Societal Consequences of COVID-19 Public Health Policies

During the COVID-19 pandemic, supply chain disruptions occured all over the world.

• The Looming Financial Crisis includes charts of all kinds of commodity prices skyrocketing.¹⁾

In the article, Masking Children: Tragic, Unscientific, and Damaging, it shares the masking has many consequences to children, referencing 23 studies, and that they don't prevent transmission, referencing another 25 studies. it also references five additional articles that masks simply don't work as they become moist and people wear the same mask repeatedly.²⁾

A study, “Effect of Wearing a Face Mask on Vocal Self-Perception during a Pandemic,” whose aim was to analyze the vocal self perception of individuals who wore the face mask for essential activities and those who wore it for both professional and essential activities during the COVID-19 pandemic in Brazil. Results were based on self-perception. Vocal fatigue while wearing the face mask was measured by answers to the Vocal Fatigue Index (VFI). Vocal fatigue is the primary perception of increased vocal effort, which increases with use and improves with rest. Face mask increases difficulties in speech intelligibility, auditory feedback, and difficulty in coordinating speech and breathing, regardless of the purpose of use. ³⁾

A Study, “Is a Mask That Covers the Mouth and Nose Free from Undesirable Side Effects in Everyday Use and Free of Potential Hazards?” found, respiratory physiology of mask wearers with significant correlation of O2 drop and fatigue (p < 0.05), a clustered co-occurrence of respiratory impairment and O2 drop (67%), N95 mask and CO2 rise (82%), N95 mask and O2 drop (72%), N95 mask and headache (60%), respiratory impairment and temperature rise (88%), but also temperature rise and moisture (100%) under the masks. ⁴⁾

Jaclyn Theeck, clinical director and speech-language pathologist at the Speech and Learning Institute, Inc. in North Palm Beach, Florida, states Pre-pandemic, only 5% of patients were babies and toddlers. Today, as the pandemic continues to consume the world, she says that numbers have risen drastically to 20%. ⁵⁾

Masks have consequences for young babies to deaf individuals. Masks hide emotions and this creates anxiety between patient and provider. For people with hearing difficulties, having the mouth covered is a major barrier as they are unable to lip read. For an infant, not being able to detect full facial expression has the potential for long reaching effects in the early stages of neurobehavioral development. A mask covering the face may affect the infant’s ability to develop facial processing and orientating to or focusing on another person’s face. For infants and children to feel safe, there is a heavy dependence on facial expressions as they rely on their parents’ emotional cues via facial expression to regulate their responses towards them or to potentially threatening situations. Parents also need to be able to read the infant; infant vocalisations are important for a parent to determine the infant’s readiness for interaction and for adjusting their own emotional responses. ⁶⁾

Facemasks muffle high-frequency speech sounds and block visual cues. This is especially hard for those who have hearing difficulty as they often rely on visual cues such as lip movements more than people with normal hearing do. Some hearing loss advocates have suggested using masks with clear windows instead of opaque cloth masks. Unfortunately, experiments show that clear masks strongly degrade high-frequency sounds. Listeners with hearing loss are therefore forced to choose between sound cues and visual cues. The study focuses on the best masks for communication and how to amplify communication when wearing masks. ⁷⁾

Counter position

There is an argument that masks do not present that large of a challenge in communication in the fact that there are cultures in which women actively cover their faces apart from their eyes in daily life, but they are still able to communicate. Communication is a composite of facial expressions, eyes, body movement and context. It suggests that it is a mere adjustment period. The focus should be on more words, more questions, and reading body language. ⁸⁾

It seems other researchers encourage modifications and a relearning of communication in acceptance of the use of masks. Guidance suggests focusing on the eyes, eyebrows, upper cheeks, non-verbal communications, paying more attention to setting, speaking louder, relying on other sources for interpersonal interaction and transparent masks. ⁹⁾

Atlantic article, "The Case Against Masks at School," shares that after two years of multiple studies, there is no justifiable evidence to continue masking. There were three studies conducted by the CDC and all were flawed, meaning their outcome cannot be used to provide guidance. There were two randomized control trials; one from Denmark found no significant effect of masks on reducing COVID-19 transmission; one from Bangladesh, that reported that surgical masks (but not cloth) were modestly effective at reducing rates of symptomatic infection. Neither included children. The rest are not randomized control studies. ¹⁰⁾