Journal of Public Health (Masks have no impact)
“Our main finding is that mask mandates and use likely did not affect COVID-19 case growth. Mask mandates were associated with greater mask use but ultimately did not influence total normalized cases or post-mandate case growth. Higher mask use [rather than mandates per se] has been argued to decrease COVID-19 growth rates .”
“…Prolonged mask use [>4 hours per day] promotes facial alkalinization and inadvertently encourages dehydration, which in turn can enhance barrier breakdown and bacterial infection risk [40] . British clinicians have reported masks to increase headaches and sweating and decrease cognitive precision…”
“…In conclusion, we found mask mandates and use to be poor predictors of COVID-19 spread in US states. Strengths of our study include assessing COVID-19 association with both mandates and reported use; evaluating both Ln and Fold growth models; accounting for population density differences; and measuring case growth after modeled mandate effective dates in states with late or no mandates.”