My bet: Why masks mandate are useless to control covid epidemic

I'm not an epidemiologist, I'm not a doctor, I'm not an expert, I'm no one. But it seems like after 10 months of covid, we still don't know what is the mean of transmission of covid, we don't know what measure works to control it, we don't know how to treat it.

So I'm maybe not an expert, but experts are just not able either to give us anything right, so my words are are as much valuable as them, that is to say, randomly right and randomly wrong.

The only thing that we can say is a success, is the vaccine, we have a vaccine that works and whithout risk (likely). Which is a huge achievement btw. If covid has taught us that science related health is probably complete failure and garbage, then we canalso see that if we give enough money to private companies they may be able to create a cure in no time for any kind of sickness. (I use the rule, if that worked for covid, that may work for anything, which is very likely a wrong rule, but well I don't care haha)

Let's come back to our topic, are masks mandate useless to control the covid epidemy ? The answer is yes, without hesitation, as some countries which have made them mandatoraty did have a second wave and some which didnt make them mandatory were able to control the epidemy. But this is not the topic of the post, the post is here to explain why it doesnt work.

Same, I'm not arguing whether masks can prevent to infect or to be infected, because the answer us : we still don't know how people get infected.

What is a mask mandate

A mask mandate is a law which say to people, you are forced to wear a mask in these places. It doesnt force people to wear a mask a certain way. It doesn't force people to keep a mask for maximum 4 hours. It doesn't force people to wear a FFP2 mask. It doesnt force people to keep their maskx when they talk to someone else. It just says, when you are in restaurant for example, you need to have a mask with you, and use it.

What are the possible ways of transmission of covid

They are three of them:

• Through aerosol, which means, through small particulates that can be transmitted through the air over time and distance [Wikipedia]. So when someone breathe or talks, some very small particules comes out of his nose, mouth and can stay in the outside air. Some other person can then breath in those particules through the nose or the mouth

• Through respiratory droplet, small aqueous droplet produced by exhalation, consisting of saliva or mucus and other matter derived from respiratory tract surfaces [Wikipedia]. So basically it is the same as aerosol, but the particules are just bigger, and some of them are falling quickly of the floor instead of staying in the air

• Through contact, so you touch a part which is infected, or you touch someone who is infected and then you touch either your eyes, mouth or nose

How people use their mask ?

First, they use shitty mask, nobody is using FFP2 masks, and from what I understand it is difficult to ear those mask for a long time anyway. Maks creator says that if you want to protect yourself 100% from aerosol, you need to use a FFD2, all others mask types are not perfect to prevent the transmission.

So if you do NOT wear a FFP2 mask and the covid transmit through aerosol, then:

• You wont protect yourself by wearing a mask, as you are breathing air from the outside which is contaminated and not filtered by the mask

• You wont really protect others as some of the air you breath out, will go through the mask

Let's forget about aerosol as, it is very clear that masks don't even work in this case

Second, do people use their mask all the time even when it is mandatory ? No, and I've even seen a lot of people wearing a mask, and then removing it when they talk to someone. People spend their time putting and removing their mask whether or not they are talking to someone. And if droplet transmission is most at risk when you are talking to someone, then lets look at the people you are talking to:

• Either close friend, familly in situations the mask mandate doesn't apply or anyway you will spend so much time with them that you won't wear a mask at all time

• Colleagues (but masks are not mandatory at work)

• Some people, like a cashier some random people in the bus, a neighbourg, ..., it those cases, it seems to work well, except that most cashier have plexiglass screen which are working even better than masks

Last, people spend their time touching their mask. And if the mean of transmission of covid is contact, then we can be sure that wearing a mask is going to increase this way of transmission, as the mask act as an accumulator of covid particules.

To sum up

• If transmission is aerosol, then masks usage will reduce the transmission of particules in the air

• If transmission is droplets, then the mask protect you when you are talking to someone else, (but mask mandates inconsciously push people to wear a mask all the time except when they talk to someone). So basically mask madates are equal to doing nothing

• If transmission is contact, then mask usage increase the transmission of covid

Of course my post is not going to be linked in The New York times, they will prefer a peer reviewed study that shows that ideal usage of a FFP2 mask decrease the covid particules someone breath out into the air. I'm really baffled that after 10 month, no scientist, has put a covid positive person (with a mask, without a mask, with a FFP2) in a room during 12 hours with 4 non covid positive people and tests what works and what doesnt. We would understand the mean of transmission and end of endless debates of opinion of what is right and what is wrong.