Conclusion
The existing scientific evidences challenge the safety and efficacy of wearing facemask as
preventive intervention for COVID-19. The data suggest that both medical and non-medical
facemasks are ineffective to block human-to-human transmission of viral and infectious disease
such SARS-CoV-2 and COVID-19, supporting against the usage of facemasks. Wearing
facemasks has been demonstrated to have substantial adverse physiological and psychological
effects. These include hypoxia, hypercapnia, shortness of breath, increased acidity and toxicity,
activation of fear and stress response, rise in stress hormones, immunosuppression, fatigue,
headaches, decline in cognitive performance, predisposition for viral and infectious illnesses,
chronic stress, anxiety and depression. Long-term consequences of wearing facemask can
cause health deterioration, developing and progression of chronic diseases and premature
death. Governments, policy makers and health organizations should utilize prosper and
scientific evidence-based approach with respect to wearing facemasks, when the latter is
considered as preventive intervention for public health.

Credit authorship contribution statement
Baruch Vainshelboim: Conceptualization, Data curation, Writing – original draft.

Declaration of Competing Interest
The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal
relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.

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