By Chuck Puchmayr

As the mask debate rages on, fuelled by nonscientific rhetoric and blind visceral fury, we can only analyze with fascination the links to this polarizing dilemma, and the carnage that it has unleashed on relatively educated global society.

There was a time when we would take for granted the support of something so obvious as reducing the risk of injury or death. We would require little if any defence of it at all. Seat belts, motorcycle and cycling helmets, as well as the wearing of surgical masks during surgery and medical treatments were rarely challenged by the general public.

There was some opposition to seatbelt and helmet laws when they were first introduced, however, the head of the country wasn't telling us to defy them. 

Why now, do we have this divide between those who believe in the science of prevention of disease and those who, now boldly and sometimes aggressively, believe that being ordered to don a mask is an unnecessary, annoying imposition and an affront to one's personal liberty?

You need only to observe the maskless protests that have now crept across the Canadian border and beyond. These protests were inspired by those south of the border. The chilling similarities in the messaging and the links to the barrage of misinformation is not only alarming; to some, it's absolutely terrifying.

Protesters carry signs reading: "COVID is a media-led conspiracy", "Healthy people don't need masks',' "Fear is Killing our Country", and "We Will Not Comply".

All the while, in many cities in the United States, hospitals are packed to capacity with records of admissions being broken daily. Patients are dying at an alarming rate, causing once again, a morgue-capacity crisis comparable to what was experienced earlier in New York and Florida.

Recently, in El Paso Texas, the military had to be brought in to, as Mayor Dee Margo stated, "provide critical personnel to carry out our fatality management plan," as they dealt with a backlog of hundreds of bodies.

The United States leads the world in COVID-19 deaths, yet has only 4.5 percent of the global population. In an effort to make that statistic glaringly clear, allow me to restate it using a comparison and actual numbers; as of December 20th the United States, with its population 330 million people has 324,849 COVID-19 deaths (which are projected to continue at an alarming rate of 3,000 per day); whereas India, with its population of 1.38 billion, has 145,843 deaths.

The systemicatic spread of confusion

Science-based warnings coming from the likes of The World Health Organization and the U.S. Centres For Disease Control have been debunked and refuted by the president of the United States and his trusted COVID-19 medical adviser, Dr. Scott Atlas (who has just resigned). Atlas, a radiologist and not an epidemiologist, undoubtedly played a key role in the spread of confusion and conflicting information.

Almost 74 million people voted for President Trump in the recent US election, and millions more below the voting age support him and his beliefs. When you have this many people potentially siding with his version of the facts, you have an uptake of misinformation that will permeate and spread as quickly as the virus itself.

Adding to the discourse is the messaging by the ultraright television and radio talk shows, as well as the influences of the foreign social media disinformation networks in Russia, Iran, and China. The American National Security Agency, FBI, and Canadian Security and Intelligent Service have identified all three countries of being involved in spreading misinformation and conspiracy theories.

Freedom of information documents just released by CSIS disclose that COVID-19 misinformation has flourished since the pandemic started, fuelling what has been called an "infodemic" of conspiracy theories and falsehoods amid efforts to contain the novel coronavirus.

We are witnessing an unprecedented attack on the American people from within their own country. An attack whose casualties so far exceed those of all wars that the U.S. has fought in from the Korean War to the present.

Tragically, Canada has no defence against this invasion of hypnotic ignorance. As we throttle up our preventative restrictions here at home, in response to the rise in COVID-19 cases, there is an increasing skepticism and pushback by the growing cult of deniers.

Real-time scientific evidence

In the Southern Hemisphere, as the 2020 influenza season comes to an end, a remarkable statistic has emerged. The regular non-COVID-19 influenza season was virtually nonexistent. Many experts attribute it to mask wearing, social distancing, COVID-19 testing, and hand washing.

Dr. Greg Poland from the Mayo clinic said, "Never in my 40-year career have we seen rates so low."

Such examples, during saner times, would bring skeptics around to understanding the science of prevention. Yet today, regardless of overwhelming objective proof, we have some so emboldened and misguided that they put the entire community in danger.

It is no secret that the president of the United States harbours a misguided and dangerous belief that herd immunity is the quickest way to move his country out of this crippling pandemic.

In September of this year during a town hall interview with George Stephanopoulos, the president spoke of herd immunity (mistakenly calling it herd-mentality). These were his words: "sure over a period of time it goes away. And you'll develop, you'll develop, like a herd-mentality it's going to be it's going to be herd-developed and that's going to happen, that will happen…"

Boris Johnson, prime minister of Great Britain, appeared to believe in "herd immunity" as well with these comments in February 2020, stating they were moving ahead to "use herd immunity to protect the economy".

The rising impact of the pandemic became so dire that Great Britain had to change its tactics and impose lockdowns, require mandatory mask wearing, testing, and contact tracing.

In fact, the British prime minister himself contracted COVID-19 and required hospitalization, intensive care, and the use of a ventilator to recover. Upon his release from hospital, Johnson declared that the coronavirus that nearly killed him was like an "unexpected and invisible mugger".

Many experts estimate that 70 percent of the population would either have to have been vaccinated or have survived the novel coronavirus infection in order for herd immunity to become effective.  In the United States, this would mean 200 million people would have to get infected.

At the current fatality rate of roughly two percent, four million Americans would unnecessarily have die to reach a virus driven immunity.

Could there be a motivator?

The Trump Organization is highly invested in the global resort and hotel industry. Trump's company owns 10 luxury hotel properties and 19 golf courses worldwide.

The American Hotel and Lodging Association reports that eight in 10 hotel rooms are empty in the United States, with 70 percent of their staff laid off.

This economic slowdown must have a devastating impact on the Trump empire, whose early tax returns show that Trump is carrying a debt load of US$421 million.

Surely, the outgoing president is not actually placing his personal business interests ahead of the best interests of his country and the world.

Could the outgoing president have a vested interest in seeing this pandemic spread?