[sfblah]

I'm sort of tired of being downvoted for saying this, but the data on masks other than well-fitted N95s is pretty shotty. Lots of P-hacking, lots of motivated reasoning, and the results pre-2020 differ in notable ways from that post-2020.

The situation gets even murkier when you talk about mask _mandates_ instead of individual decision making. The argument that mask mandates are helpful is tough to support in the face of the differences in the delta-variant curve, for example, in different counties in California.

Just to say it: even daring to compare the results in contra costa county and san diego county, california (which have different mask requirements) got me shadow-banned on reddit. The reasoning here is mostly political, not scientific/rational. No one cares what the science says.

[Sohcahtoa82]

A lot of the problem I think comes from messaging and deliberate bad-faith interpretations of messages.

Claims that "Masks slow the spread of COVID" gets interpreted as "Masks stop the spread of COVID", and so when we have mask mandates and yet COVID still spreads, people use that as evidence that masks are worthless.

It's interesting that people can draw opposite conclusions from the same scenario. COVID has continued to spread despite mask mandates. Some claim that means the masks are worthless. Others (including me) would claim that, despite how bad it is, the spread would be even worse without them.

> individual decision making

In most cases, I agree that people should be able to make their own health choices. You wanna eat McDonald's for every meal and walk less than 50 steps a day? Go for it. Hell, snort a few lines of cocaine for dessert if you want to.

But when it comes to a pandemic, it's different. Sure, the vaccines are 95+% effective, and masks might be X% effective, and social distancing is Y% effective, and so on...but when >30% of the population has zero interest in doing any of that, then you can take every protective measure you can (Besides just staying in your house) and still get the disease from some asshole at the grocery store that doesn't care if they spread it.

Also, consider last year's toilet paper shortage, and the short gas shortage a few months ago. Individuals will often act irrationally in their own interests rather than what's good for everyone as a whole.

To think of it another way, when at a pizza party, you will have some people who take 3 slices of pizza because there might not be enough for everyone so they want to make sure they get their share. Others might only take a single slice because there might not be enough for everyone so they want to make sure as many people get some.

Individual decision making only makes sense if people aren't selfish.

[sfblah]

I agree that the data on masks can be interpreted both ways. This suggests to me the effect is small and probably second- or third-order (i.e. masks encourage more distancing, and that's actually what matters).

It isn't just that COVID continues to spread despite mask mandates. It's that the curves look nearly identical in areas with and without mask mandates. And, to show their effectiveness, epidemiologists have resorted to pretty serious P-value hacking.

Separately, I find it hard to get worried for my personal safety because of the 30 percent of people refusing to vaccinate themselves. It's just not that hard to avoid the sorts of places where such people are likely to be. And, being vaccinated and healthy makes it less of an issue for me than, say, the risk of a car accident. Sure, I could pass it on to someone else if I get it, but with reasonable precautions I don't think that's likely at all.