The problem with these mid-brow "we've always been at war with East Asia" takes is that some people have memory. After the 1920s, when the health establishment noticed that mask wearing didn't seem to make a difference in the Spanish Flu outbreak, masks were controversial.. https://twitter.com/a_centrism/status/1312079708956356610

The issue is similar to in vivo vs in vitro testing. Yes, masks block some larger particles, but they also have drawbacks. Wet masks can infect the wearer and cause re-infection. It's hard to breathe with the masks, which particularly hits those with lung disease or the elderly

And guess who is most at risk from respiratory diseases? Those who can't wear the masks. Particularly for something like covid, which targets the old. So when you look at actual populations of ordinary people wearing masks, the evidence is ... mixed. This is why Sweden opted out

The next question you have to ask is what you are trying to do. Here, too, is a classic example of people being absolutely confused and certain at the same time. Do you want to prevent health systems from being overwhelmed? Or eradicate the disease entirely via social distancing?

Option 1 seems easy to achieve and nations which haven't mandated mask wearing have not seen their health systems overwhelmed. But a lot of people think social distancing will achieve option 2, which is pure fantasy.

So as long as you are not at risk of overwhelming the healthcare system, what is the societal benefit of additional social distancing by healthy people? The disease will go through the population until herd immunity is reached. You want it to go through the healthy, not the sick.

This was the original UK plan as well as the actual Sweden plan, but the UK flipped. It did not flip because new RCTs came out, it flipped because of politics and fear mongering. Much of this debate is a thin veneer of pseudo-intellectualism that is a cover for fearmongering.

Now I'm *not* going to say that a given plan is "obviously wrong", etc. That's what the midwits say. They argue from authority because their claims don't stand well against basic interrogation, such as "what you are trying to achieve, and why hasn't this worked elsewhere"?

What I will say, is that how well actual human populations handle things like medical protocols is an open question and there is a dearth of evidence. We have a few natural experiments running now (heavy mask states and light/no mask states) and the evidence remains mixed.

And no amount of javascript animations of dots social distancing, or slow motion videos of people sneezing with masks on, or even studies of medical personnel benefitting from N95 use is going to change the above.

A good summary of what we know is here: https://www.cebm.net/covid-19/covid-19-masks-on-or-off/

/finis