@Pat No saying 100% of those cases were preventable is a lie. Wearing a mask doesnt make you immune. Even if all those people wore masks some portion, likely a large portion, would have still been infected.
At best you can claim it **might** have reduced the number. Even that is debatable, but at least reasonable.
@Pat In fact I just checked, and the data would suggest that mask wearing had virtually no impact on the frequency of new cases.
One would expect, that if enforced mask policies reduced new infections, then 2 days after the mask policy was relaxed the number of cases (which were decreasing) would reduce decreasing, and potentially being to increase, which would worsen up to the 14 day mark at which point we would see a new upward trend, or at least, a change in the trend occuring inside that period.
Yet what we see is the number of cases continued to decrease with absolutely no change in the downward trend for at least 30 days, well beyond the incubation period for the virus.
Therefore, satisfying granger causality, it would seem to be strongly suggestive that masks are not effective at preventing new COVID cases.
@Pat N100 repirators or medical masks, if used properly by medical professionals, likely do reduce the spread of infection. Sadly it is, however, speculative as this has not been proven experimentally, but its a reasonable assumption none the less.
Where it breaks down is if the wearing of masks by the general public does the same. I have oft argued that, lacking any evidence to suggest either way, I can see the possiblity that wearing masks by the general public may actually be **speeding up** the rate of infection rather than slowing it down. They are not trained in the proper use of masks and even if they were masks are not intended for long-term use and by using them for any extended period of time may actually be spreading the disease due to people touching and adjusting their mask as well as taking it down to drink.
When I observe thevast majority in public and how the vast majority use their mask I often see it causing them to use them in a way that would be obvious to me that it is spreading germs rather than preventing it.
So for that reason I feel confident, though it is my personal opinion, that masks are likely causing the disease to spread if it is having any effect at all.