New York Times preps US citizens to wear masks after receiving COVID vaccine

December 16, 2020 (LifeSiteNews) – In an article published last Wednesday, New York Times reporter Apoorva Mandavilli claims that vaccination against COVID-19 won’t be enough to curb the “danger” of the virus and that continuing to wear masks will be necessary.

On Mandavilli’s account, the Pfizer and Moderna vaccine trials “tracked only how many vaccinated people became sick with COVID-19,” and not how infectious they were, leaving open “the possibility that some vaccinated people get infected without developing symptoms, and could then silently transmit the virus — especially if they come in close contact with others or stop wearing masks.”

She ramped up the fear factor, claiming that if “vaccinated people are silent spreaders of the virus, they may keep it circulating in their communities, putting unvaccinated people at risk.”

Mandavilli quotes Stanford University immunologist Michal Tal, saying “[a] lot of people are thinking that once they get vaccinated, they’re not going to have to wear masks anymore. It’s really going to be critical for them to know if they have to keep wearing masks, because they could still be contagious.”

Both Tal and Mandavilli appear to be in lockstep with the Centers for Disease Control’s (CDC) current advice on how vaccines will affect mask requirements. The CDC’s “Frequently Asked Questions about COVID-19 Vaccination” page, under a tab listed “Do I need to wear a mask and avoid close contact with others if I have received 2 doses of the vaccine?” states, “Yes.”

“While experts learn more about the protection that COVID-19 vaccines provide under real-life conditions, it will be important for everyone to continue using all the tools available to us to help stop this pandemic, like covering your mouth and nose with a mask,” the CDC adds

Under a second heading, titled “When can I stop wearing a mask […] after I have been vaccinated?” the CDC simply says: “There is not enough information currently available to say if or when CDC will stop recommending that people wear masks,” leaving the question open.

Former executive at Facebook and current chairman at Virgin Galactic Chamath Palihapitiya has thrown his support behind masking up the vaccinated. In a tweet posted on Friday, Palihapitiya suggested that “special” masks should be designed for those who elected to take the vaccine:

The purpose of developing and introducing a vaccine to the general public is supposedly to offer protection against the effects of being infected with a particular virus, so that coming into contact with said virus will be unproblematic, from a medical perspective. Even so, the evidence that wearing a mask to help stop the spread of the virus, in any case, continues to be strongly disputed.

Canadian physician Dr. Roger Hodkinson, CEO and Medical Director of Western Medical Assessments, has been vocal in his findings regarding the ineffectiveness of mask-wearing. Hodkinson called using masks to prevent the spread of the virus “utterly useless,” noting that “there is no evidence base for their effectiveness whatsoever.”

Vaccinated or not, wearing “[p]aper masks and fabric masks” is little else than “virtue-signaling. They’re not even worn effectively most of the time. It’s utterly ridiculous,” he said.

Even the Chief Medical Adviser to the President, Dr. Anthony Fauci, who now famously champions the CDC’s position on wearing masks, didn’t always believe in the efficacy of masks against the spread of COVID-19:

Not only are masks not helpful in preventing the spread of the virus, but it seems that the push to get everyone vaccinated in the name of saving lives may be overzealous. Senior lecturer at Johns Hopkins University Dr. Genevieve Briand has demonstrated that COVID-19 has resulted in no excess deaths, compared to what would normally be expected.

Briand’s research importantly notes that, within the demographic purported to be the most vulnerable, i.e., older people, there seems to be no especially high death rate. “Surprisingly, the deaths of older people stayed the same before and after COVID-19. Since COVID-19 mainly affects the elderly, experts expected an increase in the percentage of deaths in older age groups. However, this increase is not seen in the CDC data. In fact, the percentages of deaths among all age groups remain relatively the same.”

Additionally, Dr. Mike Yeadon, the former Vice President of Pfizer, issued an incisive statement on the rush to produce a COVID-19 vaccine: “[t]here is absolutely no need for vaccines to extinguish the pandemic. I’ve never heard such nonsense talked about vaccines. You do not vaccinate people who aren’t at risk from a disease. You also don’t set about planning to vaccinate millions of fit and healthy people with a vaccine that hasn’t been extensively tested on human subjects.”

Many other experts in the fields of medicine and medicinal research are adding their voices to the concerns over the current vaccine frontrunners.