Would be interesting to understand why regions differ so much on this.
Meanwhile they are contributing massive amounts of plastic waste, textile waste, and provide a placebo while also providing alienation between individuals.
The larger factor that correlates is population density. Low population areas around the US rarely impose mass mandates and they also don't have high numbers.
Lastly, hypothesis: people who are convinced of the merits of a masks are also likely to murder the people in the other room in the Stanly Milgram experiments.
There are probably issues with how much people obsess over them though. I feel like people get a false sense of protection. People tend to stand right next to you in line when masks are required rather than keeping some distance!
The costs are high. Estimates show millions, if not over a billion, of these things will make their way into oceans. That's massive environmental damage:
https://nypost.com/2020/12/28/more-than-1-5b-masks-will-poll...
They have a high social cost. They are causing fear and adding stigma. People are judging one another for mask usage out of pure religion reasoning. If they are not very effective, we've watched State mandates around the world cause a new ideological divide between people. pro-Mask people literally have voiced threats of violence against those who do not see their benefit.
They hide our facial expressions and our primary way of seeing each other. Long before COVID, medical masks were used at Gitmo as one of the many means of dehumanization and torture:
https://duckduckgo.com/?q=masks+gitmo&iar=images&iax=images&...
Human rights groups have long been critical of the full Burqa as a way to dehumanize women. There is a psychological effect of not being able to see people's faces, and therefor not seeing them as human.
There are people who have PTSD from trauma, rape or sexual abuse who can not wear a mask without panic attacks. I know such people who cannot go into stores or restaurants and must order everything online. There are exceptions in the law, but most stores will not allow of it and the shame of walking around in a store without a mask where 99% of people do also induces panic.
Masks have a cost. It is not low. It is not near zero. It is much higher than you think it is.
But what I said which you trimmed off was that they are low cost _relative to other measures_. People wearing masks well is likely to reduce the need to use far more onerous measures like the lockdowns or having to decide who receives hospital care and who doesn’t.
Knowing that someone would try this hard to equate genuine travesties with putting fabric over your mouth and nose to protect others to advance some separate agenda when more than 1 out of every 1000 people in the US is already dead from covid is a grave disappointment.
People who just accept masks and advocate for them immediately without question are also very likely to murder the person in the other room in the Stanley Milgram experiments. That should concern you and everybody.
Customers, Cashiers, Barbers... Iceland, Off-license, Asda...
It's like people don't care at all. Only about 50% of people are wearing masks.
Sharp contrast with France where people need to wear masks all the time, and it's heavily enforced.
I don't expect the number of cases to go down TBH.