Your citations are uninformed (i.e. you don't realize what they say) at best, and disingenuous (i.e. you are intentionally misinterpreting them ) at worst.
Nearly all of the studies and systematic reviews address the wearing of masks by healthcare workers, i.e. to prevent infection due to contact with symptomatic patients. That's much different from the purpose of wearing a mask in public, which is to block or at least reduce the shedding of virus by an asymptomatic carrier in public.
I actually followed all your links. The one to cambridge.org like leads to a 404, but that's because there's a space inserted after "systematic-". Perhaps coincidentally, that's the one that explicitly contradicts your claim. Here's the full URL:
It reviews a number of studies in a healthcare setting, but also includes an experimental study:
We identified one study that examined the efficacy of face masks in filtering influenza virus in volunteer subjects. Johnson and colleagues tested the performance of surgical and N95 masks to filter virus in nine volunteers with confirmed influenza A or B virus infection. Participants coughed five times onto a Petri dish containing viral transport medium held 20 cm in front of their mouth. The experiment was repeated with subjects wearing a surgical mask, and wearing an N95 respirator. While influenza virus could be detected by RT–PCR in all nine volunteers without a mask, no influenza virus could be detected on the Petri dish specimens when participants wore either type of face mask. A limitation was that the study did not consider the role of leakage around the sides of the mask.
It also references four studies in a community setting, specifically among members of a household. Again, most were for people in a household wearing masks to prevent an infection from an ill household member. But, there was at least one that included mask usage by the infected patient:
https://bmjopen.bmj.com/content/6/12/e012330.long
Every study I've read on the use of masks in a household setting report the same problem: lack of compliance. This one in particular reports that participants were removing their masks while eating meals with the rest of their household. Despite these limitations, this study did find the that masks reduced the spread of infection, but because there were so few participants and the difference was small, it wasn't statistically significant. But, the authors recommended further study in their closing:
Reducing the transmission of respiratory pathogens by source patients could also have further benefits in the community in preventing transmission of infection to close contacts such as those in the same household, and should be studied further.
Your citations are uninformed (i.e. you don't realize what they say) at best, and disingenuous (i.e. you are intentionally spreading misinformation) at worst.
Nearly all of the studies and systematic reviews address the wearing of masks by healthcare workers, i.e. to prevent infection due to contact with symptomatic patients. That's much different from the purpose of wearing a mask in public, which is to block or at least reduce the shedding of virus by an asymptomatic carrier in public.
I actually followed all your links. The one to cambridge.org like leads to a 404, but that's because there's a space inserted after "systematic-". Perhaps coincidentally, that's the one that explicitly contradicts your claim. Here's the full URL:
It reviews a number of studies in a healthcare setting, but also includes an experimental study:
We identified one study that examined the efficacy of face masks in filtering influenza virus in volunteer subjects. Johnson and colleagues tested the performance of surgical and N95 masks to filter virus in nine volunteers with confirmed influenza A or B virus infection. Participants coughed five times onto a Petri dish containing viral transport medium held 20 cm in front of their mouth. The experiment was repeated with subjects wearing a surgical mask, and wearing an N95 respirator. While influenza virus could be detected by RT–PCR in all nine volunteers without a mask, no influenza virus could be detected on the Petri dish specimens when participants wore either type of face mask. A limitation was that the study did not consider the role of leakage around the sides of the mask.
It also references four studies in a community setting, specifically among members of a household. Again, most were for people in a household wearing masks to prevent an infection from an ill household member. But, there was at least one that included mask usage by the infected patient:
https://bmjopen.bmj.com/content/6/12/e012330.long
Every study I've read on the use of masks in a household setting report the same problem: lack of compliance. This one in particular reports that participants were removing their masks while eating meals with the rest of their household. Despite these limitations, this study did find the that masks reduced the spread of infection, but because there were so few participants and the difference was small, it wasn't statistically significant. But, the authors recommended further study in their closing:
Reducing the transmission of respiratory pathogens by source patients could also have further benefits in the community in preventing transmission of infection to close contacts such as those in the same household, and should be studied further.