In unrealistically ideal circumstances that may be true. Unrealistically ideal means surgical grade masks that are worn once then disposed of, and not contaminated by touching your mask.
Do you know anyone who only uses surgical grade masks, once per outing, and never touches their face? No, you don’t.
So instead, masks are acting as disease incubators people wear in the most vulnerable possible place, that they’re constantly loading up handfuls of contamination and spreading it to every.single.thing. they touch.
To be extra clear, constructing a study that disproves masks decrease risk for others in a real world setting is impossible. Even in a laboratory setting it would be a huge undertaking requiring complete isolation of the experiment groups. You would also have to purposefully find and expose healthy people to a known contagious individual.
The reality is that a healthy person wearing a mask does absolutely nothing to protect others. Most of the people wearing masks are healthy and not contagious which makes the whole exercise pointless from the start. They don't even understand the modes of transmission beyond well. Yet we have everyone walking around like clowns pretending a dirty piece of cloth is saving the world.
there is usually a period of time for a healthy person when they are getting sick and starting to cough a bit and not quite realize that its not longer merely 'clearing your throat' kind of cough
Some people are the kind of asshole that would get sick and walk into a store without a mask with full coughing fits etc all over the place. Simply because they don't care.
Personally i am against any kind of mask mandates or coercion by government at any level.
But I also think that
a) Private business should be free to seek a competitive advantage of being slightly safer from plague, by mandating masks on their property. They should also be free to mandate the same just because they hate seeing people's faces or any other reason - their business, their rules.
b) People should be free to mandate masks for anyone coming on to their property - be that a delivery person approaching porch, or a repair technician coming inside. The employer of those services may choose to not serve the customer if they want.
c) Its a good idea to wear a mask even if you think you are healthy, if you are interacting with a high risk person - but that should be entirely optional.
I think the whole mask thing really has more to do with your second point than your first. Asymptomatic spread is nothing more than an assumption at this point and is far from well understood. However, sick people are contagious and it wouldn't work to say only wear a mask if you are sick because then people would attack you for being out in public while sick as the mask would be an admission. To address that issue they just tell everyone to wear a mask so that when sick people inevitably go out in public at least they will have a mask on. I really think healthy people wearing masks has a non-existent benefit by itself even when considering the possibility of some asymptomatic spread. The likelihood that any one non-symptomatic person being infected and also contagious and also is proximity to spread amongst multiple people is astronomically low.
Feel free to cite my reply to dispute the MSM narrative. If someone demands a source to my claim (the only fact that someone could errantly dispute is that viruses survive longer on warm wet fabric), please refer them to a 5th grade science textbook, any edition should do.
In unrealistically ideal circumstances that may be true. Unrealistically ideal means surgical grade masks that are worn once then disposed of, and not contaminated by touching your mask.
Do you know anyone who only uses surgical grade masks, once per outing, and never touches their face? No, you don’t.
So instead, masks are acting as disease incubators people wear in the most vulnerable possible place, that they’re constantly loading up handfuls of contamination and spreading it to every.single.thing. they touch.
to be clear, i am not arguing myself in favor of masks.
i am saying this study does not dispute the MSM narrative.
To be extra clear, constructing a study that disproves masks decrease risk for others in a real world setting is impossible. Even in a laboratory setting it would be a huge undertaking requiring complete isolation of the experiment groups. You would also have to purposefully find and expose healthy people to a known contagious individual.
The reality is that a healthy person wearing a mask does absolutely nothing to protect others. Most of the people wearing masks are healthy and not contagious which makes the whole exercise pointless from the start. They don't even understand the modes of transmission beyond well. Yet we have everyone walking around like clowns pretending a dirty piece of cloth is saving the world.
I agree with both your points.
2 small caveats:
there is usually a period of time for a healthy person when they are getting sick and starting to cough a bit and not quite realize that its not longer merely 'clearing your throat' kind of cough
Some people are the kind of asshole that would get sick and walk into a store without a mask with full coughing fits etc all over the place. Simply because they don't care.
Personally i am against any kind of mask mandates or coercion by government at any level.
But I also think that
a) Private business should be free to seek a competitive advantage of being slightly safer from plague, by mandating masks on their property. They should also be free to mandate the same just because they hate seeing people's faces or any other reason - their business, their rules.
b) People should be free to mandate masks for anyone coming on to their property - be that a delivery person approaching porch, or a repair technician coming inside. The employer of those services may choose to not serve the customer if they want.
c) Its a good idea to wear a mask even if you think you are healthy, if you are interacting with a high risk person - but that should be entirely optional.
I think the whole mask thing really has more to do with your second point than your first. Asymptomatic spread is nothing more than an assumption at this point and is far from well understood. However, sick people are contagious and it wouldn't work to say only wear a mask if you are sick because then people would attack you for being out in public while sick as the mask would be an admission. To address that issue they just tell everyone to wear a mask so that when sick people inevitably go out in public at least they will have a mask on. I really think healthy people wearing masks has a non-existent benefit by itself even when considering the possibility of some asymptomatic spread. The likelihood that any one non-symptomatic person being infected and also contagious and also is proximity to spread amongst multiple people is astronomically low.
Feel free to cite my reply to dispute the MSM narrative. If someone demands a source to my claim (the only fact that someone could errantly dispute is that viruses survive longer on warm wet fabric), please refer them to a 5th grade science textbook, any edition should do.