I was mostly responding to this statement > We did not observe association between mask mandates or use and reduced COVID-19 spread in US states. COVID-19 miti

I was mostly responding to this statement > We did not observe association between mask mandates or use and reduced COVID-19 spread in US states. COVID-19 mitigation requires further research and use of existing efficacious strategies, most notably vaccination. Googling turns up lots of articles like this: * https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0252315 https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal... * https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/70/wr/mm7010e3.htm https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/70/wr/mm7010e3.htm The statements made seem compatible, but I think reading just this article you could come away thinking mask mandates are a bad idea. They might be, but a quick google does make that seem more doubtful. As another commenter pointed out the impact is probably pretty small though and easily swamped by other factors. Who is better controlling for those factors isn't something that's clear to me. Covid also isn't the flu so I'm not sure how relevant masks effectiveness against the flu is to covid. I think influenza has a lot more surface transmission than covid for example