“The most important finding from this study is that contrary to the accepted thought that fewer people are dying because infection rates are reduced by masks, this was not the case,” wrote Dr. Fögen.
QUICK FACTS:
- A study published in the peer-reviewed medical journal Medicine sought to determine whether mandatory mask use influenced the case fatality rate in Kansas between Aug 1 and Oct 15, 2020.
- The study author, a German doctor named Zacharias Fögen (MD), found that counties in Kansas with mask mandates had “significantly higher case fatality rates” than counties without mask mandates.
- “These findings suggest that mask use might pose a yet unknown threat to the user instead of protecting them, making mask mandates a debatable epidemiologic intervention,” Dr. Fögen concluded.
- The study found: “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 (95% confidence interval [95% CI]: 1.51–2.10) 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 (95% CI: 1.24–1.72).”
THE “FOEGEN EFFECT” CAUSES DROPLETS TRAPPED IN THE MASK TO BE RE-INHALED, INCREASING SICKNESS:
- The study author argues that the increased mortality rate among mask users is caused by what he calls the “Foegen effect” theory.
- This theory argues that “deep re-inhalation of hypercondensed droplets” that are caught in facemasks as droplets “can worsen prognosis and might be linked to long-term effects of COVID-19 infection.”
MASK-WEARING IMPOSES “GREAT RISK ON INDIVIDUALS”:
“This study revealed that wearing facemasks might impose a great risk on individuals, which would not be mitigated by a reduction in the infection rate,” Dr. Fögen wrote in the study’s conclusion. “The use of facemasks, therefore, might be unfit, if not contraindicated, as an epidemiologic intervention against COVID-19. Proving or disproving the ‘Foegen effect’ using experimental studies as described above should be a priority to public health scientists.”
READ THE STUDY:
BACKGROUND:
- In addition to being published in Medicine, Dr. Fögen’s study—titled “The Foegen effect: A mechanism by which facemasks contribute to the COVID-19 case fatality rate”—is also available in the National Institutes of Health’s (NIH) National Library of Medicine (NLM).
