Its you guys who can't admit it. New infections remained unchanged when masks came into effect on July 14th, and actually went up a couple of months after that. Admit it, masks made no impact, only the lockdowns did
A very independent study.
See if you can find this paragraph that I'm posting so you do not spin it to fit your WRONG narrative.
The science around the use of masks by the public to impede COVID-19 transmission is advancing rapidly. In this narrative review, we develop an analytical framework to examine mask usage, synthesizing the relevant literature to inform multiple areas: population impact, transmission...
www.pnas.org
Research focused on aerosol exposure has found all types of masks are at least somewhat effective at protecting the wearer. Van der Sande et al. (
78) found that “all types of masks reduced aerosol exposure, relatively stable over time, unaffected by duration of wear or type of activity,” and concluded that “any type of general mask use is likely to decrease viral exposure and infection risk on a population level, despite imperfect fit and imperfect adherence.”
Mandatory Mask Wearing.
Ensuring compliance with nonpharmaceutical interventions can be challenging, but likely rapidly increases during a pandemic (
133). Perceptions of risk play an important role in mask use (
14). Telephone surveys during the SARS-CoV-2 outbreak in Hong Kong reported enhanced adherence to public mask wearing as the pandemic progressed over 3 wk, with 74.5% self-reported mask wearing when going out increasing to 97.5%, without mandatory requirements (
5). Similar surveys reported face mask use in Hong Kong during the SARS outbreak in 2003 as 79% (
134), and approximately 10% during the influenza A (H1N1) pandemic in 2009 (
135). This suggests that the public have enhanced awareness of their risk, and that they display higher adherence levels to prevention strategies than during other epidemics. During the COVID-19 pandemic, many countries have utilized mask mandates as implementation strategy. In Germany, implementing a mask mandate led to well-documented, widespread uptake in the use of masks. (
106) A preregistered experiment (
n = 925) further showed that “a voluntary policy would likely lead to insufficient compliance, would be perceived as less fair, and could intensify stigmatization. A mandatory policy appears to be an effective, fair, and socially responsible solution to curb transmissions of airborne viruses.” Although the use of mandates has been a polarizing measure, it appears to be highly effective in shaping new societal norms.
Modeling suggests (38, 39) that population-level compliance with public mask wearing of 70% combined with contact tracing would be critical to halt epidemic growth. Population-level uptake of an intervention to benefit the whole population is similar to vaccinations. A common policy response to this conundrum is to ensure compliance by using laws and regulations, such as widespread state laws in the United States which require that students have vaccinations to attend school. Research shows that the strength of the mandate to vaccinate greatly influences compliance rates for vaccines and that policies that set a higher bar for vaccine exemptions result in higher vaccination rates (136). The same approach is now being used in many jurisdictions to increase mask wearing compliance, by mandating mask use in a variety of settings (such as public transportation or grocery stores or even at all times outside the home). Population analysis suggests that these laws are effective at increasing compliance and slowing the spread of COVID-19 (29, 31, 32)
