[zaroth]

I'd say there's plenty of doubt on the mask front. Lots of evidence that masks encourage risky behavior, lots of evidence that COVID spreads as an aerosol that face cloths can't contain or could even increase, and clearly masks and lockdowns have not been at all effective throughout the world.

The argument isn't "slippery slope" - it's that we are spending trillions of dollars on unproven and ineffective interventions, or even counter-productive policy that directly cost thousands of lives.

[maaaaattttt]

I cannot be sure about the rest of the world, but the lockdowns during the first wave (march/april/may) here in Europe have proven to be very effective.

[zaroth]

Did the goalposts just move to lockdowns? I was talking about masks and "social distancing".

Spain, France and Italy, before the most recent massive surge, had the best mask compliance in Europe. The surge happened anyway. Italy's death rate is right back to where it was in March/April.

Obviously welding people into their homes is an effective way to stop transmission outside of the home. While the real-world effect of masks seems to have been overwhelming in the case of flu (cases basically down 99%) it has been entirely underwhelming in the case of COVID (more cases than ever). This is most likely because flu predominantly spreads through large droplets and surface contact which homemade masks and handwashing/sanitizing can block, and COVID predominantly spreads as an aerosol which mostly isn't stopped by masks or handwashing.

These interventions are not a binary "work" or "don't work". In theory for every percentage point of people who follow some effective guidance, that should be an incremental reduction in the R-factor. Worldwide cases are over 500k per day, and despite much improved treatments worldwide death rate has never been higher.

But we will never know if, for example, a message of "masks will NOT protect you, the only safe choice is to stay home" would have been better or worse in the final months leading up to widespread vaccination, or if ultimately pushing masks increased the R-factor.

So much of the guidance around COVID has turned out to be wrong. Closing schools for example is now widely recognized to have been the totally wrong decision and cost a lost of lives and severely impacted a lot of people both economically and mentally.

https://www.statista.com/statistics/1114375/wearing-a-face-m...

[rob74]

Sure, same as there's "plenty of doubt" on climate change, on the correctness of the 2020 US elections etc. - as long as you are willing to listen to the people who sow those doubts and believe them...