One of the most common pro-mask arguments I’ve heard over the course of the past year, both from “public health experts” and your average citizen, sounds similar to the following statement:
“If only everyone would just wear a mask, we would be able to crush the virus and end the pandemic.”
This line of reasoning is frequently espoused by lockdown governors and “public health experts.” You see, the problem isn’t them, it’s you, the citizen, we’re told. Wear a mask, peasant. You’re the problem! You’re the reason why the pandemic is still a problem in this country.
Deaths up? Why aren’t you wearing a mask. Cases up? Wear a mask. Hospitals crowded? The problem is that not enough people are wearing masks, they claim.
Hospitalizations are going up.
Wear. A. Mask.
— Andrew Cuomo (@NYGovCuomo) December 7, 2020
#COVID19 update:
-Positivity rate: 3.9%
-Daily case average: 6,719
-Hospitalizations: 36% increase
-ICU: 37% increaseWe absolutely must take these increases seriously.
Wear your mask. Physically distance. Do not let your guard down.
Your actions could literally save lives.
— Gavin Newsom (@GavinNewsom) November 13, 2020
NEW JERSEY #COVID19 UPDATE:
➡️6,046 new positive cases
➡️368,016 cumulative total cases
➡️16 new confirmed deaths
➡️15,485 total deathsThese numbers speak for themselves. Mask up. Social distance. Wash your hands. Avoid gatherings.https://t.co/JW1q8awGh7 pic.twitter.com/QcPTnaJVlu
— Governor Phil Murphy (@GovMurphy) December 6, 2020
“What we need to do is what we’ve been talking about for some time now, but really doubling down on it,” Dr. Fauci tells @GMA as COVID cases soar.
“Universal and uniform wearing of masks; avoiding crowded, congregate situations; keeping physical distant.” https://t.co/nCFBf7kv2C pic.twitter.com/Creg6E0Ci1
— ABC News (@ABC) November 12, 2020
The idea that not enough Americans are wearing masks is detached from reality. And we have the data to prove it.
The Delphi group at Carnegie Mellon University has developed a very informative, consistently updated mask compliance tracker. It shows that the overwhelming majority of Americans across the nation are wearing masks. And in virtually every major population center in the United States, especially in areas where COVID-19 cases are rising, mask compliance levels are off the charts high, with most major metro areas registering well over 90 percent compliance.
Early on in the pandemic, when the “new science” told us that masks could stop the virus in its tracks (after the science of early 2020, espoused by the likes of Fauci and many others, rightly pointed to the reality that masks are useless outside of a controlled setting), the CDC and other “public health agencies” claimed that we could essentially eliminate transmission if a large percentage of the population adopted universal masking.
When lockdowns failed to “stop the spread,” masking up at over 80% was hyped as a way to “do more to reduce COVID-19 spread than a strict lockdown.”
“Universal masking at 80 [percent] adoption flattens the curve significantly more than maintaining a strict lockdown,” a much-hyped, highly publicized study, which was treated by many in the scientific community as the gospel, proclaimed.
“We will not only be able to flatten the curve, we will be able to significantly reduce the spread of the virus and return to life as normal sooner rather than later,” De Kai, a research scholar at Berkeley who helped develop the COVID-19 universal masking model, proclaimed.
With the help of the CMU mask compliance tracker, let’s take a look at the current COVID-19 hotspots in the United States and the level of mask compliance within these areas.
San Francisco metro area: 97% mask compliance
New York City metro area: 97% mask compliance
DC metro: 97%
Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington: 94%
Philly area: 96%
Chicago: 95%
Miami-Ft Lauderdale: 96%
Seattle: 96%
The data demonstrates very clearly that Americans have overwhelmingly exceeded the masking compliance percentages needed to supposedly “flatten the curve” and reduce transmission of the virus. The problem, of course, is that the models have not matched reality. Americans are wearing masks, but the hypothesis behind universal masking has not worked to stop the spread of COVID-19.
Americans have adopted the recommendations of the “public health experts,” but the “public health experts” have failed to follow the science, which now shows that masks are useless when it comes to stopping the spread of COVID-19. Now we’re left with an overwhelming majority of Americans wearing masks for no science-based reason whatsoever.
Reprinted with permission from The Dossier, a subscriber supported blog.
