Transcript of the above video:

For those who watch this channel relatively frequently, especially over the past roughly one year, masks have been something of a frequent topic, let's put it that way and folks who have watched my other videos on this topic probably are already aware of my thinking on it. 

I recently came across the following article from ASEAN NOW, that is aseannow.com, the article is titled: Thai Public Health Ministry backtracks on its proposal to remove mandatory facial masks, says was a misunderstanding. So quoting directly: "The Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Public Health denied the Ministry had proposed to cancel mandatory wearing of facial mask in parks and concerts as reported across Thai media Wednesday March 16th, calling it a "misunderstanding". Quoting further: "Permanent Secretary Dr. Kiattiphum Wongrajit clarified today March 17th, following the news stating that the Ministry of Public Health would propose a plan to remove wearing facial masks to the Center for COVID-19 Situation Administration (CCSA) on Friday that it was a misunderstanding. He said that he did not say such a proposal during a press conference yesterday." So okay, fair enough apparently a misunderstanding there.

I have a misunderstanding though and my misunderstanding comes from, I am going to go ahead and put this up as well, a recent article from thainews.prd.go.th, that is the Public Relations Department of the Government of Thailand, to reread that again, thainews.prd.go.th and the title of this article as we have quoted it before: MOPH Confirms No Legal Obligations for People to Wear Face Masks. MOPH is Ministry of Public Health. My misunderstanding arises, I am going to go ahead and quote from the following: Quoting directly: "Thailand's Public Health Minister confirmed," let's be clear, the prior article we quoted was quoting the Permanent Secretary and this is the Public Health Minister, so quoting again: “Thailand's Public Health Minister confirmed that there are no laws forcing people to wear face masks. Concerning warnings from the Centre for COVID-19 Situation Administration (CCSA) that people might be fined for not wearing a face mask, Deputy Prime Minister and Public Health Minister Anutin Charnvirakul stated that the Ministry of Public Health and related agencies have not reported this." So I have a misunderstanding. Why is it if there are no laws and the Minister of Public Health himself said that, that there was a misunderstanding that we were going to say that we might pull the mandate of wearing these masks in public parks? How can that mandate even exist if there are no laws? That would be my question. I don't really get it, and I am not asking this rhetorically, I am genuinely asking the question. 

And then in furtherance to this, another question has become for me and we have discussed this in other videos regarding lockdowns, where is the data that this even does anything? Leaving aside in my opinion, major human rights issues regarding making people wear things in public, especially alone outside which even the WHO has said is not necessary and I have got videos previously where we have quoted the WHO as saying that but at the same time okay, leave all those issues aside, does this stuff work? Go ahead and put this on screen. This is recent study from Johns Hopkins University and this has been in my mind pretty much one of the best sources for information about all of this lo these past months. This is called a Literature Review and Meta-analysis of the Effects of Lockdowns on COVID-19 Mortality. Again Johns Hopkins University. It is from sites.krieger.jhu.edu and just some quotes taken from this study. "Lockdowns versus no lockdowns, face masks, closing non-essential businesses, border closures, school closures and limiting gatherings”, the aforementioned study found "no broad-based evidence of noticeable effects on Covid-19 mortality." You can get even deeper into that because they basically say and we have done another video specifically on that study that all this has not borne out in the data that any of this has any appreciable effect on anything. So why are we doing it? I mean leaving aside why are we doing it if there is no law on it, why are we doing it at all? Talk about misunderstanding! I am failing to understand the reasoning behind any of this especially at this point.

Again moving back to the beginning of this thing, okay reasonable people could disagree maybe, although now that we have really solid data and a lot of it now I think, I hope in the future we will never see something like this again. But leaving that aside, now, here and now two years after the promulgation of the Emergency Decree March 2020, we have a real good idea where this all stands and so I guess I am misunderstanding why we are doing it all anymore in any case.