israel has imposed strong mask requirements for cov.

on 6/24, they upped the fine for not wearing one in public at all times and got very serious about enforcement.

let's have a look at whether it has worked.

cases/day are up 7X since then.

of course, this does not adjust for testing levels.

testing has doubled since 6/24.

so the real rise in cases looks to me more like 3.5X, which is still quite a rise.

but is this just a "casedemic" with no serious cases?

no, not really. israel is seeing a sustained rise in deaths as well and has been running at about 2 deaths per million pop per day.

this is not an excessive level, but it also looks like masks have done little.

we can compare to lebanon, where distancing has been minor and masks not required.

lebanon has ~600 cases/day on 3/4 the population, but i do not know their testing level so hard to comp.

but we CAN compare deaths. they are at ~10/day = 2/day/mm pop, pretty much identical.

so, once more, masks vs control on real world outcomes reveals masks to be a masquerade

there was no prior evidence of efficacy, there is none now, and we're seeing rhinovirus have normal season all over the world, masked or not. SWE & GER look the same https://twitter.com/boriquagato/status/1305124181714046976?s=20

masks are a religious talisman, not science.

they are being worn and promulgated as a form of visible virtue signalling. they do nothing in a restaurant or a grocery store except help spread fear.

it's time we dropped this pseudoscience.

it's done enough harm as it is.