(LifeSite News) Certified industrial hygienist Stephen Petty provided expert testimony for the New Hampshire Senate in March that showed from his perspective masks do absolutely nothing to stop the spread of a virus like COVID.
He began his testimony by stating that I’ve been working 45 years in the field of health and safety … most recently I testified in the State of Kentucky and as a result of my testimony the mask mandate was overturned statewide.”
Petty went over in great detail the reality that in his professional opinion there is no evidence that masks could stop the spread of COVID.
His argument centered on the fact that COVID particles are extremely small and have no problem going in and out of masks, and that COVID particles are airborne and remain the air for long periods of time.
“The virus is 500 times smaller than what you can see,” he said. “A COVID particle is a thousand times smaller than the cross section of a human hair, and I ask everybody the simple question … can you slip a human hair by the side of your mask?”
He compared the amount of space that a virus particle has to travel in and out of medical masks to a “super freeway for the virus to come and go.”
He critiqued the source control argument, which is an idea that even if a COVID particle can pass into a mask, it is still safer to wear one so you don’t spread the virus out of the mask.
“This source control argument is bogus,” he said. “If you’ve got this super freeway it doesn’t care [the virus] whether it’s coming in or going out.”
Petty also stated that an “asbestos fiber on average is 50 times larger than a COVID particle.” Petty slammed the idea that you could say a medical mask or N-95 could be used to stop COVID when only “high-end respirators” are used in asbestos work.
“We wouldn’t even use an n95 for asbestos workers,” he said.
