dealing with pandemics, an ardent supporter of transhumanism and an American "nudger". then use artificial intelligence to "solve everything else"; and Daniel Kahneman, professor of psychology at Princetown University and world-renowned behavioral scientist. So these are the scientists who decided to force the British to cover their faces: a media darling who takes a "lock them up and vaccinate them" approach to dealing with pandemics, an ardent supporter of transhumanism and an American "nudger". then use artificial intelligence to "solve everything else"; and Daniel Kahneman, professor of psychology at Princetown University and world-renowned behavioral scientist. So these are the scientists who decided to force the British to cover their faces: a media darling who takes a "lock them up and vaccinate them" approach to dealing with pandemics, an ardent supporter of transhumanism and an American "nudger".
It is clear that in the Covid era, it was not only SAGE's unaccountable scientists who controlled politics. As for the mask mandates, DELVE's hidden technocrats have been central to forcing us all to cover our faces in social settings. In a supposedly democratic and liberal society, should anonymous influencers - prone to bias and corruption - make decisions that interfere in the lives of all of us? I think not.
Dr Gary Sidley is a retired NHS consultant clinical psychologist and co-founder of the Smile Free campaign. His blog is at Coronababble .
The shadowy group that brought mask mandates to the UK
22 Dec 2022 dailysceptic In our
supposedly liberal and transparent democratic country, it appears that a group of remote and unnamed scientists outside the official SAGE infrastructure actually forced masks on for British citizens. Were they well-intentioned academics offering their expertise, or controversial ideologues engaged in a global effort to control the masses?... Read More