Letter writer spreads COVID misinformation

This recipient healthcare professional has only quoted one study that supported the conclusion he believes. Well, I am a scientist, with a Ph.D in cell and molecular biology. I am not a virologist or an epidemiologist and I won’t pretend to be. But I do know something about science and biology and the scientific method.

Answers to complex questions in science come from analyzing huge amounts of data in many, many studies. They don’t come from citing just one study that supports one’s preconceived ideas and ignores the mass of data that disagrees or shows a more complex situation. In the case of mask wearing and its effects on COVID-19 transmission, this is actually a difficult and highly complex question to address, like most medical treatment questions, because of the huge number of variables in any one person’s life and the inability to have one highly controlled protocol for all members of the tested set. In other words, statistical proof of the effects of treatments is as far from a simple matter. 

There is another avenue besides statistics to answer some medical questions, or cause and effect. People with COVID and other viruses send viral particles out when they breathe. That is a fact. If the victim of a virus did not send out viral particles in some way, then how would viruses even exist at all?

They exist and are transmitted from one carrier to the next. That is fact. Breaking the chain of transmission is beyond doubt one of the best ways of stopping the transmission of a virus. That is fact and it’s also common sense. The discovery of germs and viruses and the discovery of ways to sterilize contaminated objects were among the greatest steps forward in medical history. 

I am not a mask fanatic. I wear them in stores. When hiking every day I wear one around my neck and put it up on my nose out of politeness when I pass someone. Yes, there is room for personal ideas about masks. I am going to be getting my vaccination this week. This is partly for my own good but mostly for the good of all. How will the COVID pandemic ever end without the science of vaccination? Should we just continue on like this forever, losing hundreds of thousands of lives in the U.S. ad infinitum?

Last, Rauch, a “physician in health care with over 40 years in practice,” is not impressed with masks and hand sanitizers — which have been in use in hospitals and nursing homes long before COVID — and he is also spreading misinformation about the vaccine. 

Does he have a solution? Could it be that the real answer to COVID is eating healthy food, or is it perhaps having a spine manipulation?

Good grief. This is the 21st century. He could appear on Tucker Carlson’s program, and would fit right in. How did he miss his chance to join Dr. Scott Atlas as a medical consultant in the previous administration? 

Ian Robertson

Elmore