The more you know
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The (in)effectiveness of masks in slowing or stopping viral transmission has been extensively studied in rigorous RCTs for years, but those studies apparently disappeared sometime around April 2020.
what would be the motivation for making people wear masks if they donāt work?
youāre gonna say something weird and alt-right, arenāt you?
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I mean we were all sanitizing counters like crazy for ages after it was shown that had no impact
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yeah, but we hadnāt worn masks at all until april, 2020, so this is kinda new. before that, there was always that one person on the street with a mask, and i found them weird!
Without looking up all those articles, did they study the reduction in infectiousness of masked participants, or did they only look at the propensity of masked people to get sick while moving in an unmasked world? Do you know?
If masks donāt do anything to prevent the spread of disease, why does every surgeon wear one?
I also notice that the ones that refer to āinfluenza-like-illnessā seem to show slightly better results than the ones that looked only at documented influenza. The most relevant reference for covid would be colds, not flu.
But my major objection is that i doubt they are looking at the benefit to others of wearing a mask. But perhaps Iām wrong in that.
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Haha agreed
I do know of a particular hospital that after universal masking within, the only staff to staff transmission occurred from maskless interaction while eating in the break room.
General public use of masks is generally ineffective or even counterproductive with viruses that can live on surfaces for extended periods of time, because people donāt understand how to put on/take off masks without contaminating their hands/face. Once it became clear in late spring that COVID was mostly an aerosol virus and not a surface vector virus, thatās when the mask mandates really made more sense and ramped up.
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my friend who worked as a nurse in the covid area of a nursing home somehow never caught covid. they wore really crappy surgical masks at first before they got better gear. somehow that protected her enough. she only worked every other weekend, but still, she was around covid patients the entire time.
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Now Iām concerned for the patients of those surgeons 
Day 4: my arm is feeling a little better, but actually looks a little worse as the red area covers much of my upper arm now. No other side effects.
This is a great question, and something many people bring up. The short, musical answer:
Longer answer:
If you ask any (honest, data-literate) surgeon, theyāll tell you that surgical masks were never worn for viral transmission in either direction, but for blocking droplets dripping from surgeon into the surgical site or bodily fluid splash into the surgeonās face. In addition, surgeon mask use in the operating theater does not translate to the general public wearing whatever on their faces all day long: the OR is a sterile environment with carefully controlled air quality; medical personnel change their masks periodically or when they become wet; staff are scrubbed & still change their masks if they touch them; & probably some other differences Iām forgetting.
Interestingly, the practice of masking during surgery had begun to be questioned in about the last decade, as researchers have realized that any evidence favoring their use is very old, not well documented, & not consistent with current antiseptic surgical practices, and that the reasons for doing it mostly boil down to tradition (h/t Tevye) - e.g. thatās what they were taught, thatās just what we do, itās what patients expect.
This guy linked some studies/papers on this:
https://twitter.com/Theophilus_TP/status/1374358181091115009?s=19
masks SUCK! If they can figure out that they donāt actually prevent anything, Iām all for ditching them. Iām going on vacation in a few weeks, and the resort requires masks everywhere other than in the room and in the cafe and dining room. Iām planning to spend an exorbitant amount of time in the cafe so I donāt have to wear a mask too much.
oh, I think I can also walk the grounds outside without a mask. pokemon hunting on the grounds for hours too!
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Whatās magical about the cafe? Covid is allergic to coffee?
nothing, but the mandate is that youāre allowed to be maskless while eating, so imma have coffee in my hand the entire damn time regardless of whether iām still drinking it.
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Yeah, I think most people are in this boat about masks. I think most people are going to ditch the mask and never look back after the pandemic is over.
Itās based on a cost-benefit analysis.
The benefit of a mask mandate while grocery shopping may be similar to the benefit of wearing one while sitting in a restaurant, but the cost is much greater in the restaurant. As in, you literally canāt eat your dinner with a mask on, but you can shop just fine.