How Masking Impacts Our Ability to Codify Human Emotions

In the recent past, I posted this missive on the negative impact of masking on the youngest members of society.  In this posting, we'll look at research that actually appears on the National Institutes of Health website, revealing how masking is impacting adults, something that most of us have noticed over the past 14 months whether we realize it consciously or subconsciously.

  

In the article entitled "Wearing Face Masks Strongly Confuses Counterparts in Reading Emotions", Claus-Christian Carbon opens with the following:

 

"Face masks not only have a direct positive medical impact in terms of preventing the virus from spreading to those who are most vulnerable; they also have positive societal effects as wearing masks allows for the relaxing of other preventive measures such as strict isolation and quarantining. However, face masks also cover, per definition, a major part of the human face, which can crucially affect social interaction. Our faces provide the key information of personal identity; additional socially important information such as trustworthiness, attractiveness, age, and sex; information that supports the understanding of speech by enabling facial speech analysis, as well as fine-grained information that allows for reading the other’s emotional state via expression analysis...

  

With regard to expression analysis, different studies have showed that we are far from perfect in assessing the emotional state of our counterpart. This is especially the case when we just rely on pure facial information without knowing the context of a scene. Another factor that lowers our performance in correctly reading emotions from faces is the static view on faces without any information about the dynamic progression of the seen expression. A partial occlusion of the face , e.g., by sunglasses or by scarfs, is a further obstacle to accurately reading emotions from facial expressions." 

  

Carbon goes on to note that the masks commonly being worn during the pandemic obscure 60 to 70 percent of the area of the face that is relevant for expressing and transmitting emotions, making it difficult to read emotions in other people.  The study tested how a common face mask changes the efficacy of emotion in social settings and how masking affects the effectiveness of communication.

 

For the study, the author used a sample size of 41 participants ranging in age from 18 to 87 years and measured the ability of subjects to detect six different emotions; angry, disgusted, fearful, happy, neutral and sad) using two measurements, mask and no mask as shown here:

 

Frontal facial photos of 12 Caucasians consisting of 6 males and 6 females who belonged to three different age groups, young, middle-aged and elderly, were used in the study.  In total, 72 original pictures were used onto which software was employed to apply a plain, beige mask; this resulted in a total of 144 facial stimuli.  Each of the participants was shown the complete set of photos one after another with the order of the photos being randomized for each participant.  Participants were asked to spontaneously assess the emotional state of the image of the person that they were shown from the six aforementioned emotional states and then rank their confidence in their response from 1 (very unconfident) to 7 (very confident).  The entire test for each participant took between 20 and 25 minutes.

 

Now let's look at the results.  For faces without masks, there was a median of 89.5 percent correct responses with no participant scoring below 76.4 percent.  This dropped significantly when participants attempted to determine the emotion being displayed by faces wearing masks in all emotions except fearful and neutral.  

 

Here are the results in graphical form:

 

 

The study also found that the wearing of a face mask had a medium-sized impact on the performance of participants in assessing the emotional state of the individual and a larger-sized effect on the confidence of participants' correct emotional classification.

 

There was some clear-cut confusion in emotional states that faced participants when attempting to discern emotions in masked photographs as follows:

 

1.) all emotional states with the exception of fearful were repeatedly confused with a neutral state.

 

2.) sad was often confused with disgusted and neutral.

 

3.) anger was often confused with disgusted, neutral and sad.

 

4.) disgusted was confused with angry in 38 percent of cases compared to only 2 percent where no face mask was worn.

 

The author notes that previous studies show that the emotions of happy, sad and to a lesser extent angry, rely on the participants ability to see the mouth area of the subject. 

 

There is a strong need for humans to see an entire face to better understand and codify human emotions, key to preventing misunderstandings.  As the author states in his conclusion:

 

"Face masks may complicate social interaction as they disturb emotion reading from facial expression."

 

Without seeing a person's entire face, this research shows that there is a greater chance that we will misunderstand the emotions being felt by an individual who is wearing a mask, a necessary skill that is acquired very early in a human's life.

Contaminated Masks and Your Children

In many jurisdictions, children have been and continue to be forced to wear face masks while attending school with the belief that mask wearing will minimize the potential spread of the SARS-CoV-2 virus, in some cases, for the entirety of their school day.  Recently, a group of parents concerned about the potential harm being caused to their children by masking, submitted six face masks to a laboratory for analysis.  Let's look at the results.

  

The face masks in the study were either new or freshly-laundered before they were worn by children aged six to eleven for between five and eight hours (average 5.7 hours) mostly during in-person schooling with one mask being worn by an adult.  As controls, a t-shirt that was worn by one of the children while attending school was submitted for analysis and unworn masks were also submitted for analysis to ensure that the masks weren't contaminated prior to being worn.  All of the masks and the t-shirt were sent to the University of Florida's Mass Spectrometry Research and Education Center for analysis.

  

Here are two examples of how the masks were prepared for analysis:

 

Let's look at the results.  Let's start by looking at the controls; no pathogens were found on any of the controls and the non-pathogenic (to humans) proteins found on the t-shirt are commonly found in soil, skin and hair.  Of the six masks that were worn for an average of 5.7 hours per day, 83 percent were contaminated with 96 unique strains of which 21 were pathogenic and 33 percent were contaminated with antibiotic resistant strains.  None of the masks tested positive for viruses.

 

Here is a list of eleven dangerous pathogens that were found on the masks and the diseases that they can cause:

  

1.) Streptococcus pneumoniae - causes pneumonia

 

2.) Mycobacterium tuberculosis - causes tuberculosis 

 

3.) Neisseria meningitidis (Serogroups A, B and C) - extremely pathogenic - causes meningitis and life-threatening sepsis 

 

4.)  Acanthamoeba polyphaga - causes keratitis and granulomatous amebic encephalitis

 

5.) Acinetobacter baumanni - causes pneumonia, blood stream infections, meningitis, wound and surgical site infections, keratitis and granulomatous amebic encephalitis - resistant to antibiotics

 

6.) Escherichia coli (aka E. coli) - causes food poisoning

 

7.) Borrelia burgdorferi - causes Lyme disease

 

8.) Corynebacterium diphtheriae - causes diphtheria

 

9.) Legionella pneumophila - causes Legionnaires' disease 

 

10.) Staphylococcus pyogenes serotype M3  - causes severe infections—high morbidity rates 

 

11.) Staphylococcus aureus - causes a wide range of illnesses from minor skin infections to life-threatening pneumonia, meningitis and sepsis

  

As well, Rickettsia rickettsia bacteria which causes Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever was found. 

 

Here is a further breakdown of the results:

  

1.) Half of the masks were contaminated with one or more strains of pneumonia-causing bacteria.

  

2.) One-third of the masks were contaminated with one or more strains of meningitis-causing bacteria.

  

3.) One-third of the masks were contaminated with dangerous, antibiotic-resistant bacteria

  

4.) Less dangerous pathogens were also found including those that can cause fevers, acne, yeast infections, ulcers and periodontal disease.

 

Admittedly, while it is a small study, not surprisingly, it appears that masks worn by children (and I'm guessing the same thing could be said for adults) are a biological soup of harmful bacteria after less than six hours of use.  Just imagine what is infesting masks that have been worn for longer periods without laundering or changing.  With children being forced to wear face masks during school hours and, in some cases, on the bus ride to and from school, the warm, damp environment created by masks on children's (and, again, adult's) faces is far from a healthy practice given that science is showing that face masks are ineffective at stopping the transmission of the SARS-CoV-2 virus.

Masks, Virtue Signalling and Our Hypocritical Leaders

Here is a photograph of the Finance Ministers from the 2021 in-person G7 meeting in the United Kingdom:

 

You'll notice that one member of the group is wearing a mask despite the fact that the photograph was taken outside and each of the members was properly physically distanced from their peers, using the 2 metre or 6 foot rule.

  

Who is that, you might ask?  Why it's none other than Canada's Deputy Prime Minister, Finance Minister and Prime Minister wannabe, Chrystia Freeland a key member of the World Economic Forum, planners and implementers of our dystopic "Great Reset" as shown here:

Either a few minutes before or a few minutes later, here's what the group looked like:

 

In the dictionary under "virtue signalling", we will now find a picture of Chrystia Freeland, Canada's very own answer to government leaders and pandemic-related hypocrisy.  One has to wonder exactly who she was trying to impress?  Klaus Schwab perhaps? 

Faces, Masks and Normal Childhood Brain Development

Sadly, this has become the reality for the majority of us living in the world's advanced economies:

 

As adults with a lifetime of experience looking at faces, we have no idea whether this person is happy, sad, smiling or frowning given that the most important part of her facial expressions are being hidden by a "face nappy".  Humans rely on facial expressions as a key part of their communications with others and, during the COVID-19 pandemic, this means of communication has been completely banished.  While it may not seem that serious to those of us who are older, as you will see in this posting, obscuring facial expressions could have long-term negative side-effects on the most vulnerable and young among us.

 

In 2017, research by neurobiologists Margaret Livingston, Michael Arcaro and Peter Schade at Harvard Medical School examined humans ability to recognize faces and changed the previously held belief that the ability to recognize faces was innate, something that our brains know how to do immediately after birth.  The study "Seeing faces is necessary for face-domain formation" is, ironically, available on the National Institutes of Health/National Library of Medicine website.  Here is a summary of their findings.

To discover whether seeing faces is necessary for acquiring face domains in the brains of primates, the researchers raised 3 macaques without any experience of seeing faces for the first year of their lives.  They also had a control group of  4 macaques which had a typical upbringing, spending time with their mothers during early infancy and then with other juvenile macaques and humans as they aged.  The 3 macaques that were hand-raised were bottle fed by humans wearing welders' masks and were provided with an enriched environment of handling and play several times a day along with fur-covered surrogates that were hung from their cages and moved in response to the movements of the macaques.  The test animals were also provided with colourful interactive toys and soft towels as part of the researchers efforts to provide them with a responsive and visually complex environment that supported normal socialization.  The monkeys were kept in a curtained-off part of a larger monkey room so that they could both hear and smell other monkeys but not see their faces.  The 3 monkeys' psychological health was assessed during the experiment and were deemed to be consistently lively, curious, interactive and exploratory.  Following the experiment, they were returned to juvenile social groups into which they successfully integrated.

 

When both the facially deprived and control group of macaques were 200 days old, the researchers used functional MRI to look at brain images which measured the presence of facial recognition patches in their brains and other specialized areas of the macaque brain that are responsible for recognizing four groups of images;  bodies, hands, scenery and objects. The experiment was broken into two key parts:

 

1.) Recognition of faces, bodies, hands, scenery and objects - the control group of macaques which had a typical infant life had consistently developed recognition areas in their brains for all groups of images including faces.  In contrast, the 3 macaques who had never seen a face had consistently developed recognition areas for bodies, hands, scenery and objects but had not developed recognition areas in their brains for faces.

  

2.) Preference for gazing at faces - when showed an image which featured an image of humans or primates, the control group of macaques preferentially gazed at faces whereas the 3 macaques who had never seen a face preferentially gazeds at the hands.  MRI scans showed that the hand domain in the 3 facially-deprived macaques was disproportionately large compared to other domains.  Here is a photograph from the study showing where the control and facially-deprived macaques focussed their attention:

 

Let's close this posting with a quote from the research with bolds being mine:

"We asked whether face experience is necessary for the development of the face patch system. Monkeys raised without exposure to faces did not develop normal face patches, but they did develop domains for scenes, bodies, and hands, all of which they had had extensive experience with. Furthermore the large-scale retinotopic organization of the entire visual system, including IT, was normal in face-deprived monkeys. Thus, the neurological deficits in response to this abnormal early experience were specific to the never-seen category. These results highlight the malleability of IT cortex early in life, and the importance of early visual experience for normal visual cortical development.

 

A lack of face patches in face-deprived monkeys indicates that face experience is necessary for the formation (or maintenance) of face domains. Our previous study showing that symbol selective domains form in monkeys as a consequence of intensive early experience indicates that experience is sufficient for domain formation.

 

While in the age of COVID-19 most parents are not masked at all times in the presence of their infant or older children, this research should cause some concern for parents since it clearly shows that primates who are deprived of the normal early life experiences with facial expressions did not develop face domain regions in their brains.  One has to wonder what the long-term impact of a steady diet of this:

 

....and this:

 

....will be to the physiological and psychological health and normal brain development of young children being raised during the current pandemic.

 

To Mask or Not to Mask - What is the Difference?

Before we get to the subject of this posting, let's look at some very recent headlines from the mainstream media regarding masks:

 

1.) NBC:  

2.) NYT:  

 

3.) CNN:

 

All three mainstream media reports refer to a recently released study by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention CDC which was published on Friday March 5, 2021.  Let's take a closer look at the study itself rather than just heeding the coverage of the study by the media.

 

Here is the lead page of the study:

 

The authors of the study looked at the period of time from March 1, 2020 to December 31, 2020, determining which jurisdictions had mask mandates and in-restaurant dining as described here:

  

"Starting in April, 39 states and the District of Columbia (DC) issued mask mandates in 2020. Reducing person-to-person interactions by avoiding nonessential shared spaces, such as restaurants, where interactions are typically unmasked and physical distancing (≥6 ft) is difficult to maintain, can also decrease transmission (2). In March and April 2020, 49 states and DC prohibited any on-premises dining at restaurants, but by mid-June, all states and DC had lifted these restrictions. To examine the association of state-issued mask mandates and allowing on-premises restaurant dining with COVID-19 cases and deaths during March 1–December 31, 2020, county-level data on mask mandates and restaurant reopenings were compared with county-level changes in COVID-19 case and death growth rates relative to the mandate implementation and reopening dates. Mask mandates were associated with decreases in daily COVID-19 case and death growth rates 1–20, 21–40, 41–60, 61–80, and 81–100 days after implementation. Allowing any on-premises dining at restaurants was associated with increases in daily COVID-19 case growth rates 41–60, 61–80, and 81–100 days after reopening, and increases in daily COVID-19 death growth rates 61–80 and 81–100 days after reopening."

 

The researchers obtained county-level data on state-issued mask mandates and restaurant closures , their effective and expiration dates and the counties to which they applied.  Masking and restaurant closures were defined as following:

1.) Mask mandates - were defined as requirements for persons to wear a mask 1) anywhere outside their home or 2) in retail businesses and in restaurants or food establishments

  

2.) Restaurant closures - were defined as prohibitions on restaurants operating or limiting service to takeout, curbside pickup, or delivery. Allowing restaurants to provide indoor or outdoor on-premises dining was defined as the state lifting a state-issued restaurant closure.

  

Over the period between March 1, 2020 and December 31,2020, state-issued mask mandates applied to 2,313 or 73.6 percent of the 3,142 counties and during the same study period, states allowed restaurants to reopen for on-premises dining in 3,076 or 97.9 percent of counties.  

  

Now, let's look at the conclusions of the research:

 

1.) Mask mandates - Mask mandates were associated with a 0.5 percentage point decrease (p = 0.02) in daily COVID-19 case growth rates 1–20 days after implementation and decreases of 1.1, 1.5, 1.7, and 1.8 percentage points 21–40, 41–60, 61–80, and 81–100 days, respectively, after implementation. Mask mandates were associated with a 0.7 percentage point decrease in daily COVID-19 death growth rates 1–20 days after implementation and decreases of 1.0, 1.4, 1.6, and 1.9 percentage points 21–40, 41–60, 61–80, and 81–100 days, respectively, after implementation. Daily case and death growth rates before implementation of mask mandates were not statistically different from the reference period.

  

2.) Restaurant closures - Changes in daily COVID-19 case and death growth rates were not statistically significant 1–20 and 21–40 days after restrictions were lifted. Allowing on-premises dining at restaurants was associated with 0.9, 1.2 , and 1.1  percentage point increases in the case growth rate 41–60, 61–80, and 81–100 days, respectively, after restrictions were lifted. Allowing on-premises dining at restaurants was associated with 2.2 and 3.0 percentage point increases in the death growth rate 61–80 and 81–100 days, respectively, after restrictions were lifted. Daily death growth rates before restrictions were lifted were not statistically different from those during the reference period, whereas significant differences in daily case growth rates were observed 41–60 days before restrictions were lifted.

  

Here is a table which summarizes the findings for the masking mandate and restaurant dining:

 

So, basically, the implementation of a mask mandate resulted in a maximum COVID-19 case growth rate of 1.8 percentage points 81 to 100 days after implementation and resulted in a 1.9 percentage point decrease in daily COVID-19 death growth rates 81 to 100 days after implementation.  Restaurant on-premises dining resulted in a 1.1 percentage point increase in the COVID-19 case growth rate 81 to 100 days after implementation and a 3.0 percentage point increase in the death growth rate 81 to 100 days after implementation.  

Let's close with this quote from the discussion portion of the paper which is different in the .pdf version than the HTML version (my bolds):

 

"Community mitigation measures can help reduce the transmission of SARS-CoV-2. In this study, mask mandates were associated with reductions in COVID-19 case and death growth rates within 20 days, whereas allowing on-premises dining at restaurants was associated with increases in COVID-19 case and death growth rates after 40 days. With the emergence of more transmissible COVID-19 variants, community mitigation measures are increasingly important as part of a larger strategy to decrease exposure to and reduce transmission of SARS-CoV-2. Community mitigation policies, such as state-issued mask mandates and prohibition of on-premises restaurant dining, have the potential to slow the spread of COVID-19, especially if implemented with other public health strategies."

 

As you can see, even the CDC is admitting that the use of mask mandates and closures of restaurants only "have the potential to slow the spread of COVID-19".  Given the large number of false positive test results from the RT-PCR test that governments are using to define who has been infected and who has not, we can be pretty certain that the small changes in infections and deaths related to COVID-19 are even smaller than what the CDC's research shows.  

But, you'd never guess that if all you read was the mainstream media and it shocking headlines, would you?

Masking While Exercising and the Tangled Web of the Masking Mandate

A recent piece on "The Conversation" looked at the use of masks while exercising.  Before we get to the content of the piece, let's look at some background regarding "The Conversation" to help put the article into context.

 

Here is what "The Conversation" has to say about itself (from the American version of the website):

 

The Conversation was founded in 2011 and has editions in Africa, Australia (founding nation), Canada, Spain, France, Indonesia, New Zealand, theUnited Kingdom and the United States as well as a Global Perspectives edition

 

Here are the founding partners of The Conversation, again, from the United States edition:

 

Here are the funders of The Conversation:

 

Please note that I am saving one last strategic partner for the end of this posting as a "surprise".

  

In order to have your musings published by The Conversation, you must "...be currently employed as a researcher or academic with a university or university-affiliated research institution. PhD candidates under supervision by an academic can write for us, but we don’t currently publish articles from Masters students."

  

In other words, the riffraff/useless eaters/sweaty masses need not apply no matter how qualified they might be.

  

Now, let's look at the article that will be the focus of the remainder of this posting.  Here is a screen capture showing the title:

 

Here is some information about the author of the article, Trish Greenhalgh:

 

Here are some key quotes from her musings with bolds being mine:

  

"Masks, which when worn correctly are highly effective in reducing transmission, are already compulsory in indoor public places in the UK. There is talk of making them mandatory in some outdoor settings, as is currently the case in Spain. Perhaps the UK should follow France and require people who are jogging or cycling to wear masks if they are unable to maintain a physical distance from pedestrians.

 

There are many arguments against such a measure. The risk of transmitting coronavirus outdoors is an order of magnitude less than indoors, according to a study that has yet to be published in a scientific journal. Exercising outdoors is one of the few freedoms people in England still have. When jogging or cycling, contacts tend to be rare and fleeting, so would not meet the UK’s official definition of a “close contact” for which one needs to spend 15 minutes closer than two metres – though this time period can now be notched up in a series of shorter encounters throughout a day." 

  

Greenhalagh goes on to invoke the World Health Organization:

  

"The World Health Organization (WHO) is adamant that: “People should NOT wear masks when exercising, as masks may reduce the ability to breathe comfortably”; and “Sweat can make the mask become wet more quickly which makes it difficult to breathe and promotes the growth of microorganisms.” The WHO recommendation is to maintain at least one-metre physical distance from others.

 

But there are also strong arguments for challenging the WHO’s advice. The main one being that the NHS is truly overwhelmed for the first time in its 70-year history because of the rise in COVID hospital admissions. All possible measures must be taken to reduce these numbers."

 

Here is her "ethical argument" for wearing masks while exercising:

  

"1.) The exhaled breath of someone who is exercising vigorously has a different composition and different aerodynamic properties to that of someone who is not. As we all know, a passing jogger breathes heavily, generating exhalations with much higher momentum than occurs with resting breathing. 

 

In cold weather, clouds of moisture-laden air become visible as the jogger exhales – and these clouds spread much farther than those exhaled by walkers. Formal studies of the aerodynamics of breathing confirm that heavy breathers emit turbulent gas clouds in which are suspended droplets and microdroplets of different sizes, some of which are carried considerably farther than two metres.

 

2.) Several coronavirus variants have been shown to be more transmissible than the original virus. Because each infected person is now likely to infect between 30%-60% more people than previously, an unlucky inhalation in the vicinity of a passing jogger – itself a rare possibility – is now much more likely to lead to an escalating series of secondary cases, one or more of which could be fatal.

 

...and, most frighteningly...

 

3.) A final reason for wearing masks when exercising near others is the message of social solidarity it conveys. The masked jogger or cyclist is saying both “the pandemic is still very serious” and “your safety is more important than my comfort or my lap time”. Instead of aggressive stand-offs between maskless exercisers and fearful walkers (which sometimes involves the potentially contagious act of shouting at close quarters), we could look forward to both parties exchanging a silent wave as they pass peacefully."

 

And there we have it, virtue signalling is considered by this author to be one of the main reasons why we should wear masks while exercising in the great outdoors.

 

With this in mind, let's take a closer look at the author.  As shown here, Greenhalgh just happens to be a contributor to the World Economic Forum's Agenda series (Stories shaping the Global, Regional and Industry agendas) as shown here:

 

Greenhalgh was also the signatory on an open letter from May 14, 2020, promoting the use of fabric masks to prevent COVID-19.  The letter was co-ordinated by Jeremy Howard, a research scientist at the University of San Francisco and also appeared as the subject of a missive on The Conversation website as shown here:

It is interesting to note that Howard quotes advice given by Greenhalgh in the aforementioned article.  

Now that we've added another player to the "masking game", let's take a closer look at Jeremy Howard.  Between 2013 and January 2019, he was a Young Global Leader at the World Economic Forum.  Here is his CV from his page on the WEF website where he is now a member of the WEF's Global AI Council

 

Here is his CV from his page on the WEF website where he was a member of the WEF's Global AI Council:

 

He also happens to be a contributor to "The Conversation" as I noted above and as shown here:

 

Now that we've seen how tangled this masking mandate web is, let's look at the final piece of the puzzle that I promised to share at the beginning of this posting.  Here is a screen capture from The Conversation website the United States edition's strategic partner:

 

....and there we have it; once again the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation shows up like flies on a steaming, fresh turd.  Given that many of the "experts" whose opinions are shared on The Conversation's website and their links with various research universities around the globe, particularly Oxford University (Trish Greenhalgh's employer and a member of The Conversation's UK edition) that are heavily funded by the Gates Foundation, what are the odds that their view on subjects like the pandemic won't completely parallel that of "their maker/funder"?

 

Now that you have seen how tangled the masking mandate web is, I would suggest that we need do the following: anyone who is considered an expert on any aspect of COVID-19 should be asked whether they or their employer has ever received any funding from Bill Gates just so that the unwashed masses can put their "expertise" into context.  All you have to do is follow the money and you'll figure out the veracity of the message.  Trish Greenhalgh and her masking while exercising is but one example of the tangled web that exists behind the Cult of COVID.

The Unintended Environmental Consequences of Forced Masking

With masking becoming increasingly mandated the politicians among us who have clearly swallowed the COVID narrative, not surprisingly, a recent study shows that there is an unintended consequence to government's actions.

In June 2020, Joana Correia Prata and three other researchers authored a paper which was published by the American Chemical Society.  The paper, entitled "COVID-19 Pandemic Repercussions on the Use and Management of Plastics" looks at the environmental impact of personal protective equipment or PPE being used during the COVID-19 pandemic.  Let's start with some background first.

According to environmentalists, aside from global climate change, the presence of microplastics in the environment is considered extremely serious.  Microplastics are defined as small pieces of plastic less than 5 millimetres long (about the size of a sesame seed) and are found in both terrestrial and marine environments.  When larger pieces of any type of plastic are introduced into the ocean, over time, they break down into smaller and smaller fragments which contaminate the environment.  Here is a quote from the National Ocean Service:

"Microplastics come from a variety of sources, including from larger plastic debris that degrades into smaller and smaller pieces. In addition, microbeads, a type of microplastic, are very tiny pieces of manufactured polyethylene plastic that are added as exfoliants to health and beauty products, such as some cleansers and toothpastes. These tiny particles easily pass through water filtration systems and end up in the ocean and Great Lakes, posing a potential threat to aquatic life."

Microplastics are also sourced from the larger plastic items that we use everyday and are also sourced from plastic microfibres that are shed from textiles in laundry, particularly from synthetic textiles including polyester.  

These plastic fragments are eaten by minuscule crustaceans called zooplankton and are then carried up the food chain as larger and larger animals eat the animals below them on the food chain.  Microplastics are found in all of the world's oceans as well as in terrestrial water bodies and the land itself.  According to the Scientific American, injected micro plastic particles can physically damage organs and leach hazardous chemicals from the hormone-disrupting bisphenol A to pesticides that can compromise immunity and interfere with growth and reproduction of humans and other species.  

Here is a table showing the common types of plastics found in the marine environment:

Here is a map showing the relative distribution of microplastics in the world's large marine ecosystems from a 2012 study:

Understandably, you might be asking yourself "What does government mandated masking have to do with the global marine environment?"  Let's go back to the study by Joana Correia Prata et al.  In the study, the authors note the World Health Organization estimated that the monthly needs for PPE among healthcare professionals would reach 89 million masks, 76 million gloves and 1.6 million goggles.  In another case, it was estimated that Italy needed 1 billion facemarks and 0.5 billion gloves per month for a population of 60.4 million people.  Extrapolating to a global population, an estimated 129 billion disposable face masks and 65 billion disposable gloves would be used monthly on a global basis.  Over a six month period, this would result in the consumption and discarding of 784 billion face masks over a six month period or 1.548 trillion face masks on an annual basis.  In las you should happen to think that these numbers seem high, keep in mind that the Canadian government, a nation with a population of 36 million people, has ordered 153 million N95 respirators, 18 million non-medical face masks and almost 400 million surgical masks.  The province of Ontario has announced that a company in Vaughn, Ontario has ramped up its ability to produce one million N95 face masks every week.

Single-use disposable face masks are made of melt-blown fabric consisting of plastics including polypropylene, polyurethane and polyacrylonitrile.  The majority of disposable face masks have two outer layers with a third filter layer made of nonwoven polypropylene.  N95 masks are made of plastics including polypropylene and polyethylene terephthalate.   Other disposable PPE such as surgical gowns and masks are made of non-woven materials which incorporate polyethylene, polypropylene and polyethylene terephthalate.

There is one additional aspect to microplastics that should concern all mask wearers.  In 2019, researchers found that humans consumed between 39,000 and 52,000 microplastic particles per day.  This increased to between 74,000 and 121,000 when inhalation of these particles is included.  This means that human beings are ingesting roughly 5 grams of plastic (or the weight of a credit card) on a weekly basis. An August 2020 release on the American Chemical Society website found the following:

"…the researchers used another method called mass spectrometry to analyze 47 human liver and fat tissue samples. No materials were spiked into these samples. The team found plastic contamination in the form of monomers, or plastic building blocks, in every sample. Bisphenol A (BPA), still used in many food containers despite health concerns, was found in all 47 human samples." *my bold)

This begs the question; what is happening to mask users when they securely fasten a plastic-based facemask over their mouths and noses and wear it for hours on end, day after day?  A 2005 study found that workers in a Turkish polypropylene processing plant experienced significant respiratory symptoms resulting from exposure to synthetic polymers which were inhaled as microscopic particulates or "flock".  The flock was created as a result of the cutting process of the polypropylene which releases particulate material which is then inhaled by the workers and retained in their lungs.  This resulted in occupational interstitial lung disease, termed "flock worker's lung" or FWL which has also appeared in similar manufacturing settings in Canada and the United States.  Here is a quote from the Canadian study on flock worker's lung:

"The natural history of FWL includes the following patterns: complete resolution of symptoms (once the worker has left their occupation); radiographic and pulmonary function abnormalities; permanent, but stable symptoms and restrictive pulmonary function deficits; and progressive decline in pulmonary function, causing death from respiratory failure and secondary pulmonary hypertension. A low baseline diffusing capacity of the lung for carbon monoxide is associated with the persistence and progression of FWL. (my bold)

Just in case you think that you are not inhaling these plastic microfibres because you are using washable, reusable face masks, all that you need to think about is the lint trap on your clothes dryer after you've washed and dried a load of laundry.  As well, since friction releases these microscopic fibres, it is likely that the continuous friction of breathing, talking and facial movements on the inside surface of a mask is releasing microscopic polypropylene and other plastic fibres into humans' lungs.

As is the case when governments get involved in a "project", there are often a series of unintended consequences.  In the case of the unprecedented government-ordered universal masking, the release of microplastics into both the greater environment and our bodies could prove to pose a risk to both the global ecosystem and our personal health.  While some PPE is being properly disposed of, even the World Economic Forum is admitting that COVID-19-related PPE waste is problematic for the world's oceans as shown here:

...and here: