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Masks reduce spread of the virus by reducing excretions (spittle, coughs, sneezes, etc) and virus particles that you exhale - which are most often attached to “droplets” that masks can stop, as the droplets are considerably larger than the virus particle itself and larger than the ‘weave’ of most masks. Well made masks with good filters also help protect the wearer from getting exposed, especially to droplets. “Medical Grade” (eg: N95) masks reduce exposure significantly, whereas decent masks can reduce exposure a good (but less than N95 of course) amount.

When you make this assertion you must ultimately assume that every healthy person walking around is infected with the virus, or that there’s such a thing as “super-spreaders” which of course is absurd on its face. But for the sake of argument, let’s make that assumption. Since transmission and expression of a viral infection is proportionate to the amount of viral load a person carries, an asymptomatic carrier would have a low viral load. What happens to that viral load when you force that person to wear a mask and constantly exhale and re-inhale those viral droplets? It stands to reason that it would increase the viral load making that person more infectious and symptomatic. Invariably, at some point in time that person is going to remove that mask or touch their face while wearing the mask, thus making that individual highly infectious. Remember, hand hygiene is the #1 recommendation to reduce the spread of infection.

I realize that’s all but sacrilegious heresy here on FR and many / most will (perhaps vehemently) disagree, but every country that has worn masks (Hong Kong, Czech Republic, China, ...) has reduced the spread of the virus significantly.

Of the three countries you just mentioned, the only one on the list of top 30 countries with the highest rates of testing is China, with 62,814/million of population. The lowest rate of the top 30 is Egypt with 1,317/million. Hong Kong and Czech Republic do not even show up, which means they are testing <1300/million (most likely only symptomatic patients). The US is 3rd with 186,055/million. Bottom line, the more you test the more “cases” you get. How many positive flu results do you think there would be if we tested everyone, whether symptomatic or not, during cold/flu season? How many would be positive for other coronaviruses?

Also, many of these so-called “cases” are actually repeat testing on the same patient. I know this for a fact as I work in a hospital laboratory that processes these tests. We have patients who are transferred in from smaller hospitals or assisted care/nursing homes who have tested positive at those facilities and are retested when admitted to us in order to receive covid convalescent plasma which requires a confirmed positive at our facility. Each swab from a single patient is sent to the reference lab as a specimen, not as an individual case. So 3 positive Covid tests on the same patient are falsely counted as 3 “cases”.

Bottom line your assertion that mask-wearing countries have less infections doesn’t hold water and in no way is proof that masks are effective in preventing spread of the virus. Even if might be true are you prepared to wear the mask for the rest of your life? At some point in time we have got to move on with living and realize that as much as we’d like to believe it, we mortals are NOT in control.