Santa Clara County’s $3 million lawsuit against a church in California’s Silicon Valley over COVID-19 mandate violations, as well as its prior mask mandate, was based on a study that’s deeply flawed, critics say.
Pastor Mike McClure of Calvary Chapel San Jose defied county mandates from May through October 2020 when the church held indoor services, made masks optional, ignored social distancing rules, and refused to place limits on how many of its 600 congregants could attend services.
“I can remember a particular study around masking evidence that was a large study in Bangladesh that had cases—it was a large retrospective cohort study that demonstrated the efficacy of community-wide masking. I can’t remember exactly where it was published. It was not published by the CDC [U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention],” she said.
Dr. Robert Malone, an internationally recognized scientist and physician who has conducted key research on mRNA vaccines, told the Epoch Times that while Cody is highly credentialed, “she is citing as justification for action a very flawed study that actually proves if anything, that the masks don’t work, when you actually look at the data.”
Norman Fenton, a mathematician and risk information management professor at Queen Mary University of London, also said the Bangladesh study doesn’t hold up to rigorous analysis and doesn’t prove masks work.
“There was no discernible effect of the mask intervention on covid infection,” he concluded.
Cody did not respond to multiple Epoch Times inquiries, and the county’s media relations staff declined to comment.
‘Statistical Noise’
Malone and former Silicon Valley entrepreneur Steve Kirsch, who have both spoken at Defeat the Mandates rallies, attended an event hosted by the Liberty Forum of Silicon Valley on COVID mismanagement in Santa Clara on Aug. 13.Kirsch has written extensively about the pandemic, and said Cody’s recent deposition provided a rare opportunity to force a public health official to answer questions, according to his Sept. 20 Substack post.
“We finally learn in the deposition that Sara Cody’s mask mandate was based on the Bangladesh mask study,” Kirsch wrote.
He pointed out—as Recht did in his critique—data in the study seems to suggest red cloth masks worked better than surgical masks, while purple cloth masks were ineffective.
“Well, you can’t change the color of a mask and have it suddenly work. Physics doesn’t work that way, and so clearly what was going on is they were just measuring statistical noise,” Kirsch told The Epoch Times.
Kirsch contends there is no valid science to back up the idea that masks work in the first place, and for the county to continue its lawsuit against the church for $3 million and ignore evidence the Bangladesh mask study is flawed is “just ridiculous, and an “unconscionable miscarriage of justice.”
Even though several experts have cast doubt on the study, its authors and Science medical journal have refused to retract it, so it remains a serious problem, Kirsch said.
And, last week the CDC loosened its guidance on mask requirements in nursing homes and hospitals.
“Updates were made to reflect the high levels of vaccine- and infection-induced immunity and the availability of effective treatments and prevention tools,” the CDC said.
Church Supporters
Malone and others who defend Calvary Chapel San Jose say Cody, the public health officer, and county attorney James Williams have gone too far in their actions against the church.“This is extremely heavy-handed inappropriate behavior. And, to top it off, of course, we have the whole issue of the right to assembly and freedom of religion which is clearly being violated here. The behavior of this county is egregious,” Malone said.
McClure told The Epoch Times he acted as a Good Samaritan to help people through the darkest days of the pandemic and lockdowns when depression and suicide rates were on the rise.
The pastor will face new questioning this week about whether he or the church prospered during the lockdown.
“I have a deposition coming up in two days. It’s all financial questions,” he said on Sept. 27.
After the county’s lawsuit was filed, Williams sent a letter to Cass Commercial Bank disclosing the church owed a substantial amount of money in fines, effectively suggesting to the church’s lenders that it might be in financial trouble, McClure said.
“I didn’t think it would escalate to have a county threaten to take your property, but that’s what they did. They threatened us with everything they possibly could.”
At the time, the church was repaying a $1.9 million construction loan and still owed about $1 million. The bank reacted to the letter by giving the church 30 days to pay off the debt, which it did with the help of Pastor Jack Hibbs at the Calvary Chapel in Chino Hills and an “angel lender,” McClure said.
The bank has since apologized to the church, he said.
The real battle, he said, isn’t about health and safety—it’s about politics, power, and whether America is going to trust government or put its faith in God.
Also, because the church is in Big Tech’s backyard in Silicon Valley, the situation has become even more hostile, McClure said.
“We’re in the belly of the beast of modern-day Babylon,” McClure said. “The government wants our loyalty, and they want to take over the church. They don’t like the First Amendment ... Our county has said openly that the Constitution doesn’t apply here. When we had the Supreme Court rule in our favor, they disregarded it. They didn’t care.”
Mariah Gondeiro, an attorney with Advocates for Faith and Freedom who is representing the church, told The Epoch Times that no other county in the state has levied such “enormous fines” against a church.
“It is very extreme, and I don’t think the district court is going to be pleased with them [Santa Clara County] not trying to settle,” she said. “The court in our case has admonished the county. The judge told them that this is not the hill you want to die on.”
The case, Gondeiro said, illustrates the county and its elected officials have lost perspective of their roles and responsibilities and instead targeted their adversaries.
“It’s an important case because this is such an abuse of power at this point, and what they’re doing is unconstitutional,” she said. “It’s important that this county be held accountable.”
