An evidence review of face masks against COVID-19

[Dan Druff]

Oh...

"A YouTube spokesperson confirmed in a statement Thursday that claims that the virus was man-made or originated in a lab accident do not violate the platform's policies because "there has not been consensus" on its origins. So the company's policy remains unchanged."

...apparently this Big Media Group Think Conspiracy to Silence The Truth didn't include YouTube. I guess it's not relevant then.

Cuz youtube ain't memeable. You can't go click the shiny button to share with your friends. Who wants to actually make a video and have their own thoughts? With memes your thoughts are directly controlled so of course FB and Twitter are more important.

We have two major platforms which have confirmed they censored discussion of the lab leak theory. We have the mainstream media which refused to give the lab leak theory any possible legitimacy throughout the entire year of 2020. So why are we discussing YouTube, again?

[donkdowndonedied]

Cuz youtube ain't memeable. You can't go click the shiny button to share with your friends. Who wants to actually make a video and have their own thoughts? With memes your thoughts are directly controlled so of course FB and Twitter are more important.

We have two major platforms which have confirmed they censored discussion of the lab leak theory. We have the mainstream media which refused to give the lab leak theory any possible legitimacy throughout the entire year of 2020. So why are we discussing YouTube, again?

The youtube talk wasn't particularly directed at you. I'd much rather you responded to my other posts. I was just cracking on twitter/facebook in a general sense. Especially Facebook. What a shit platform. Twitter you can curate things and it is actually quite cool. Regardless, I was just doing my part to make fun of 'groupthink' and how it applies to Twitter and Facebook and really not looking to beef over Youtube.

[Dan Druff]

The 9% is over 8 weeks, so one would assume that if you actually take the compounding effect the reduction is quite a bit higher over the course of a year. It isn't clear and the webmd overview kinda skimmed over this. So many people bad with numbers. The important part to realize is that the 9% is meaningless without a timeframe. Lets see, .91 ^ 6 (thats 6 periods of 8 weeks in a year) is .52 or about half as many people catch it per year. Very simple analysis but I think it is far more accurate than saying "doh gee only 9% that is nothing".

That's not how it works, due to several factors including transmission patterns, mutations, and many other things.

This is why no country has eliminated COVID, even ones with very high vaccination rates, and even with vaccination being a MUCH stronger factor in elimination than mask wearing.

Still, the 9% itself is very suspect, based upon the factors I mentioned in the other post.

There's also the study sharing bias. Let's say I wanted to prove that chewing Hubba Bubba gum would prevent COVID. I could keep studying vairous populations, where I hand out to Hubba Bubba to one group, and don't hand out Hubba Bubba to another. I would likely keep coming up with nothing, but occasionally an outlier would show up (maybe because the gum chewers in one population were also more likely to practice social distancing), and suddenly I'd have a perfect "study" on my hands to prove the efficacy of Hubba Bubba.

What about the other 100 studies I did, which failed? Well, I just wouldn't ever have to mention I performed any of those.

I have a feeling that if we looked into the people behind the Bangladesh mask studies, almost all of them would have been very pro-mask prior to the study being undertaken.

You simply cannot trust a single study about something like this, especially with statistically marginal results. As that article I linked mentioned, whenever a study barely reaches what is generally accepted to be statistically significant, there's a high chance something "dodgy" went on to get there.



Given all the mask mandates we've seen around the world, surely we would see a signfiicant difference by now. We don't. I'm not saying cloth masks have zero utility in preventing COVID transmissions, but they don't have enough utility to justify their mandated usage.

Furthermore, it's child abuse to be forcing them on our children like this, given the likely low pediatric transmission rates and excellent COVID outcomes among children. We are treating 8-year-olds the same way we treat 50-year-olds, despite a exponentially disparate risk profile (there's that word again, gimmick), and it's horrible.

[donkdowndonedied]

The 9% is over 8 weeks, so one would assume that if you actually take the compounding effect the reduction is quite a bit higher over the course of a year. It isn't clear and the webmd overview kinda skimmed over this. So many people bad with numbers. The important part to realize is that the 9% is meaningless without a timeframe. Lets see, .91 ^ 6 (thats 6 periods of 8 weeks in a year) is .52 or about half as many people catch it per year. Very simple analysis but I think it is far more accurate than saying "doh gee only 9% that is nothing".

That's not how it works, due to several factors including transmission patterns, mutations, and many other things.

This is why no country has eliminated COVID, even ones with very high vaccination rates, and even with vaccination being a MUCH stronger factor in elimination than mask wearing.

Still, the 9% itself is very suspect, based upon the factors I mentioned in the other post.

There's also the study sharing bias. Let's say I wanted to prove that chewing Hubba Bubba gum would prevent COVID. I could keep studying vairous populations, where I hand out to Hubba Bubba to one group, and don't hand out Hubba Bubba to another. I would likely keep coming up with nothing, but occasionally an outlier would show up (maybe because the gum chewers in one population were also more likely to practice social distancing), and suddenly I'd have a perfect "study" on my hands to prove the efficacy of Hubba Bubba.

What about the other 100 studies I did, which failed? Well, I just wouldn't ever have to mention I performed any of those.

I have a feeling that if we looked into the people behind the Bangladesh mask studies, almost all of them would have been very pro-mask prior to the study being undertaken.

You simply cannot trust a single study about something like this, especially with statistically marginal results. As that article I linked mentioned, whenever a study barely reaches what is generally accepted to be statistically significant, there's a high chance something "dodgy" went on to get there.



Given all the mask mandates we've seen around the world, surely we would see a signfiicant difference by now. We don't. I'm not saying cloth masks have zero utility in preventing COVID transmissions, but they don't have enough utility to justify their mandated usage.

Furthermore, it's child abuse to be forcing them on our children like this, given the likely low pediatric transmission rates and excellent COVID outcomes among children. We are treating 8-year-olds the same way we treat 50-year-olds, despite a exponentially disparate risk profile (there's that word again, gimmick), and it's horrible.

I don't particularly disagree with anything here except that even after this, you have to agree that just saying "9% isn't enough" is not a serious discussion. 9% over what period?! It wasn't even mentioned, just that 9% is not worth it.

So you do agree that masks do something. Thats kinda a sign of sanity. We can argue whether mask mandates are worth it. I am not sure at this point. I rarely wear a mask anymore. I feel as if I likely caught it at some point post vaccinated. I just become so annoyed when people argue that masks do nothing or what have you. That was my impression previous to this.

It seems to me that there is always something that comes up that is overplayed as some threat to someone's freedoms. Looking back over my lifetime, I see wearing a helmet on a motorcycle, forcing people to wear their seatbelts, and now we have masks as the rallying cry. I look around and I see things with far more issues in regards to our freedom. While masks are an immediate and direct nuisance (like helmets and seatbelts) they're not really particularly relevant to how one truly experiences their life. You're not having to work more in any capacity to compensate for them. Yet, it seems that this has been put forth as the biggest threat to democracy in many decades. I wish I could just laugh but ugh. "sheep".

[v12cl]

That's not how it works, due to several factors including transmission patterns, mutations, and many other things.

This is why no country has eliminated COVID, even ones with very high vaccination rates, and even with vaccination being a MUCH stronger factor in elimination than mask wearing.

Still, the 9% itself is very suspect, based upon the factors I mentioned in the other post.

There's also the study sharing bias. Let's say I wanted to prove that chewing Hubba Bubba gum would prevent COVID. I could keep studying vairous populations, where I hand out to Hubba Bubba to one group, and don't hand out Hubba Bubba to another. I would likely keep coming up with nothing, but occasionally an outlier would show up (maybe because the gum chewers in one population were also more likely to practice social distancing), and suddenly I'd have a perfect "study" on my hands to prove the efficacy of Hubba Bubba.

What about the other 100 studies I did, which failed? Well, I just wouldn't ever have to mention I performed any of those.

I have a feeling that if we looked into the people behind the Bangladesh mask studies, almost all of them would have been very pro-mask prior to the study being undertaken.

You simply cannot trust a single study about something like this, especially with statistically marginal results. As that article I linked mentioned, whenever a study barely reaches what is generally accepted to be statistically significant, there's a high chance something "dodgy" went on to get there.



Given all the mask mandates we've seen around the world, surely we would see a signfiicant difference by now. We don't. I'm not saying cloth masks have zero utility in preventing COVID transmissions, but they don't have enough utility to justify their mandated usage.

Furthermore, it's child abuse to be forcing them on our children like this, given the likely low pediatric transmission rates and excellent COVID outcomes among children. We are treating 8-year-olds the same way we treat 50-year-olds, despite a exponentially disparate risk profile (there's that word again, gimmick), and it's horrible.

I don't particularly disagree with anything here except that even after this, you have to agree that just saying "9% isn't enough" is not a serious discussion. 9% over what period?! It wasn't even mentioned, just that 9% is not worth it.

So you do agree that masks do something. Thats kinda a sign of sanity. We can argue whether mask mandates are worth it. I am not sure at this point. I rarely wear a mask anymore. I feel as if I likely caught it at some point post vaccinated. I just become so annoyed when people argue that masks do nothing or what have you. That was my impression previous to this.

It seems to me that there is always something that comes up that is overplayed as some threat to someone's freedoms. Looking back over my lifetime, I see wearing a helmet on a motorcycle, forcing people to wear their seatbelts, and now we have masks as the rallying cry. I look around and I see things with far more issues in regards to our freedom. While masks are an immediate and direct nuisance (like helmets and seatbelts) they're not really particularly relevant to how one truly experiences their life. You're not having to work more in any capacity to compensate for them. Yet, it seems that this has been put forth as the biggest threat to democracy in many decades. I wish I could just laugh but ugh. "sheep".

Forced vaccinations and having to show papers to enter indoor spaces just doesn't meet your mark for restricting freedom?

What will?

[gimmick]

The exponential growth bit is from this post. In the original Covid thread from around December.

https://pokerfraudalert.com/forum/sh...l=1#post948613

In relation to why it makes sense to vaccine highly mobile/"social" people to slow the spread after taking care of the most vulnerable. Say a 25 year old cashier that is in contact of hundreds of people before a random poker player in his 50s.

gimmick is stuck on semantics regarding "exponential growth" because these are the type of arguments he resorts to when he starts to run into basic inconvenient facts. Such as the fact that 20 months into a pandemic, we aren't seeing mask mandates working anywhere in the real world.

Next he will be arguing that the term gay is inaccurate because all gay people aren't necessarily happy.

Sure, except when understanding the concept is insanely important to having any clue about the math behind various decisions. Literally has nothing to do with semantics.

A random example would be say pyramid schemes. The reason why they don't work is very easy to explain when you understand the concept of exponential growth.

Infections grow exponentially. Deaths do not. Deaths are tied to infections, but on their own deaths do not cause more deaths. Infections cause more infections. That's the only meaning of exponential that matters when evaluating policy decisions.

[donkdowndonedied]

I don't particularly disagree with anything here except that even after this, you have to agree that just saying "9% isn't enough" is not a serious discussion. 9% over what period?! It wasn't even mentioned, just that 9% is not worth it.

So you do agree that masks do something. Thats kinda a sign of sanity. We can argue whether mask mandates are worth it. I am not sure at this point. I rarely wear a mask anymore. I feel as if I likely caught it at some point post vaccinated. I just become so annoyed when people argue that masks do nothing or what have you. That was my impression previous to this.

It seems to me that there is always something that comes up that is overplayed as some threat to someone's freedoms. Looking back over my lifetime, I see wearing a helmet on a motorcycle, forcing people to wear their seatbelts, and now we have masks as the rallying cry. I look around and I see things with far more issues in regards to our freedom. While masks are an immediate and direct nuisance (like helmets and seatbelts) they're not really particularly relevant to how one truly experiences their life. You're not having to work more in any capacity to compensate for them. Yet, it seems that this has been put forth as the biggest threat to democracy in many decades. I wish I could just laugh but ugh. "sheep".

Forced vaccinations and having to show papers to enter indoor spaces just doesn't meet your mark for restricting freedom?

What will?

Employers should be FORCED to let people work for them who otherwise cause an extra an unnecessary risk that will incur an extra cost?

I'm not sure about vaccine mandate for larger employers and how that works. I don't particularly agree with that but it doesn't rouse me to concern.

I'm not sure who has been "forced" outside of being told they'll be fired or what have you.

I read some wingnut retweeting a supposed doctor. I have the numbers slightly wrong but it was like "141 medical staff fired and 11 were forced to vaccinate". Hows that work. Think about it.

Ultimately I feel that privately owned places should be able to freely associate outside of protected classes. I've accepted that we can't have segregation amongst races and such but I still feel that places should be able to come up with other seemingly objective criteria to exclude people. So if someone wants to say you can't come here without a vaccine, then I am fine with that. The other option is to say that they CAN NOT do that, which is more of an assault on freedoms IMO.

[gimmick]

The 9% is over 8 weeks, so one would assume that if you actually take the compounding effect the reduction is quite a bit higher over the course of a year. It isn't clear and the webmd overview kinda skimmed over this. So many people bad with numbers. The important part to realize is that the 9% is meaningless without a timeframe. Lets see, .91 ^ 6 (thats 6 periods of 8 weeks in a year) is .52 or about half as many people catch it per year. Very simple analysis but I think it is far more accurate than saying "doh gee only 9% that is nothing".

Furthermore, it's child abuse to be forcing them on our children like this, given the likely low pediatric transmission rates and excellent COVID outcomes among children. We are treating 8-year-olds the same way we treat 50-year-olds, despite a exponentially disparate risk profile (there's that word again, gimmick), and it's horrible.

It's not the word. Feel free to butcher that word. Obv it's wrong and makes zero sense.

It's the word pairing that's tied to a very simple and precise mathematical concept. Exponential growth. You really should just look it up.

[dwai]

Forced vaccinations and having to show papers to enter indoor spaces just doesn't meet your mark for restricting freedom?

What will?

Employers should be FORCED to let people work for them who otherwise cause an extra an unnecessary risk that will incur an extra cost?

I'm not sure about vaccine mandate for larger employers and how that works. I don't particularly agree with that but it doesn't rouse me to concern.

I'm not sure who has been "forced" outside of being told they'll be fired or what have you.

I read some wingnut retweeting a supposed doctor. I have the numbers slightly wrong but it was like "141 medical staff fired and 11 were forced to vaccinate". Hows that work. Think about it.

Ultimately I feel that privately owned places should be able to freely associate outside of protected classes. I've accepted that we can't have segregation amongst races and such but I still feel that places should be able to come up with other seemingly objective criteria to exclude people. So if someone wants to say you can't come here without a vaccine, then I am fine with that. The other option is to say that they CAN NOT do that, which is more of an assault on freedoms IMO.

boy, you are something else

[khalwat]

Anti-Vaccine Doctor Who Called Mask Wearing 'Dangerous' Dies of COVID-19

ref: https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/an...-19/ar-AAQAEDK

Dr. Christopher Foley, who criticized mask-wearing and spread false information about a COVID-19 vaccine, passed away from complications of the virus.

The Minnesota doctor pushed back against continued use of masks, writing on his company website that they are "downright dangerous" if worn for extended periods of time. He was also critical of the vaccine, calling it a "human experiment" and advocated for the widespread use of ivermectin and vitamins to cure COVID-19.

[khalwat]

To the best of our current understanding, masks are the most effective layer of protection indoors:

https://www.bmj.com/content/375/bmj-2021-068302

Anyone who believes that masks are "perfunctory" need only look at this meta-study of 72 studies to see that masks are effective. All of the studies are cited in the text, so you're free to review them yourself.

Mask wearing and covid-19 incidence—Six studies with a total of 2627 people with covid-19 and 389 228 participants were included in the analysis examining the effect of mask wearing on incidence of covid-19 (table 1). Overall pooled analysis showed a 53% reduction in covid-19 incidence (0.47, 0.29 to 0.75), although heterogeneity between studies was substantial (I2=84%) (fig 5)

Additionally, while it is true that there are varying degrees of effectiveness of masks based on their composition, it is not true that N95 masks are the only type worth wearing:

https://medium.com/@asit.mishra76pi/...s-b2f66072f9f3

Similarly, wearing a mask does not guarantee you absolute protection from Covid-19. That does not mean you should skip the protection a mask can afford you. The efficiency of your mask will depend on a number of things including how the mask is made. In this article we shall discuss a little bit about what makes a good mask.

It does not have to be a fancy one — N95 — any kind of face covering helps out a little.

Embedded Tweet

https://twitter.com/jljcolorado/status/1463206299005452292

[country978]

To the best of our current understanding, masks are the most effective layer of protection indoors:

https://www.bmj.com/content/375/bmj-2021-068302

Anyone who believes that masks are "perfunctory" need only look at this meta-study of 72 studies to see that masks are effective. All of the studies are cited in the text, so you're free to review them yourself.





Additionally, while it is true that there are varying degrees of effectiveness of masks based on their composition, it is not true that N95 masks are the only type worth wearing:

https://medium.com/@asit.mishra76pi/...s-b2f66072f9f3

Similarly, wearing a mask does not guarantee you absolute protection from Covid-19. That does not mean you should skip the protection a mask can afford you. The efficiency of your mask will depend on a number of things including how the mask is made. In this article we shall discuss a little bit about what makes a good mask.

It does not have to be a fancy one — N95 — any kind of face covering helps out a little.

dwai?

[khalwat]

dwai?

[dwai]

dwai?

https://swprs.org/face-masks-evidence/

A May 2020 meta-study on pandemic influenza published by the US CDC found that face masks had no effect, neither as personal protective equipment nor as a source control. [Source](https://wwwnc.cdc.gov/eid/article/26/5/19-0994_article)

A Danish randomized controlled trial with 6000 participants, published in the Annals of Internal Medicine in November 2020, found no statistically significant effect of high-quality medical face masks against SARS-CoV-2 infection in a community setting. [Source](https://www.acpjournals.org/doi/10.7326/M20-6817)

A large randomized controlled trial with close to 8000 participants, published in October 2020 in PLOS One, found that face masks “did not seem to be effective against laboratory-confirmed viral respiratory infections nor against clinical respiratory infection.” [Source](https://journals.plos.org/plosone/ar...l.pone.0240287)

A February 2021 review by the European CDC found no significant evidence supporting the effectiveness of non-medical and medical face masks in the community. Furthermore, the European CDC advised against the use of FFP2/N95 respirators by the general public. [Source](https://www.ecdc.europa.eu/sites/def...rst-update.pdf)

A July 2020 review by the Oxford Centre for Evidence-Based Medicine found that there is no evidence for the effectiveness of cloth masks against virus infection or transmission. [Source](https://www.cebm.net/covid-19/maskin...with-politics/)

A November 2020 Cochrane review found that face masks did not reduce influenza-like illness (ILI) cases, neither in the general population nor in health care workers. [Source](https://www.cochrane.org/CD006207/AR...ratory-viruses)

An April 2020 review by two US professors in respiratory and infectious disease from the University of Illinois concluded that face masks have no effect in everyday life, neither as self-protection nor to protect third parties (so-called source control). [Source](https://www.cidrap.umn.edu/news-pers...sed-sound-data)

An article in the New England Journal of Medicine from May 2020 came to the conclusion that cloth face masks offer little to no protection in everyday life. [Source](https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMp2006372)

A 2015 study in the British Medical Journal BMJ Open found that cloth masks were **penetrated by 97% of particles and may increase infection risk by retaining moisture or repeated use.** [Source](https://bmjopen.bmj.com/content/5/4/e006577)

An August 2020 review by a German professor in virology, epidemiology and hygiene found that there is no evidence for the effectiveness of cloth face masks and that the improper daily use of masks by the public may in fact lead to an increase in infections. [Source](https://www.thieme-connect.com/produ...55/a-1174-6591)


The WHO admitted to the BBC that its June 2020 [mask policy update](https://swprs.org/who-mask-study-seriously-flawed/) was due not to new evidence but [“political lobbying”](https://archive.ph/YVJ0Y)**: “We had been told by various sources WHO committee reviewing the evidence had not backed masks but they recommended them due to political lobbying. This point was put to WHO who did not deny.” (D. Cohen, BBC Medical Corresponent).

There is increasing evidence that the novel coronavirus is transmitted, at least in indoor settings, not only by droplets but also by smaller aerosols. However, due to their large pore size and poor fit, cloth masks cannot filter out aerosols (see [video analysis](https://videopress.com/v/4egEyh2b
)): **over 90% of aerosols [penetrate or bypass](https://bmjopen.bmj.com/content/5/4/e006577) the mask and fill a medium-sized room within minutes.**

During the notorious 1918 influenza pandemic, the use of cloth face masks among the general population was widespread and in some places mandatory, but they [made no difference](https://www.washingtonpost.com/histo...-were-useless/).

To date, the **only randomized controlled trial (RCT) on face masks against SARS-CoV-2 infection in a community setting found no statistically significant benefit** (see above). However, three major journals [refused to publish](https://swprs.org/the-suppressed-danish-mask-study/) this study, delaying its publication by several months.

An analysis by the US CDC found that **[85% of people](https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/69/...5-H.pdf#page=4) infected with the new coronavirus reported wearing a mask “always” (70.6%) or “often” (14.4%)**. Compared to the control group of uninfected people, always wearing a mask did not reduce the risk of infection.

German researchers found that even an N95/FFP2 mask mandate had [no influence](https://twitter.com/#!/x/status/1371448332875399168) on the coronavirus infection rate.** Austrian researchers found that the introduction, retraction and re-introduction of a facemask mandate in Austria had no influence on the infection rate.

In the US state of Kansas, the 90 counties without mask mandates had lower coronavirus infection rates** than the 15 counties with mask mandates. To hide this fact, the Kansas health department [tried to manipulate](https://sentinelksmo.org/more-decept...-mask-mandate/) the official statistics and data presentation.

Contrary to common belief, studies in hospitals [found that](https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/BF01658736) the wearing of a medical mask by surgeons during operations [didn’t reduce](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/art...01509-0009.pdf) post-operative bacterial wound infections in patients.

German scientists found that in and on **N95 (FFP2) masks**, the novel coronavirus remains infectious for [several days](https://fh-muenster.de/gesundheit/fo...auch/index.php), **much longer than on most other materials**, thus **significantly increasing the risk of infection** by touching or reusing such masks.


shut up khalwat you stupid fucking drone faggot

only trannies and ugly fat dweebs with bad teeth want to wear masks, you decide which one you are you dick sucking queer

[Entropy]

There's no debate about the effectiveness of masks but just in case someone really is concerned.
https://www.amazon.com/full-face-res...ace+respirator
There ya go
Boom Pandemic over within a month.

They're pretending to be concerned about the effectiveness of masks because they can't come out and say what they really mean.
Which is they'd prefer the pandemic over being inconvenienced and looking uncool for a month.
These insecure twits will wear a mask to paint their pick up truck because no one will see them.
But to look uncool in public in order to save humanity is a bridge to far.

I got a trivia question for you guys, be sure to post your guesses. I'll reveal the answer a bit later.
Ready? ok here we go.
In the pic below why is the USA #1 by such a incredible margin?

[khalwat]

There's no debate about the effectiveness of masks but just in case someone really is concerned.
https://www.amazon.com/full-face-res...ace+respirator
There ya go
Boom Pandemic over within a month.

They're pretending to be concerned about the effectiveness of masks because they can't come out and say what they really mean.
Which is they'd prefer the pandemic over being inconvenienced and looking uncool for a month.
These insecure twits will wear a mask to paint their pick up truck because no one will see them.
But to look uncool in public in order to save humanity is a bridge to far.

I got a trivia question for you guys, be sure to post your guesses. I'll reveal the answer a bit later.
Ready? ok here we go.
In the pic below why is the USA #1 by such a incredible margin?

Because of anti-intellectualism, and people naively falling victim to being manipulated into taking political "sides" on a public health issue.

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41562-021-01112-w

[Dan Druff]

USA isn't #1 with COVID "by an incredible margin" -- or by any margin.

The US has the 3rd highest population in the world. The other two are China (dishonest about COVID numbers and many other things) and India (poor testing/reporting practices, so probably way undercounted).

In "deaths by million population", US is #20 -- and many are behind the US only slightly, being essentially the same. This includes many European countries with left-wing governments and very restrictive COVID measures.

There are various left wing myths regarding COVID and the US:

1) We could have masked our way out of this, but Trump screwed that up

2) We could have tested/traced our way out of this, but Trump screwed that up

3) We have by far the worst COVID outcomes in the world

4) Anti-vaxxers and anti-maskers are the reason COVID is still a thing


All of the above is completely FALSE.

[dwai]

USA isn't #1 with COVID "by an incredible margin" -- or by any margin.

The US has the 3rd highest population in the world. The other two are China (dishonest about COVID numbers and many other things) and India (poor testing/reporting practices, so probably way undercounted).

In "deaths by million population", US is #20 -- and many are behind the US only slightly, being essentially the same. This includes many European countries with left-wing governments and very restrictive COVID measures.

There are various left wing myths regarding COVID and the US:

1) We could have masked our way out of this, but Trump screwed that up

2) We could have tested/traced our way out of this, but Trump screwed that up

3) We have by far the worst COVID outcomes in the world

4) Anti-vaxxers and anti-maskers are the reason COVID is still a thing


All of the above is completely FALSE.

it's amazing how many leftie doofuses still believe this TO THIS DAY about this "pandemic", either willful ignorance or they can't admit they were wrong the entire time that this was never really about health, it was always about grabbing as much power as possible and never releasing it. BCR and Khalwat honestly think we can mask and vaccine our way out of this manufactured pandemic, this will never end until idiots like them wake up and realize it's about control and power

[khalwat]

https://swprs.org/face-masks-evidence/

So this is a perfect example of what I've been discussing; everything you've cited below has been taken from the above source, and copy & pasted below.

While the wall of text may look impressive, most of the references cited don't even have anything to do with COVID and mask wearing.

A May 2020 meta-study on pandemic influenza published by the US CDC found that face masks had no effect, neither as personal protective equipment nor as a source control. [Source](https://wwwnc.cdc.gov/eid/article/26/5/19-0994_article)

This study is irrelevant, it focuses on "transmission of laboratory-confirmed influenza".

A Danish randomized controlled trial with 6000 participants, published in the Annals of Internal Medicine in November 2020, found no statistically significant effect of high-quality medical face masks against SARS-CoV-2 infection in a community setting. [Source](https://www.acpjournals.org/doi/10.7326/M20-6817)

Except when you actually read the study, it says very plainly that you should NOT conclude what you and the linked site above have from the study:

The findings, however, should not be used to conclude that a recommendation for everyone to wear masks in the community would not be effective in reducing SARS-CoV-2 infections, because the trial did not test the role of masks in source control of SARS-CoV-2 infection

A large randomized controlled trial with close to 8000 participants, published in October 2020 in PLOS One, found that face masks “did not seem to be effective against laboratory-confirmed viral respiratory infections nor against clinical respiratory infection.” [Source](https://journals.plos.org/plosone/ar...l.pone.0240287)

Once again, if you actually read the study, it concludes:

This trial was unable to provide conclusive evidence on facemask efficacy against viral respiratory infections most likely due to poor adherence to protocol.

A February 2021 review by the European CDC found no significant evidence supporting the effectiveness of non-medical and medical face masks in the community. Furthermore, the European CDC advised against the use of FFP2/N95 respirators by the general public. [Source](https://www.ecdc.europa.eu/sites/def...rst-update.pdf)

And once more if we actually read the study, it says:

The evidence regarding the effectiveness of medical face masks for the prevention of COVID-19 in the
community is compatible with a small to moderate protective effect

A July 2020 review by the Oxford Centre for Evidence-Based Medicine found that there is no evidence for the effectiveness of cloth masks against virus infection or transmission. [Source](https://www.cebm.net/covid-19/maskin...with-politics/)

...and on and on. To quote Captain America, "I could do this all day". However, you need to do your own homework, and actually read the studies you are citing.

It's clear to me that you have an opinion, and are warping facts around that opinion. That's a tough way to live.

[khalwat]

USA isn't #1 with COVID "by an incredible margin" -- or by any margin.

The US has the 3rd highest population in the world. The other two are China (dishonest about COVID numbers and many other things) and India (poor testing/reporting practices, so probably way undercounted).

In "deaths by million population", US is #20 -- and many are behind the US only slightly, being essentially the same. This includes many European countries with left-wing governments and very restrictive COVID measures.

There are various left wing myths regarding COVID and the US:

1) We could have masked our way out of this, but Trump screwed that up

2) We could have tested/traced our way out of this, but Trump screwed that up

3) We have by far the worst COVID outcomes in the world

4) Anti-vaxxers and anti-maskers are the reason COVID is still a thing


All of the above is completely FALSE.

These are all strawman arguments. Entropy did not state any of these things in his post, nor has anyone in this thread that I'd seen.

In any event, certainly, there are countries that are worse than the USA in terms of deaths per capita and even infections per capita. Many of them are much smaller countries, or third-world countries without the kind of wealth and infrastructure that we have.

But yes, there's no question that some wealthy, first-world countries are doing about as well as we are regarding the pandemic.

However, one would think the USA would be leading the pack, not just in terms of all nations, but in terms of first-world, rich nations. And we are not.

20th worst out of ~190 nations is not a position I'm proud to be in.

4) Anti-vaxxers and anti-maskers are the reason COVID is still a thing

Are you saying we'd be better off regarding COVID if no one took any vaccines, and no one wore any masks?