re: Anti-mask pediatrician/doctor....any recommendations?

Well, I wasn’t really looking to start this debate, but I guess I will weigh in since it seems that there are no doctors who meet the criteria I laid out.

I’ve been following COVID since late November when it first started to peak into the news. One of my degrees is in microbiology and I’ve taken many courses on virology and molecular genetics and just find it interesting, so I followed it and took it very seriously. We distanced ourselves from everyone for a couple of months and watched it all play out. My children have had some respiratory issues in the past and my parents are the highest of high risk, so I was watching it carefully.

Slowly it became clear that this virus, while real and deadly to some, was not worthy of the scare mongering being conducted by the media and politicians. The recent admission by the CDC that 94% of deaths involved comorbidities is further evidence of that.

Anyway, when I heard about the mask mandates my gut feeling was that it was completely unnecessary. Using a cloth mask to stop a coronavirus is like trying to dam a river with a chain link fence. So, I decided to research to see if that initial impulse was correct. So I read the studies and reports and they confirmed what I originally thought. That is not confirmation bias…that is forming a hypothesis, researching it and drawing a conclusion. The conclusion that I came to is that masks are ineffective in stopping a coronavirus.

If anyone is legitimately interested, here are the relevant studies (two of which are posted by the CDC and one by the WHO):

Effectiveness of Cloth Masks for Protection Against Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 - Abrar A. Chughtai , Holly Seale, and C. Raina Macintyre LINK

Nonpharmaceutical Measures for Pandemic Influenza in Nonhealthcare Settings—Personal Protective and Environmental Measures - Jingyi Xiao1, Eunice Y. C. Shiu1, Huizhi Gao, Jessica Y. Wong, Min W. Fong, Sukhyun Ryu, and Benjamin J. Cowling LINK

A cluster randomised trial of cloth masks compared with medical masks in healthcare workers - C Raina MacIntyre1, Holly Seale1, Tham Chi Dung2, Nguyen Tran Hien2, Phan Thi Nga2, Abrar Ahmad Chughtai1, Bayzidur Rahman1, Dominic E Dwyer3, Quanyi Wang4 LINK

Effectiveness of N95 respirators versus surgical masks against influenza: A systematic review and meta-analysis
Youlin Long 1, Tengyue Hu 2, Liqin Liu 2, Rui Chen 3, Qiong Guo 1, Liu Yang 1, Yifan Cheng 1, Jin Huang 4, Liang Du 1
LINK

N95 Respirators vs Medical Masks for Preventing Influenza Among Health Care PersonnelA Randomized Clinical Trial Lewis J. Radonovich Jr, MD1; Michael S. Simberkoff, MD2,3; Mary T. Bessesen, MD4,5; et al LINK

I also paid attention to the U.S. Surgeon General when he tweeted on February 29, 2020: “Seriously people – STOP BUYING MASKS! They are NOT effective in preventing general public from catching #Coronavirus.”
And when that same Surgeon General said later on an interview with Fox & Friends that wearing a mask can “actually increase your risk.”

So, I have my reasons for believe the mask mandate is BS.