This is going round in circles, although I understand some BMs enjoy the arguments!  If you want to wear a mask, wear one.  If you don't, don't!  It was only an issue for me when mask wearing was made mandatory, which has not been the case for a long time now.

9 hours ago, proton said:

Explain why surgeons and nurses wear them then if they are useless

I never said they were useless. Obviously, they have a place. You're missing the whole point. Covid has devolved to a mild respitory disease much like the flu. Moreover, many if not most people have already had covid. So continuing to mask makes no logical sense at all.

On 2/22/2023 at 12:20 AM, TallGuyJohninBKK said:

 1. You might want to read more:

Surgical masks reduce COVID-19 spread, large-scale study shows

...

“We now have evidence from a randomized, controlled trial that mask promotion increases the use of face coverings and prevents the spread of COVID-19,” said Stephen Luby, MD, professor of medicine at Stanford. “This is the gold standard for evaluating public health interventions. Importantly, this approach was designed be scalable in lower- and middle-income countries struggling to get or distribute vaccines against the virus.”

 

https://med.stanford.edu/news/all-news/2021/09/surgical-masks-covid-19.html

 

 

2. And as for the Fauci comment you refer to, which he sent as a response to a private email, came prior to the official declaration of the pandemic and before scientists understood how COVID could be spread by asymptomatic cases. Fauci later changed his advice re face mask when COVID was better understood, as the following fact-check explains:

 

"The claim that an email from Fauci proves he knew masks were ineffective at mitigating the spread of COVID-19 is MISSING CONTEXT, based on our research. Fauci sent the email on Feb. 5, 2020, more than a month before the World Health Organization declared COVID-19 a worldwide pandemic. The understanding about the effectiveness of masks and guidance about wearing them evolved during the pandemic, as did Fauci’s position on their use."

 

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/factcheck/2021/06/03/fact-check-missing-context-claim-mask-emails-fauci/7531267002/

 

CNN also covered similar terrain:

 

"While Fauci, along with several other US health leaders, initially advised people not to wear masks, Fauci later said that he was concerned that there wouldn’t be enough protective equipment for health care workers. This was also early in the pandemic before public health experts fully knew how contagious the disease was and how it spread.

...

That makes it overwhelmingly important for everyone to wear a mask.”  

 

https://edition.cnn.com/factsfirst/politics/factcheck_e58c20c6-8735-4022-a1f5-1580bc732c45

 

 

Additionally, in that period no one really knew HOW transmission occurred, airborne, surface etc.