I was actually interested in yours and djp’s take on this. Hart went so far as to intimate - in the real world - mask wearing was actually a detriment. I was hoping you two could chime in on why his ‘group’ full of it. My purpose was not to offend you (If I did by posting the twitter post).
I took offense at Hart, but not at you. As I posted above, the fact that Hart found data showing more cases with mandates than without shows that other factors are involved. The simple act of wearing a mask cannot possibly increase transmission. At worst, it may have no effect, but it can't increase transmission.
Anyone who wants to make that claim has to propose a reason why that could possibly be the case, and I've never heard anyone do this. The fact that people may constantly touch their masks, move them around, etc., is not going to increase transmission. The claim that mask wearing has adverse effects on health is very poorly supported by evidence, and even if that were the case, that still would not result in increased transmission. There's no evidence I'm aware of that poor health predisposes someone to contracting the virus--to having. a worse case, yes, of course, but not getting infected. And even in that case, of course we're talking about serious health issues, not the relatively minor effects that maybe would result in a few people from wearing masks.
So when a comparison shows an increase correlated with mask mandates, there have to be other circumstances going on in that particular data set. One circumstance, as I and many others have noted, is that mandates tend to be ordered during surges--with other factors driving the surge. One important factor now is that people spend more time indoors (and that was also the case, last summer, in much of the hellishly hot south, where the surge was most prevalent. I remember Baltimore called this well before it actually happened). The UF study that you linked demonstrates, as many other studies have (beginning with one in Gangelt, Germany, last. summer, which I discussed upthread) that household transmission is far more common than transmission outside of households--by a factor of at last several times. Some of this is because people spend more time in close contact and verbal communication, and in a relatively small enclosed space, where viral concentrations in the air can build up. Transmission is also increased because most people don't wear masks at home. Even people who will say in a poll that they wear a mask all or most of the time, mean by that outside the home. Very few people wear masks at home. So when a mask mandate is put into place, even if mask wearing outside and in public increases (and it may not increase that much, because if you believe the polls, most people have been wearing masks since last summer, mandate or no mandate), transmission will be mostly unaffected at home. The mandate may mean that fewer people get infected outside the home, but this is offset by the fact that those who do are more likely to spread it among people they live with, and any other close contacts they have within a home.
Another factor, as I mentioned in connection with the hair stylists, is that when people wear masks, they may engage in riskier behavior than they would without masks. As you yourself pointed out, leftists gathered for massive, potentially risky, protests following several incidents this past summer. Most of the protestors wore masks, and I'd bet some of them wouldn't have even attended if that hadn't been the case. Same with those long lines we saw at some polling stations. Not everyone would show up and stand there close to others for hours if people weren't wearing masks. And as with the hair stylists, people with symptoms, people who know they have C19 even if they haven't been tested, may be emboldened to appear in public, thinking that a mask will protect others from them.
Of course, you could conclude from all this that mask mandates frequently will have relatively little effect. Not because masks don't reduce transmission, but because a) the mandates aren't followed (and certainly can't be enforced) in the situations where transmission is most likely; b) the very act of encouraging wearing masks may in effect reduce the degree to which people take other steps to reduce risk; and c) the baseline of wearing masks in public may be so high that mandates don't have much additional effect. It may be a relatively small marginal gain.
I'd like to see more polling data on these factors. In particular, I'd like to know what % of people wear masks in public, with or without a mandate, and how many people who won't wear a mask if there is no mandate, will wear one (even in situations where they believe they can get away with breaking the law) if there is a mandate. Polls do show that a majority of Americans support a mandate, but for those who don't, how much will be gained by mandating them?
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