COUNTER DECLARATION TO MAYOR OF LOCKHART, PT. 1

 Background: On June 23, the mayor of Lockhart, Texas, issued a DECLARATION for all commercial entities to enforce masks on their employees and customers. This is a COUNTER DECLARATION, debunking the pseudo-science and exposing the egregious errors that violate many laws.

CITY OF LOCKHART, TEXAS AMENDED MAYORAL DECLARATION OF LOCAL STATE OF DISASTER DUE TO PUBLIC HEALTH EMERGENCY AND REGARDING FACIAL COVERINGS IN COMMERCIAL ESTABLISHMENTS IN THE CITY, ISSUED AND DECLARED JUNE 23 2020. (“DECLARATION”)

COUNTER DECLARATION

Mayor White:

You recently said, regarding the peace and safety of Lockhart, “Be the example, not the problem.”  Sir, you have caused a big problem for the people of Lockhart. 

Political Crime Boss

By mandating that stores need to mandate masks, you are employing Mafia tactics to hire others to do the job that is illegal and unethical for you to do. 

Gov. Abbott knows that it is unlawful to require the public to wear facial coverings, as that mandate would violate unalienable rights. By transferring the task to business owners, the liability is also transferred. Business owners who comply to bully customers to perform any act in order to secure necessary food and supplies – whether it’s standing on their head, crawling on their knees, or putting on a facial covering under the color of “emergency”-- are putting themselves at great risk for lawsuits. 

Politicians know this. They know that they have public official bonds that protect them from lawsuits should they overreach their authority. Business owners, such as we are, have no such protection, as our own carrier has advised us. A bully politician could have hefty claims against his/her bond, and while payouts for claims crush future electability (similar to car insurance increasing with more accidents), the bond company would pay any damages on behalf of the controlling entity and the politician’s personal wealth is spared. 

This is not the case for a sole proprietor. Should someone claim damages from being forced to wear a mask (anxiety, pleurisy, infection, rash, heart attack / high blood pressure from low oxygen, for example), that store owner’s insurance will not cover the claimant’s injuries. The world learned this principle at Nuremberg in 1945-49, that doing something that injures someone else, even though you did it under the ‘authority’ of someone else, does not mean you get a free pass. Stores owned by deep pocket corporations may survive such lawsuits, but as in this entire assault on our economy, it is the small business owner once again who bears the brunt. 

NOTICE

Your actions as an “Oath Breaker” have been reported to a law firm that is documenting violations of the U.S. Constitution and USC 18 Sect. 242, for “deprivation of rights under color of law.”  

What was the economic impact? Example: Dollar amount or loss of customers, loss of supplies, loss of supply chain, employees laid off etc.

Ans. Our liability carrier advised us that if we require masks of customers, and they make a claim that they suffered any untoward medical issue due to our mandate, we could be sued. Our policy does not cover those claims.

For failing to protect the business owners of Lockhart from egregious lawsuits that could arise from your declaration, Mayor White, you have shown incompetency to serve the people of Lockhart as their mayor.  

 

Fake Science Part 1: Asymptomatic persons transmit COVID-19

Your basis for mandating facial coverings is based on your assertion, “WHEREAS, infected persons can transmit the COVID-19 virus to others before showing any symptoms...”

Says who? Not the WHO, World Health Organization, because their officials say the opposite:

"From the data we have, it still seems to be rare that an asymptomatic person actually transmits onward to a secondary individual. We have a number of reports from countries who are doing very detailed contact tracing. They're following asymptomatic cases, they're following contacts and they're not finding secondary transmission onward. It is very rare -- and much of that is not published in the literature. We are constantly looking at this data and we're trying to get more information from countries to truly answer this question. It still appears to be rare that an asymptomatic individual actually transmits onward."  -- Maria Van Kerkhove, the World Health Organization’s technical lead for coronavirus response and head of the emerging diseases and zoonoses unit. 

Rare. Very rare. Rare. In Maria’s short media conference of June 9, she said “rare” three times. This is a big deal. 

A second witness to your Fake Science is the National Institutes of Health’s article from May 13 that was published in Respiratory Medicine, titled, “A study on infectivity of asymptomatic SARS-CoV-2 carriers.” 

A 22-year old woman in Guangdong Provincial People’s Hospital was admitted for a heart condition. She tested positive for COVID-19. She was completely asymptomatic.  Researchers did contact tracing on 455 of her contacts. ZERO were found to be infected.   https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7219423/

“…455 contacts who were exposed to the asymptomatic COVID-19 virus carrier became the subjects of our research. They were divided into three groups: 35 patients, 196 family members and 224 hospital staffs. We extracted their epidemiological information, clinical records, auxiliary examination results and therapeutic schedules. In summary, all the 455 contacts were excluded from SARS-CoV-2 infection...”

Fake Science Part 2: Facial coverings stop the virus

“WHEREAS…widespread and consistent use of face coverings over the nose and mouth when in public is a critical and necessary measure to help slow the spread of the virus…” 

On the contrary-- “critical”? “necessary”? Real science, known as truth, says otherwise:

Healthy people do not need to wear masks:

·         “If you do not have any respiratory symptoms such as fever, cough or runny nose, you do not need to wear a mask,” says Dr. April Baller, a public health specialist for the WHO. “Masks should only be used by health care workers, caretakers or by people who are sick with symptoms of fever and cough.”

On Feb. 6 of this year, researchers in Hong Kong presented a meta-analysis that went as far back as 1946 that is found on our own CDC website and is supported by WHO,  “Nonpharmaceutical Measures for Pandemic Influenza in Nonhealthcare Settings—Personal Protective and Environmental Measures.” 

Note that this study was a look at TEN randomized controlled trials (RCT), 1946-2018. TEN. Clear conclusions. Comprehensive science. Not hysteria. Not propaganda that supports a political agenda. Under the heading of Personal Protective Measures, Masks, we read:

·         Disposable medical masks (also known as surgical masks) are loose-fitting devices that were designed to be worn by medical personnel to protect accidental contamination of patient wounds, and to protect the wearer against splashes or sprays of bodily fluids (36). There is limited evidence for their effectiveness in preventing influenza virus transmission either when worn by the infected person for source control or when worn by uninfected persons to reduce exposure. Our systematic review found no significant effect of face masks on transmission of laboratory-confirmed influenza.

·         “In our systematic review, we identified 10 RCTs [Randomized Controlled Trial] that reported estimates of the effectiveness of face masks in reducing laboratory-confirmed influenza virus infections in the community from literature published during 1946–July 27, 2018….In pooled analysis, we found no significant reduction in influenza transmission with the use of face masks…Our systematic review found no significant effect of face masks on transmission of laboratory-confirmed influenza….Proper use of face masks is essential because improper use might increase the risk for transmission.”

Canadian physicist D.G. Rancourt published “Masks Don't Work: A review of science relevant to COVID-19 social policy” last month in ResearchGate. He said, basically, that if you can breathe through a mask, it is not preventing transmission of viral particles. 

·         “Furthermore, the relevant known physics and biology, which I review, are such that masks and respirators should not work. It would be a paradox if masks and respirators worked, given what we know about viral respiratory diseases: The main transmission path is long-residence-time aerosol particles (< 2.5 μm), which are too fine to be blocked, and the minimum-infective-dose is smaller than one aerosol particle.”

The British Medical Journal, 2015, published the world’s first study of the efficacy of cloth masks compared to medical masks in a hospital setting, “A cluster randomised trial of cloth masks compared with medical masks in healthcare workers.” Participants were 1,607 health-care workers in high-risk wards of a Hanoi hospital over a four-week period. Results: 

·         The rates of all infection outcomes were highest in the cloth mask arm, with the rate of [Influenza-Like Illness, ILI] statistically significantly higher in the cloth mask arm compared with the medical mask arm. Cloth masks also had significantly higher rates of ILI compared with the control arm. An analysis by mask use showed ILI and laboratory-confirmed virus were significantly higher in the cloth masks group compared with the medical masks group. Penetration of cloth masks by particles was almost 97% and medical masks 44%.

Conclusions This study is the first RCT of cloth masks, and the results caution against the use of cloth masks. This is an important finding to inform occupational health and safety. Moisture retention, reuse of cloth masks and poor filtration may result in increased risk of infection.  

I hope the reader grapples that last sentence to their souls with hoops of steel:  Moisture retention, reuse of cloth masks and poor filtration may result in increased risk of infection.  Thus saith the British Medical Journal:

CLOTH MASK = INCREASED RISK OF INFECTION

Now let us examine the New England Journal of Medicine, “Universal Masking in Hospitals in the Covid-19 Era,”  

·         We know that wearing a mask outside health care facilities offers little, if any, protection from infection. Public health authorities define a significant exposure to Covid-19 as face-to-face contact within 6 feet with a patient with symptomatic Covid-19 that is sustained for at least a few minutes (and some say more than 10 minutes or even 30 minutes). The chance of catching Covid-19 from a passing interaction in a public space is therefore minimal. In many cases, the desire for widespread masking is a reflexive reaction to anxiety over the pandemic.

“Reflexive reaction.” Another term for reflexive is

“knee jerk, an immediate unthinking emotional reaction.”

Knee-jerk reactions have no place in the limitation of a free people’s unalienable rights by fiat order.

And perhaps, as is said, the best has been saved for last. Here is a pre-COVID article for the dentistry profession by John Hardie, BDS, MSc, PhD, FRCDC, October 18, 2016, “Why Face Masks Don’t Work: A Revealing Review”. https://www.oralhealthgroup.com/features/face-masks-dont-work-revealing-review/

Though written for dentists [Mayor White is a dentist], the science can be extrapolated to the general public concerned about spread of COVID-19. 

·         “The science regarding the aerosol transmission of infectious diseases has, for years, been based on what is now appreciated to be ‘very outmoded research and an overly simplistic interpretation of the data.’ Modern studies are employing sensitive instruments and interpretative techniques to better understand the size and distribution of potentially infectious aerosol particles…The primary reason for mandating the wearing of face masks is to protect dental personnel from airborne pathogens. This review has established that face masks are incapable of providing such a level of protection.”

·         “It should be concluded from these and similar studies that the filter material of face masks does not retain or filter out viruses or other submicron particles. When this understanding is combined with the poor fit of masks, it is readily appreciated that neither the filter performance nor the facial fit characteristics of face masks qualify them as being devices which protect against respiratory infections. ”

·         By all means, do not miss Dr. Hardie’s Conclusion:

“…Surely, the hallmark of a mature profession is one which permits new evidence to trump established beliefs. In 1910, Dr. C. Chapin, a public health pioneer, summarized this idea by stating, “We should not be ashamed to change our methods; rather, we should be ashamed not to do so.”  Until this occurs, as this review has revealed, dentists have nothing to fear by unmasking.” 

For failing to rely upon true science rather than politically-sourced sound bytes, Mayor White, you have shown incompetency to serve the people of Lockhart as their mayor.  

Local: Wrong Jurisdiction

As mayor of Lockhart, you have the lawful right to govern affairs in the City of Lockhart. The County of Caldwell is the jurisdiction of the County Commissioners. Judge Haden has not issued any mask order.

Yet, your basis for mandating businesses to mandate facial coverings is the “286 confirmed cases…two deaths, four hospitalizations, 50 recoveries, and the others active” in Caldwell County. 

I have learned that the two deaths were at a nursing home.  

286 cases among a county population of 40,500 is 0.7%. That means 99.3% of the people of Caldwell County are unaffected. 

2 deaths among 40,500 is 0.0049% 

The county’s death rate for 2010 was 7.8/1000. Current population is 40,500. We could expect 316 deaths this year if that rate holds steady. Being as we are half way through the year, that would be 158 expected deaths from all causes to date. 

Yet, the entire city is put on a draconian facial covering mandate for 2 deaths in a nursing home, who could have had several co-morbidities.

For failing to restrict your authority to your proper jurisdiction, Mayor White, you have shown incompetency to serve the people of Lockhart as their mayor. 

 

State: Wrong Application of Emergency Powers

Demanding facial coverings of the general public in order to access commercial services by invoking Texas Emergency Code 418 is an egregious violation of the letter and spirit of the law.

               Sec. 418.004.  DEFINITIONS.  In this chapter:

(1)       "Disaster" means the occurrence or imminent threat of widespread or severe damage, injury, or loss of life or property resulting from any natural or man-made cause, including fire, flood, earthquake, wind, storm, wave action, oil spill or other water contamination, volcanic activity, epidemic, air contamination, blight, drought, infestation, explosion, riot, hostile military or paramilitary action, extreme heat, cybersecurity event, other public calamity requiring emergency action, or energy emergency.

“Imminent” means “ready to take place, happening soon (Merriam-Webster); likely to occur at any moment; impending (dictionary.com).”

Your DECLARATION is not consistent with the law. You cite the Institute of Health Metrics & Evaluation which “includes a projection that there may be 5,567 fatal cases in Texas by October 1, 2020. 

·         Projection

·         May be

·         By October 1

Clearly, this is NOT an “imminent” crisis. 

NOTICE

Your actions as an “Oath Breaker” have been reported to a law firm that is documenting violations of the U.S. Constitution and USC 18 Sect. 242, for “deprivation of rights under color of law.”  

Whoever, under color of any law, statute, ordinance, regulation, or custom, willfully subjects any person in any State, Territory, Commonwealth, Possession, or District to the deprivation of any rights, privileges, or immunities secured or protected by the Constitution or laws of the United States, ... shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than one year, or both;  

For failing to follow the laws of the STATE OF TEXAS in both spirit and letter, Mayor White, you have shown incompetency to serve the people of Lockhart as their mayor.