{"id":2648,"date":"2023-08-23T17:04:12","date_gmt":"2023-08-23T21:04:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/paragoninstitute.org\/?p=2648"},"modified":"2024-04-18T12:55:17","modified_gmt":"2024-04-18T16:55:17","slug":"dont-believe-doomsayers-new-covid-outbreak-is-mild-and-masks-dont-help","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/paragoninstitute.org\/public-health\/dont-believe-doomsayers-new-covid-outbreak-is-mild-and-masks-dont-help\/","title":{"rendered":"Don\u2019t Believe Doomsayers \u2014 New COVID Outbreak is Mild, and Masks Don\u2019t Help"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>COVID-19 cases are\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/fortune.com\/well\/2023\/08\/11\/fall-winter-covid-forecast-2023-omicron-eris-united-states\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">expected to rise this fall<\/a>\u00a0as new variants become more prevalent. And, as unfortunately expected, it\u2019s already triggered demands by some of our more zealous public health enforcers, not to mention some teachers\u2019 unions, to reinstate mitigation measures including mandatory masking.<\/p>\n<p>Some researchers\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2023\/08\/02\/health\/covid-rise.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">are already recommending<\/a>\u00a0that when cases go up, people will need to wear masks indoors again.<\/p>\n<p>Epidemiologist Katelyn Jetelina, author of the widely read newsletter \u201cYour Local Epidemiologist,\u201d\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2023\/08\/02\/health\/covid-rise.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">predicts COVID-19 \u00a0\u201cis going to be disruptive this winter<\/a>, and it will cause a number of people to die,\u201d and added, \u201cThat\u2019s just not acceptable to the public health world, especially since it\u2019s preventable.\u201d In a recent \u201cPBS Newshour\u201d interview, she suggested \u201cwearing masks in crowded areas, especially during a surge\u201d and \u201ccertainly at home, it works, if you want to reduce household transmission.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>About\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.insidehighered.com\/news\/students\/physical-mental-health\/2023\/08\/18\/two-years-few-colleges-still-require-covid-vaccines\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">100 colleges and universities<\/a>\u00a0still require students to be vaccinated. A smaller number of schools including\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.newsnationnow.com\/us-news\/education\/rutgers-will-still-require-covid-vaccine-mask-mandate\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Rutgers, Georgetown,<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.wsbtv.com\/news\/local\/atlanta\/atlanta-college-reinstates-mask-mandate-students-employees-campus\/SJVTD4WHBRGFNNVERNUGMIIQVY\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Morris Brown College<\/a> in Atlanta have reinstated mask mandates on campus<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/nypost.com\/2023\/08\/23\/new-covid-outbreak-is-mild-and-masks-dont-help\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">The full article can be found in the <em>New York Post<\/em>.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>COVID-19 cases are\u00a0expected to rise this fall\u00a0as new variants become more prevalent. And, as unfortunately expected, it\u2019s already triggered demands by some of our more zealous public health enforcers, not&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":2649,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_price":"","_stock":"","_tribe_ticket_header":"","_tribe_default_ticket_provider":"","_tribe_ticket_capacity":"0","_ticket_start_date":"","_ticket_end_date":"","_tribe_ticket_show_description":"","_tribe_ticket_show_not_going":false,"_tribe_ticket_use_global_stock":"","_tribe_ticket_global_stock_level":"","_global_stock_mode":"","_global_stock_cap":"","_tribe_rsvp_for_event":"","_tribe_ticket_going_count":"","_tribe_ticket_not_going_count":"","_tribe_tickets_list":"[]","_tribe_ticket_has_attendee_info_fields":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[754],"tags":[706,390,417],"external-media-outlet":[822],"featured":[],"location":[],"publication-type":[717],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v22.6 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Don\u2019t Believe Doomsayers \u2014 New COVID Outbreak is Mild, and Masks Don\u2019t Help<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"As new COVID-19 variants become more prevalent, demands to reinstate mitigation measures, including mandatory masking, will not help.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/paragoninstitute.org\/public-health\/dont-believe-doomsayers-new-covid-outbreak-is-mild-and-masks-dont-help\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Don\u2019t Believe Doomsayers \u2014 New COVID Outbreak is Mild, and Masks Don\u2019t Help\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"As new COVID-19 variants become more prevalent, demands to reinstate mitigation measures, including mandatory masking, will not help.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/paragoninstitute.org\/public-health\/dont-believe-doomsayers-new-covid-outbreak-is-mild-and-masks-dont-help\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Paragon Health Institute\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2023-08-23T21:04:12+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2024-04-18T16:55:17+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/paragoninstitute.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/12\/mask-mandate.webp\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1920\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"1080\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/webp\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Dr. Joel Zinberg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Dr. Joel Zinberg\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"1 minute\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/paragoninstitute.org\/public-health\/dont-believe-doomsayers-new-covid-outbreak-is-mild-and-masks-dont-help\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/paragoninstitute.org\/public-health\/dont-believe-doomsayers-new-covid-outbreak-is-mild-and-masks-dont-help\/\",\"name\":\"Don\u2019t Believe Doomsayers \u2014 New COVID Outbreak is Mild, and Masks Don\u2019t Help\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/paragoninstitute.org\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/paragoninstitute.org\/public-health\/dont-believe-doomsayers-new-covid-outbreak-is-mild-and-masks-dont-help\/#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/paragoninstitute.org\/public-health\/dont-believe-doomsayers-new-covid-outbreak-is-mild-and-masks-dont-help\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/paragoninstitute.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/12\/mask-mandate.webp\",\"datePublished\":\"2023-08-23T21:04:12+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2024-04-18T16:55:17+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/paragoninstitute.org\/#\/schema\/person\/41b77f32c6e25fc8e53850a28b09f2ff\"},\"description\":\"As new COVID-19 variants become more prevalent, demands to reinstate mitigation measures, including mandatory masking, will not help.\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/paragoninstitute.org\/public-health\/dont-believe-doomsayers-new-covid-outbreak-is-mild-and-masks-dont-help\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/paragoninstitute.org\/public-health\/dont-believe-doomsayers-new-covid-outbreak-is-mild-and-masks-dont-help\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/paragoninstitute.org\/public-health\/dont-believe-doomsayers-new-covid-outbreak-is-mild-and-masks-dont-help\/#primaryimage\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/paragoninstitute.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/12\/mask-mandate.webp\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/paragoninstitute.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/12\/mask-mandate.webp\",\"width\":1920,\"height\":1080,\"caption\":\"Mask Mandate\"},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/paragoninstitute.org\/public-health\/dont-believe-doomsayers-new-covid-outbreak-is-mild-and-masks-dont-help\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/paragoninstitute.org\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Don\u2019t Believe Doomsayers \u2014 New COVID Outbreak is Mild, and Masks Don\u2019t Help\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/paragoninstitute.org\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/paragoninstitute.org\/\",\"name\":\"Paragon Health Institute\",\"description\":\"Health Policy Solutions Americans Can Trust\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/paragoninstitute.org\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/paragoninstitute.org\/#\/schema\/person\/41b77f32c6e25fc8e53850a28b09f2ff\",\"name\":\"Dr. Joel Zinberg\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/paragoninstitute.org\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/paragoninstitute.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/11\/joel-zinberg.webp\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/paragoninstitute.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/11\/joel-zinberg.webp\",\"caption\":\"Dr. Joel Zinberg\"},\"description\":\"Joel M. Zinberg, M.D., J.D. is the Director of the Public Health and American Well-Being Initiative at Paragon Health Institute, and a\u00a0senior fellow with the Competitive Enterprise Institute. A native New Yorker, he recently completed two years as\u00a0General Counsel and Senior Economist at the Council of Economic Advisers\u00a0in the Executive Office of the President. Dr. Zinberg has practiced general and oncologic surgery in New York for nearly 30 years at the Mount Sinai Hospital and Icahn School of Medicine, where he remains an\u00a0Associate Clinical Professor of Surgery. He has been involved with health policy issues and the interaction between law and medicine for his entire career. For 10 years, Dr. Zinberg taught as a lecturer at the Columbia University Law School, where he created a course on the legal, policy and ethical issues surrounding organ transplantation. He served for many years on the New York State Board of Professional Medical Conduct and on Mount Sinai\u2019s Ethics Committee and Institutional Review Board. He is a past President and Trustee of the New York County Medical Society, and between 2015 and 2017, served as a visiting scholar at the American Enterprise Institute. Dr. Zinberg has written for publications as varied as the Journal of the American Medical Association, the Bulletin of the American College of Surgeons, The Wall Street Journal, City Journal, and law reviews, and authored book chapters on legal and policy issues associated with organ transplantation. Dr. Zinberg earned his B.A. in economics with High Honors, Phi Beta Kappa, from Swarthmore College, his J.D. degree from the Yale Law School, and his M.D. from the Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons.\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/paragoninstitute.org\/author\/joel-zinberg\/\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Don\u2019t Believe Doomsayers \u2014 New COVID Outbreak is Mild, and Masks Don\u2019t Help","description":"As new COVID-19 variants become more prevalent, demands to reinstate mitigation measures, including mandatory masking, will not help.","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/paragoninstitute.org\/public-health\/dont-believe-doomsayers-new-covid-outbreak-is-mild-and-masks-dont-help\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Don\u2019t Believe Doomsayers \u2014 New COVID Outbreak is Mild, and Masks Don\u2019t Help","og_description":"As new COVID-19 variants become more prevalent, demands to reinstate mitigation measures, including mandatory masking, will not help.","og_url":"https:\/\/paragoninstitute.org\/public-health\/dont-believe-doomsayers-new-covid-outbreak-is-mild-and-masks-dont-help\/","og_site_name":"Paragon Health Institute","article_published_time":"2023-08-23T21:04:12+00:00","article_modified_time":"2024-04-18T16:55:17+00:00","og_image":[{"width":1920,"height":1080,"url":"https:\/\/paragoninstitute.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/12\/mask-mandate.webp","type":"image\/webp"}],"author":"Dr. Joel Zinberg","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Dr. Joel Zinberg","Est. reading time":"1 minute"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/paragoninstitute.org\/public-health\/dont-believe-doomsayers-new-covid-outbreak-is-mild-and-masks-dont-help\/","url":"https:\/\/paragoninstitute.org\/public-health\/dont-believe-doomsayers-new-covid-outbreak-is-mild-and-masks-dont-help\/","name":"Don\u2019t Believe Doomsayers \u2014 New COVID Outbreak is Mild, and Masks Don\u2019t Help","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/paragoninstitute.org\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/paragoninstitute.org\/public-health\/dont-believe-doomsayers-new-covid-outbreak-is-mild-and-masks-dont-help\/#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/paragoninstitute.org\/public-health\/dont-believe-doomsayers-new-covid-outbreak-is-mild-and-masks-dont-help\/#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/paragoninstitute.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/12\/mask-mandate.webp","datePublished":"2023-08-23T21:04:12+00:00","dateModified":"2024-04-18T16:55:17+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/paragoninstitute.org\/#\/schema\/person\/41b77f32c6e25fc8e53850a28b09f2ff"},"description":"As new COVID-19 variants become more prevalent, demands to reinstate mitigation measures, including mandatory masking, will not help.","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/paragoninstitute.org\/public-health\/dont-believe-doomsayers-new-covid-outbreak-is-mild-and-masks-dont-help\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/paragoninstitute.org\/public-health\/dont-believe-doomsayers-new-covid-outbreak-is-mild-and-masks-dont-help\/"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/paragoninstitute.org\/public-health\/dont-believe-doomsayers-new-covid-outbreak-is-mild-and-masks-dont-help\/#primaryimage","url":"https:\/\/paragoninstitute.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/12\/mask-mandate.webp","contentUrl":"https:\/\/paragoninstitute.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/12\/mask-mandate.webp","width":1920,"height":1080,"caption":"Mask Mandate"},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/paragoninstitute.org\/public-health\/dont-believe-doomsayers-new-covid-outbreak-is-mild-and-masks-dont-help\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/paragoninstitute.org\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Don\u2019t Believe Doomsayers \u2014 New COVID Outbreak is Mild, and Masks Don\u2019t Help"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/paragoninstitute.org\/#website","url":"https:\/\/paragoninstitute.org\/","name":"Paragon Health Institute","description":"Health Policy Solutions Americans Can Trust","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/paragoninstitute.org\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/paragoninstitute.org\/#\/schema\/person\/41b77f32c6e25fc8e53850a28b09f2ff","name":"Dr. Joel Zinberg","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/paragoninstitute.org\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/paragoninstitute.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/11\/joel-zinberg.webp","contentUrl":"https:\/\/paragoninstitute.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/11\/joel-zinberg.webp","caption":"Dr. Joel Zinberg"},"description":"Joel M. Zinberg, M.D., J.D. is the Director of the Public Health and American Well-Being Initiative at Paragon Health Institute, and a\u00a0senior fellow with the Competitive Enterprise Institute. A native New Yorker, he recently completed two years as\u00a0General Counsel and Senior Economist at the Council of Economic Advisers\u00a0in the Executive Office of the President. Dr. Zinberg has practiced general and oncologic surgery in New York for nearly 30 years at the Mount Sinai Hospital and Icahn School of Medicine, where he remains an\u00a0Associate Clinical Professor of Surgery. He has been involved with health policy issues and the interaction between law and medicine for his entire career. For 10 years, Dr. Zinberg taught as a lecturer at the Columbia University Law School, where he created a course on the legal, policy and ethical issues surrounding organ transplantation. He served for many years on the New York State Board of Professional Medical Conduct and on Mount Sinai\u2019s Ethics Committee and Institutional Review Board. He is a past President and Trustee of the New York County Medical Society, and between 2015 and 2017, served as a visiting scholar at the American Enterprise Institute. Dr. Zinberg has written for publications as varied as the Journal of the American Medical Association, the Bulletin of the American College of Surgeons, The Wall Street Journal, City Journal, and law reviews, and authored book chapters on legal and policy issues associated with organ transplantation. Dr. Zinberg earned his B.A. in economics with High Honors, Phi Beta Kappa, from Swarthmore College, his J.D. degree from the Yale Law School, and his M.D. from the Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons.","url":"https:\/\/paragoninstitute.org\/author\/joel-zinberg\/"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/paragoninstitute.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2648"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/paragoninstitute.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/paragoninstitute.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/paragoninstitute.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/paragoninstitute.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2648"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/paragoninstitute.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2648\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2650,"href":"https:\/\/paragoninstitute.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2648\/revisions\/2650"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/paragoninstitute.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2649"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/paragoninstitute.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2648"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/paragoninstitute.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2648"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/paragoninstitute.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2648"},{"taxonomy":"external-media-outlet","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/paragoninstitute.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/external-media-outlet?post=2648"},{"taxonomy":"featured","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/paragoninstitute.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/featured?post=2648"},{"taxonomy":"location","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/paragoninstitute.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/location?post=2648"},{"taxonomy":"publication-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/paragoninstitute.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/publication-type?post=2648"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}