James Veverka: Just because something is published does not make it true

To The Daily Sun,

Our latest anti-masking crusader Patrick Wetmore finished off this week's letter with another bogus paper. He thinks Denis Rancourt is correct about masks and like his previous foray into junk-science, the paper was stuffed with error. Mr. Wetmore wasn't writing to The Sun when Rancourt's nonsense was discussed openly in the letter section last year. Instead of going over all the facts that other writers shared about fact-free Denis, I will share a complete debunking of Rancourt's nonsense. The article is titled, A Complete Debunking of Denis Rancourt's Masks Don't Work: https://bit.ly/3tCOvjT

Previously, Wetmore tried out an alleged NIH, Stanford "study" claiming masks were useless. It wasn't affiliated with Stanford. It wasn't NIH. It wasn't a virologist. The paper claimed some ridiculous things like wearing a face-covering decreases oxygen levels and increases carbon dioxide levels. You can read a complete debunking of Baruch Vainshelboim's disaster at an AP Fact-checking page, titled "Study lacks evidence on masks, isn’t linked to Stanford" https://bit.ly/3bjq3xM

This alleged study, which it was not, was so badly written and contained so many errors that it was finally retracted by the journal it was in. I don't expect anti-maskers to get it but be aware that their ideas are harmful, have extended the pandemic, have caused more sickness and death, and are based in politically-driven willful ignorance.

It should be noted that neither of these colossal mistakes was written by experts in virology or epidemiology. A physicist and an exercise cardiologist. The errors are manifest and I would be glad to point them out if he is unwilling to read the rebuttals I have provided. And he is not alone. Another writer who touts their 30 years of expertise in environmental biology diminished the value of masks by pointing out that medical personnel uses self-contained suits. What our self-proclaimed expert seems to be unaware of is that viral loads are critical. Not 100 percent protection like a suit, masks mitigate viral loads. Different viruses infect at different viral loads. And some masks work better than others. I wear a KN95 which is better than a medical procedure mask but less efficient than an N95. Most of us have been exposed to COVID-19 so proactively minimizing the viral load is paramount in protecting ourselves from a load that is large enough to sicken us.

Masking and other simple measures like distancing can not only prevent sickness but reduce its severity. Check out The New York Times article "It’s Not Whether You Were Exposed to the Virus. It’s How Much: The pathogen is proving a familiar adage: The dose makes the poison." Different viruses require different viral loads to trigger an illness. From hundreds to millions. Think of mitigation strategies as harm reduction, not a silver bullet, both for you and those around you. And with the new COVID-19 variants, we now have viruses that shed much more into the air than the first strains.

James Veverka

Tilton