Our good friend and colleague Josh Stevenson (@IfIHadAStick) has been doing some incredible work. Recently, he regurgitated a decent list of studies about masks. If anyone asks you the evidence on why masks don’t work – here’s another resource for you!
Annals of Internal Medicine: “Therefore, evidence for mask use versus nonuse and comparing masks types in health care settings remained insufficient” https://www.acpjournals.org/doi/10.7326/L20-1292
Annals of Internal Medicine: “The recommendation to wear surgical masks to supplement other public health measures did not reduce the SARS-CoV-2 infection rate among wearers by more than 50% in a community with modest infection rates” https://www.acpjournals.org/doi/10.7326/M20-6817
“No evidence was identified that examined a potential role for surgical face masks in protecting staff from infectious material encountered in the operating room.” https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK195765/
Southern Medical Journal: “There was no reduction in per-population daily mortality, hospital bed, ICU bed, or ventilator occupancy of COVID-19-positive patients attributable to the implementation of a mask-wearing mandate.” https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8395971/
“the difficulties associated with the mask’s use are significantly pronounced in children aged between 3 and 5 years old.” https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34591895/