Curious what data have you seen that shows that masks have decreased Covid transmission? When you compare states with and without mask mandates it shows it's made little to no difference.
I didn't know whether studies had shown them effective or not, so I quickly googled "do mask mandates work study" and pursued the first handful of results.
The first result (for me) https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal... -- an observational study from June'21, shows what appears to be a 14% reduction in transmission, a 13% reduction in deaths, and a 7% reduction in hospitalization.
The second result https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2014564118 -- seems to be an epidemiological meta analysis from Jan'21. It cites a 70% reduction in infection for those that always wore surgical masks.
Fourth: https://www.healthaffairs.org/doi/10.1377/hlthaff.2021.01072 -- this one from Feb'22 compares 414 US counties both with and without mask mandates. Oddly, showed that the benefits were greatest to Republican counties that imposed mandates, where a 25% reduction was found in masked over similar unmasked counties.
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The first result (for me) https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal... -- an observational study from June'21, shows what appears to be a 14% reduction in transmission, a 13% reduction in deaths, and a 7% reduction in hospitalization.
The second result https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2014564118 -- seems to be an epidemiological meta analysis from Jan'21. It cites a 70% reduction in infection for those that always wore surgical masks.
The third: https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/science/science-br... -- seems to be a CDC review of 18 studies that seem to support efficacy, with a table concisely summarizing each studies results.
Fourth: https://www.healthaffairs.org/doi/10.1377/hlthaff.2021.01072 -- this one from Feb'22 compares 414 US counties both with and without mask mandates. Oddly, showed that the benefits were greatest to Republican counties that imposed mandates, where a 25% reduction was found in masked over similar unmasked counties.
Fifth: https://www.healthaffairs.org/doi/10.1377/hlthaff.2020.00818 -- this is an older one from June 2020 and compares states with and without mandates, and shows lower daily infections in states with mandates.
Sixth: https://med.stanford.edu/news/all-news/2021/09/surgical-mask...