I mean, I don't wanna bust out the ol' Ben Shapiro line but my girlfriend is a doctor, and she wears masks, so I'm gonna keep trusting her. The fact that doctors wear masks (and wore masks) to stop infections looong before Covid demosntrates to me that they are useful (when used correctly) at reducing chance of infection.
https://files.fast.ai/papers/masks_lit_review.pdf
Multiple studies show the filtration effects of cloth masks relative to surgical masks. Particle sizes for speech are on the order of 1 µm (20) while typical definitions of droplet size are 5 µm-10 µm (5). Generally available household materials had between a 49% and 86% filtration rate for 0.02 µm exhaled particles whereas surgical masks filtered 89% of those particles (21). In a laboratory setting, household materials had 3% to 60% filtration rate for particles in the relevant size range, finding them comparable to some surgical masks (22). In another laboratory setup, a tea cloth mask was found to filter 60% of particles between 0.02 µm to 1 µm, where surgical masks filtered 75% (23). Dato et al (2006) (24), note that "quality commercial masks are not always accessible." They designed and tested a mask made from heavyweight T-shirts, finding that it "offered substantial protection from the challenge aerosol and showed good fit with minimal leakage".Although cloth and surgical masks are primarily targeted towards droplet particles, some evidence suggests they may have a partial effect in reducing viral aerosol shedding (25).
I imagine because they have much lower mortality rates, and since they had become a part of our life and there was nothing much we could do about it, we decided that in balance not wearing a mask for those illnesses seemed the right way of doing things in terms of lfie disruption.
They only don't work if you don't use them properly, for instance touching them before cleaning your hands.
The virus travels in water droplets in the air. Wearing a mask that captures water droplets will reduce the amount of water droplets in the air and thus reduce the chance of infection. Isn't that like...common sense?
Exactly this. People keep asking "but surely Biden could've just thrown out the votes for Trump four years ago?" and the reason why he didn't is this: There was not widespread and clear evidence of fraud by the Republicans four years ago. (If anything there was fraud from the democrats).
It is my understanding that technically the Vice President could bypass the rest of congress and just count the GOP slate of electors. (even if mitch and the gang don't like it).
Additionally there is still the Insurrection Act.
I appreciate the sympathy. It just interests me how non-mask wearing became aligned with conservatism, whereas before covid wearing a mask was seen as a vigilante type thing to do.