@chan56 I understand that you and others are having a lot of difficulty with masks. It really is hard wearing fabric over your mouth and nose for hours on end. But please please understand the importance of it. It’s not some “Democrat conspiracy”, there really is value in wearing a mask. Even if you can save one life, isn’t that worth the hours of discomfort? And if the discomfort is too much, maybe don’t go out.
The number one misconception about masks is probably that it’s meant to keep you safe. No. It helps, but the reason wearing a mask is important is that it keeps other people safe. A person with COVID-19 is much less likely to infect others if the sick person has a mask on.
I don’t think we read the same article. Please look for the article titled “Masks Work. Really. We’ll Show You How”. It makes a very clear point that I’ll explain. COVID-19 travels in droplets that come mostly from people’s mouth and nose. Studies have shown that almost all COVID-19 infections were caused from breathing in droplets. If someone wears a mask, they expel something like 95% less droplets and they don’t travel as far. You are right. It’s not 100% effective, but it’s 95% effective. Meaning, if there’s a sick person in a crowded room without a mask, it’s almost certain that multiple people will be infected. But if they were wearing a mask, they will infect 95% less people.
There was little data in March and April but since then we’ve Baruch Hashem come a long way. Nature.com has an article titled “Face masks: what the data say” which collects a lot of the various studies that show the effectiveness of masks in prevented COVID-19 from spreading.
Without any precautions, the virus has what’s called an infection rate of 3. Which means that everyone infects on average three people. (by comparison, a flu has an infection rate of 1.7). Those three people infect three more and so on and so forth. After a week there is a possibility of thousands of infections. We saw that in April where one man at a Bas Mitzvah managed to cause a massive outbreak in New York City.
But with precautions, such as masks and social distancing, we can bring that down to an infection rate of 1 or less. Meaning that if someone has COVID, they will infect an average of one person. After a week, instead of thousands there will be only seven new cases. So it’s not 100% effective, but it’s effective enough.
People not wearing masks make me anxious in the same way that people walking around with loaded guns and their fingers on the trigger make me anxious. It’s easier to ask people to wear masks than to ask people who care about COVID-19 to avoid the Corona Kofrim who don’t care about people getting sick and dying.