Thread by @yinonw

Let's take a brief journey into the success (or lack thereof) of masks in preventing the spread of coronavirus.

Come with me on a tour of the wonderful world of mask mandates and their results.

Here is a preview of our journey.

(1/16)

First up is Austria. It was one of the first to require masks and it did so about 10 days after its cases began to go down. The downtrend with masks did not change.

After wearing masks for 6 months, cases are now 4x where they were when they mandated masks, and climbing.
(2/16)

Next to mandate was Germany, everybody's favorite success story, until it's not.

It mandated masks about half way down its original recovery. After wearing masks for half a year, their cases are now climbing quickly.

(3/16)

Let's visit Germany's historical foe, France.

The French waited a little longer to mandate masks. They now have around 1000% the daily cases than when they mandated masks despite having one of the highest mask compliance levels in the world.

(4/16)

Across the Pyrenees, Spain was not far behind its French neighbor with a mandate. Spain required masks when cases were near zero and has the highest compliance of mask wearing in all European.

Now Spain is at around 1500% the level of cases than when it mandated masks.

(5/16)

The British really held out on masks for a while. It was a bit late to the European party of wearing masks.

Within 3 months of requiring masks it's now at around 1500% cases despite having one of the highest mask compliance records in Europe.

(6/16)

Our next visit takes us across the English channel as we travel to Belgium. It required masks shortly after the British and now has possibly the highest rate of cases in the world.

(7/16)

Another British neighbor which hasn't done so well is the beautiful country of Ireland. Within 2 months of mandating masks, it is now back in lockdowns and has over 1000% more cases.

(8/16)

Our last stop on the grand tour is Italy, the original European hot spot. It had high mask compliance despite no national mandate.

Skyrocketing cases finally compelled them to create one of the strictest mask mandates in the world, but the results have been predictable..

(9/16)

How about the US? Americans have proven to be highly compliant with mask wearing, even higher than the Germans and similar to the highest levels of compliance found across Europe.

(10/16)

And where has that taken the US? We know not where we want to be.

For example. progressive California required masks in June but cases still went up by over 300% and the state remains heavily locked down to this day.

(11/16)

Hawaii suffered one of the most economically devastating lockdowns of all the US states. It was also an early mover on mandating masks both indoors and out doors, but cases still went up by almost 1000%.
(12/16)

Why don't masks work? For one, if you read the fine print on any consumer mask you will see something along the line of "not intended for medical purposes and has not been tested to reduce the transmission of disease." 🤔

(13/16)

Meanwhile countries with no mask mandates such as Sweden, Norway, and Denmark have not yet hit explosive cases. They might still, but obviously it's not due to lack of masks.

Similarly some Asian countries have had few cases, but the US/Europe shows it's not the masks.

(14/16)

For those looking for a brief explainer on masks, simply watch this quick video to get a better understanding of why masks do very little except in crowded indoor areas... videopress.com/v/4egEyh2b

(15/16)

For those looking for a deeper dive into the science of masks and why for decades scientists were against mass use of mask and what politically changed, see here below, and follow me for more updates.

👇🏽👇🏽👇🏽

https://twitter.com/yinonw/status/1303793597595090944

(16/16)

Correction on Ireland, but same result and same looking graph. It can be confusing to keep track when all these countries have the same runaway cases after mandating masks.

(8A/16)