 Welcome back. So as we mentioned, the president now extending requirements for travelers to wear masks on airplanes, trains and buses, and also airports and train stations through mid-March. But interesting enough, an acclaimed study on the effectiveness of masks in reducing symptomatic COVID-19, well that's now facing new scrutiny after a researcher highlighted the minuscule infection differences between treatment and control groups randomized across 600 Bangladeshi villages. And that's not the only strategy the president's going to combat, the rapidly evolving coronavirus. So the president again expected to unveil his new plan. It's going to get required travelers entering the country by air to test negative for COVID within a day of departure regardless of your vaccination status. Also, it's expected to require public health insurance companies to cover 100% of the cost of an at-home test. Also part of this plan, launching a public education campaign to encourage 100 million adults to get boosters within a special focus, especially on seniors. But this interesting story also coming out of Illinois. A 71-year-old man who was on a ventilator happened to recover after a court was ordered, well actually a court ordered the hospital to treat him with ivermectin at the request of his daughter. He supposedly completely recovered and that's why I want to welcome back our panel joining us once again, Melissa Armo and Dr. Hamana. Thank you both for sticking around. So interesting, you know, everybody keeps saying follow the science. So here you have a guy 71 years old who's on a ventilator making a full recovery after being on ivermectin and then you have this study saying, you know, masks, well, they're not that effective there. So what is your reaction to these stories, doctor, as it pertains to the president's latest plan? So, you know, those are two different issues. One, we've known that masks don't really effectively minimize disease. I mean, when we think about it, if you're sneezing and you're sick, if you're wearing a mask, it actually does help minimize the number of droplets that you're expelling into the environment. But in terms of receptive protection, there really isn't much at all. So, you know, the science behind it is a bit spurious. And I know some studies have shown that there's really not any decrease in transmission. In fact, in some populations, we've seen anecdotally, transmission has actually increased among mask layers for some reason. With regards to ivermectin. Yeah, I was just going to ask you that. Go ahead. Yeah, and that's 71 year old who recovered. We can't really say unless, you know, we know more details, whether or not it was the ivermectin that caused him to recover or whether or not he was recovering. But we do know that it has been maligned, inappropriately so, and that there are studies, multiple studies across different journals all over the world that have shown benefits of ivermectin usage in COVID prevention and treatment. So let me ask you real quickly before Melissa weighs in. Do you support ivermectin as a treatment? I agree for sure. Certainly. Melissa, your reaction again to these latest stories. And again, we don't know every little detail when it pertains to the doctor said, which is a good point to this 71 year old. But you just heard Dr. Hamada say that he supports the use of ivermectin. But I don't see that in that plan. Maybe he'll mention something, but I don't see that. But there's a lot of talk about these masks, which again, study after study doesn't seem to be supporting that theory. Well, there's two things. Let's talk about some of these treatments. First of all, again, people should be able to talk to their individual doctor and decide if they want to take these treatments. The government is not focusing enough on helping people do preventative things to get better when they get COVID or to prevent COVID in the first place. All they want to focus on is vaccines and booster, booster, booster. And I think people should really try not to get it in the first place. Now, what does that mean? Really, the best prevention is social distancing from people that way you don't get common colds, blues, things like that. They are actually discussing going back to masking up in the city of New York. And I am disgusted by that. New York City and New York State as a whole is like a different country right now. If you go to different places, Florida, Pennsylvania, different states I've been in, it is like a different world. People are still wearing masks here for too many. And if any man did that again, I mean New York City has just fallen off a cliff in the last 17, 18 months. They're just want to destroy the city here. And I think masking people is not going to stop COVID. It is not going to stop the spread. People are right up against each other like this with a mask on. Stay over here. Don't be in my face. We don't need to be on top of each other unless you spit six feet in front of somebody if your spit can even go that far. You're not going to give it to somebody. Just stay, stay us a nice social distance for people and let people see their faces. We're living in society now. We're turning into China and I hate to say it, but it's straight like in Hong Kong where because of pollution they wear masks all the time and that's perfectly normal to them. This is not normal and they are trying to make it normal society. I refuse to wear a mask anymore. And in fact, I wanted to get a pedicure and manicure at a salon the other day and I didn't have a mask on and then she asked me to put one on and said, I'm not going to put one on. So I left. I'll go and establish another, I'll go to another establishment. I'm not going to sit here for an hour and a half and get a pedicure and manicure with a mask on. I can't breathe. I don't like it. I can't even imagine how these children, these poor children have been going to school with masks on for the last year and a half. God love them. I mean, I would be terrible for their society and you can't even see someone's face. You can't tell if they're smiling. You can't laugh. You can't do anything on it and it's really difficult to breathe and I don't even have breathing problems. People with asthma, things like that. I can't imagine what they're going through. We are tight on time and I do real quickly want to get to the economy but I have to talk about the story. This is a former president, Donald Trump calling the fact that he tested positive for COVID-19 fake news. This is something that came out in Mark Meadows book, his former chief of staff. Just real quickly, I want to get your reaction to this doctor, to this excerpt. Can you hear me, doctor? I can hear you but I can't hear the excerpt. Oh, there was no, I'm sorry. There was no excerpt, it's actually from the book. Sorry, I should have clarified that. So in the book, Mark Meadows says that on his way to a debate, the president was tested and he tested positive. He's claiming it was a false positive because they did another test in which he fact tested negative. Regardless though, former president Donald Trump is denying all this that he ever even tested positive calling it fake news. What are your thoughts real quickly on that? Well, we know that he had COVID and he responded really quickly and effectively to the treatments that were given to him. As to this specific instance, whether or not he was positive or negative, who knows, I would have had to see the test. If he was actually false positive and retested and was negative, then there was no issue at all. If he was positive and it was consistently positive, then sure, there'd be a little bit of concern. But I don't have enough facts to really make the determination there. Yeah, I just thought it was interesting, Melissa, just because from my understanding, these two gentlemen seem to be on good terms. So I guess one's almost a little bit surprised that the former president didn't expect this to come up in the book. Do you think this will have any impact on the relationship? Your thoughts real quickly on this. I think the relationship has been pretty steady. Whether it's true or not, I don't know. But either way, the false positives, false negatives, that is a problem sometimes with these tests. And again, that's going to be a big problem. If they want to start testing Americans, which they're talking about doing now, they talked about it yesterday. The Biden administration is going to come out where they're testing Americans coming to the country and they want to quarantine people. What if you get a false test? What if you get a false test and make you quarantine? You miss out on work. I mean, there's so many problems with this testing. It is not foolproof. I don't know who's right or wrong in this situation. I don't think the relationship is going to be detrimentally affected by it. You have people come out that Trump still continues to talk to you that negative things are false things about him in the past and he's still stuck with the loyalty with those people. And Mark Meadows is one of those people that if Trump decides to run again, I'm sure he's going to support him in 2024. All right. We are very tight on time. So unfortunately, we're going to have to leave it there. We will still talk about the economy tomorrow. Hopefully, Melissa, you can join us once again and talk about those latest job numbers coming out. Not good news. Also, inflation in the economy appeared to be the number one concern and that could have a huge impact on the midterm elections. That's what a Democratic pollster is warning about. We'll continue to follow that because that story is not going away. But unfortunately, we do have to go away to a break. But Dr. and Melissa, we appreciate your time on this Thursday. Please come back. Thank you. Thank you. There is still... I told you it was a busy news day. There is still much more to get to on this edition of News On. Don't go anywhere. We're going to get an update on your weather forecast courtesy of Weather Nation when news on returns. Also, a special report you don't want to miss. The details coming up.