What data do you have that show that masks don't have a statistical impact on spread, mortality, or both? Has this data been corrected for confounding factors and made widely available in replicated, peer-reviewed studies, or did you have to spend a half hour cherry-picking Google results to find it?
The latter question sounds insulting and dismissive, but it's actually posed in good faith. It highlights a genuine epistemological problem about the nature, limits, and validity of our knowledge about the pandemic. I can find studies on PubMed and elsewhere that back up virtually any belief, prejudice, policy, or therapy that I like. So can you. Where does that leave us, except with the obvious solution of trusting our local, state, and national health authorities?
> What data do you have that show that masks don't have a statistical impact on spread, mortality, or both?
From the 1918-1920 Spanish influenza pandemic onward, public health agencies have evaluated the effects of mask mandates and other non-pharmaceutical interventions. The consistent result of these epidemiological studies has been failure to detect a positive effect. A typical review article, which was I think the most quoted up until 2020 is Cowling (https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/20092668/).
From the discussion:
In conclusion there remains a substantial gap in the scientific literature on the effectiveness of face masks to reduce transmission of influenza virus infection. While there is some experimental evidence that masks should be able to reduce infectiousness under controlled conditions, there is less evidence on whether this translates to effectiveness in natural settings. There is little evidence to support the effectiveness of face masks to reduce the risk of infection.
It’s not my job to prove masks don’t work. That isn’t how science works. It’s your job to prove masks are worth their costs to society. It’s your job to prove that I need to be forced to wear one for two years now.
I see virtually no evidence that suggests masks do anything meaningful to the spread of Covid—especially enough to justify forcing service workers to wear them 8 hours a day, 5 days a week for two years straight. Especially now that anybody can get a vaccine. Why should service workers be required to wear them? To protect fully vaccinated people who are still afraid of Covid? Seems pretty selfish to ask that if people. Especially when service workers get bullied and gaslight by rich tech workers who think “masks are virtually costles” while their only time masking is their 1 hour weekly trip to the grocery store…
These Covid measures are nothing more than forcing the lower class to protect the upper class (or at least pretends to. It’s all theater and we all know it). It is incredibly privileged to support any of the nonsense we’ve mandated the last two years.
I don’t care if they work or not. Public health officials get to communicate health information. They don’t get to force the population to wear masks for 2 years. That isn’t their job even if you or they think it is.
You might love masks but not everybody feels the same way. Leave people the hell alone.
Your perspective is valid, but it exists on a continuum. It's clearly possible for the "I have the right to be the next Typhoid Mary" perspective to be carried too far. That's the whole dilemma in a nutshell... how far is too far? I'm not qualified to say, and it looks like you aren't either, given the lack of actionable guidance you're offering.
"Leave people the hell alone" isn't an option, because you live in a populated, civilized nation rather than on a deserted private island. (I will note, however, that they won't shoot you at the border for trying to leave.)
The latter question sounds insulting and dismissive, but it's actually posed in good faith. It highlights a genuine epistemological problem about the nature, limits, and validity of our knowledge about the pandemic. I can find studies on PubMed and elsewhere that back up virtually any belief, prejudice, policy, or therapy that I like. So can you. Where does that leave us, except with the obvious solution of trusting our local, state, and national health authorities?