Mark Zuckerberg says Biden administration pressured Facebook to censor Covid-19 content

My ban from Facebook was pure blessing. Never figured out why or what for I got it but man that was a tragedy at first until I realized how much time that timesink scrolling was talking out of what's really matter, family, friends, walks outdoors. I moved on and not looking back. Social media long ago became anti-social media and it's good riddance for me of them and them of me.

lonetac said:

One of the biggest flubs was telling people that getting it would PREVENT Covid as that is not ever its purpose. It was always designed to REDUCE the symptoms and sickness to be more manageable and not require hospitalization. One of the problems we have now days is with the internet every person can throw a theory out there and folks jump on it without any scientific backing and our leaders saying stupid things that mislead folks.

Click to expand...

Before the "miracle vaccines" were out a co-worker of mine had covid the start of December of 2020. She was in her mid 20s then, young, a bit overweight, but no other general underlying issues with her health. She did the forced mandatory time off and when she got back she said she had some aches, a low grade fever for a few days and that was about it.

Fast forward 6ish months later when the shots were widely available she opted to get her shots - she got the pfizer one. Seemed silly to me since she already had covid, but she thought it was for the best. She got her first shot, no problems. Just over 2 weeks later she had setup her second shot to be done on a Friday morning. She heard people tend to have sickness reactions to it and wanted the weekend to recoup after her shot so she could be back into work the following Monday.

She gets her shot Friday morning. She develops a fever and body chills towards the end of day 1 (that Friday). Monday comes around and she's not into work, called in sick. Tuesday comes and she's still out sick. Wednesday comes and she tried coming into work, but she was still so sick that she left - she came into the office to let me know it was a mistake coming into work. She looked like she was on death's bed; extremely pale (she was already fair skinned - she's got lily white skin), sweat was running down her face and she was sweating through her shirt, she said she's having troubles breathing and extremely short of breath. She said she's been in and out of the bathroom due to diarrhea multiple times in the 60 minutes she's been here. She left work and her boyfriend picked her up because she mentioned she's been too light headed to safely drive herself.

Thursday (6 days after she got her second shot) I heard she was in the hospital due to severe chest pains, shortness of breath, high fever and severe dehydration. She was in the hospital for almost 3 days, she was released Saturday afternoon (8 days after her second shot). Come Monday (10 days after her second shot) she came into work and was maybe 80% fine. She still had sore joints, still had some troubles breathing, but the chest pains were gone and her fever was gone.

She almost died from the second shot.....she wishes she never got the covid shots because they almost killed her.

About a year later she got covid for a second time. This time she had a high fever (first time it was a low grade), she lost her taste and smell for nearly a month (didn't have this issue the first time), she had horrible diarrhea for few days, her chest pains returned and so did her shortness of breath. She almost returned to the hospital because of her troubles breathing.

After having covid, getting the shot and getting covid again (worse than the first time) she was pissed that she was lied to about how the shot was supposed to stop covid and prevent the spread of it. To me, it appears that the shots didn't do anything that they were touted to do.

We all have covid stories to tell. Anecdotal evidence doesnt trump billions of vaccines.

" about how the shot was supposed to stop covid and prevent the spread of it." - thats what I addressed. This was never the case. Getting the vaccine is about reducing symptoms, not preventing it, blocking it. Saying it would stop the spread was a mistake. Getting the vaccine isnt stopping the spread (one could argue in a sense it does indirectly by allowing folks to be less symptomatic and recover quicker but I wont die on that hill). Again, scientific community has evolved their stance on this as they learn hence the scientific process. When knowledge becomes available, we update how we handle things. How the message got out that it would PREVENT covid was a misstep and shouldnt have been communicated to the public. It was short sighted for something we didnt know and that the scientific community was saying that it would reduce symptoms, not prevent it. But talking personalities and politicians decided to play games and misconstrue this message.

Im sure we can find someone who can be quoted saying nearly anything to justify our comments here as everyone was saying everything. The source of truth from our scientific community currently, was that the jabs helped reduce symptoms. Politicians fudged the messaging. There is worldwide medical consensus on the effectiveness of the vaccines and its not some conspiracy theory because of someone you know having an experience. After all, 100% of the people who get cancer drink water and breath air, must be a correlation there?

Getting a diagnosis wrong for something that nobody has ever experienced in the world isnt "lying" but they got some things wrong, they always do. Being wrong about something and lying I believe are two seperate tasks as one can be honest and the later being dishonest. They also got some things right and helped save millions of people around the world. They always improve their analysis as more information comes out. Thats their job. We should listen to our scientific community and health care providers more than politicians, talk show hosts and personalities like Joe Rogan.

How do you know her symptoms wouldnt have been disastrously worse without the vaccine? You dont.

I personally suffered from chest pains after my 2nd jab. Related, maybe, unsure as undiagnosed. My brother has had hearing issues and he lost his taste of smell for about 6 months after covid. My wife got a body rash 2 weeks after her 2nd jab, related? We dont know. The stories go on and on but its easy to just correlate them as thats what you are conditioned to do. It doesnt make it true. Correlation is not necessarily causation.

Whats important is we are basing our theories and messaging around scientific evidence and not just correlation and assumptions or fear mongering talking heads spewing bs to get more views and likes.

"To me, it appears that the shots didn't do anything that they were touted to do." - is exactly what I mean when I say arm chair virologists spreading bs. The worldwide health community, folks who do this for a living and invested their entire lives to studying diseases, vaccines, are in concensus that it does help and is safe but since some dude on the internet said he doesnt think so, it has validity? Thats nonsense.

lonetac said:

We all have covid stories to tell. Anecdotal evidence doesnt trump billions of vaccines.

" about how the shot was supposed to stop covid and prevent the spread of it." - thats what I addressed. This was never the case. Getting the vaccine is about reducing symptoms, not preventing it, blocking it. Saying it would stop the spread was a mistake. Getting the vaccine isnt stopping the spread (one could argue in a sense it does indirectly by allowing folks to be less symptomatic and recover quicker but I wont die on that hill). Again, scientific community has evolved their stance on this as they learn hence the scientific process. When knowledge becomes available, we update how we handle things. How the message got out that it would PREVENT covid was a misstep and shouldnt have been communicated to the public. It was short sighted for something we didnt know and that the scientific community was saying that it would reduce symptoms, not prevent it. But talking personalities and politicians decided to play games and misconstrue this message.

Im sure we can find someone who can be quoted saying nearly anything to justify our comments here as everyone was saying everything. The source of truth from our scientific community currently, was that the jabs helped reduce symptoms. Politicians fudged the messaging. There is worldwide medical consensus on the effectiveness of the vaccines and its not some conspiracy theory because of someone you know having an experience. After all, 100% of the people who get cancer drink water and breath air, must be a correlation there?

Getting a diagnosis wrong for something that nobody has ever experienced in the world isnt "lying" but they got some things wrong, they always do. Being wrong about something and lying I believe are two seperate tasks as one can be honest and the later being dishonest. They also got some things right and helped save millions of people around the world. They always improve their analysis as more information comes out. Thats their job. We should listen to our scientific community and health care providers more than politicians, talk show hosts and personalities like Joe Rogan.

How do you know her symptoms wouldnt have been disastrously worse without the vaccine? You dont.

I personally suffered from chest pains after my 2nd jab. Related, maybe, unsure as undiagnosed. My brother has had hearing issues and he lost his taste of smell for about 6 months after covid. My wife got a body rash 2 weeks after her 2nd jab, related? We dont know. The stories go on and on but its easy to just correlate them as thats what you are conditioned to do. It doesnt make it true. Correlation is not necessarily causation.

Whats important is we are basing our theories and messaging around scientific evidence and not just correlation and assumptions or fear mongering talking heads spewing bs to get more views and likes.

"To me, it appears that the shots didn't do anything that they were touted to do." - is exactly what I mean when I say arm chair virologists spreading bs. The worldwide health community, folks who do this for a living and invested their entire lives to studying diseases, vaccines, are in concensus that it does help and is safe but since some dude on the internet said he doesnt think so, it has validity? Thats nonsense.

Click to expand...

Got it, you want to believe they have your best interest at heart.

Whether you live or die, they don't care. They only care about money and power. If you live you'll eventually give them money some way or another. If you die it'll be because of something they didn't do - die from covid then you didn't get the shot or didn't get it in time. If you die from the shot - no correlation, just conjuncture; they'll say the shot is safe and continue to push it without any backlash coming back to them.

lonetac said:

Thanks for the reasonable response and perspective.

I think that calling mrna vaccines as guinea pig vaccines is a misguided label though. mrna vaccines were not really new and have been tested for generations. I hope we can agree that Johns Hopkins is a decent source of information related to health treatment (see link below).

One of the biggest flubs was telling people that getting it would PREVENT Covid as that is not ever its purpose. It was always designed to REDUCE the symptoms and sickness to be more manageable and not require hospitalization. One of the problems we have now days is with the internet every person can throw a theory out there and folks jump on it without any scientific backing and our leaders saying stupid things that mislead folks.

I believe what you are describing is the fact that trial versions were released that were not fully FDA approved. I think thats a fair complaint. The issues related to the vaccine are largely anectdotal and mistruths though in what I see, even the comments here. The old statement goes, correlation is not causation. An unhealthy person could still have a stroke even without the vaccine. People just connect the dots and blame the vaccine without any scientific proof that the correlation is causation. No dr said "you had a stroke because of the jab" using scientific proof. If so, provide the proof and not theory.

The world has accepted it as safe outside of the USA as well so we cant say its some conspiracy within the USA to push it. I somehow doubt that some dude on the internet or armchair dr knows more than the entire world wide scientific communitys assessment.

Its worth discussing about issues related to it though and addressing them but not using opinions and just assumptions. There are plenty of lessons learned to be gained from the covid pandemic. Its a shame a certain someone gutted our response team to pandemics during his presidency.

The Long History of mRNA Vaccines | Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health

A look at how this vaccine technology has been in the works for decades.

publichealth.jhu.edu

Did Trump Administration Fire the US Pandemic Response Team?

As a new coronavirus spread in 2020, so did concerns about the United States' preparedness for a potential pandemic.

www.snopes.com

Click to expand...

The reason I used the guinea pig comment is that the vaccine was mandated for a lot of people working within the government. For the most part, vaccines have been voluntary and optional for most people over the years. And even though other mrna vaccines have been around, I think we all know the Covid shots were rushed, maybe for good reasons, but the testing was minimal.

As for contraindications, I believe J&J and Astra Zeneca pulled their vaccines due to potential issues like blood clots. Sure, there are a lot of factors that might make a particular medication dangerous for some people. But you cannot deny that anyone suggesting a more moderate approach or asking the "wrong" questions was shouted down, vilified, and effectively censored. And that included knowledgeable people like doctors. To me, science is based upon the concept of asking questions and coming up with theories that we can prove or disprove. But in this case people when people did ask those questions they were not answered and, in some cases, we were misled.

As for disbanding the pandemic response team, hindsight is 20-20. One could argue that had Faucci not funded gain-of-function research this might not have happened. If Faucci had not actively tried to kill the origin-in-Wuhan-labs theory, we might have prevented widespread infections in the US. There's certainly a lot of what-ifs.

Neatfeatguy said:

Got it, you want to believe they have your best interest at heart.

Whether you live or die, they don't care. They only care about money and power. If you live you'll eventually give them money some way or another. If you die it'll be because of something they didn't do - die from covid then you didn't get the shot or didn't get it in time. If you die from the shot - no correlation, just conjuncture; they'll say the shot is safe and continue to push it without any backlash coming back to them.

Click to expand...

No, im saying the worlds health professionals know more than some arm chair virologist who read something on the internet so it must be true.

Folks who have spent their entire lives studying disease and viruses know more on how to treat them than some dude on the internet going "someone I know had a thing happen therefore its all fake".

Your entire reply was conjecture. I used science and scientific process to defend the position of using science.

Science deniers are the worst. If you know so much, go become the worlds renown virologist and show us how powerful your knowledge is. With everything you know you should be able to solve all problems related to disease immediately.

Whats even worse with the ignorance you espouse is you completely discredit everything the medical world has done to make your life and everyone else's here possible and to remain as healthy as we have in the name of profit.

I dont even know how to combat the argument that entire worlds health professionals in every country across the globe is a fraud because every single one is out for wealth and prosperity. Its such an absurd thing to say it shouldn't even need to be addressed. Its such a far fetched crazy thing to say.

waclark said:

The reason I used the guinea pig comment is that the vaccine was mandated for a lot of people working within the government. For the most part, vaccines have been voluntary and optional for most people over the years. And even though other mrna vaccines have been around, I think we all know the Covid shots were rushed, maybe for good reasons, but the testing was minimal.

As for contraindications, I believe J&J and Astra Zeneca pulled their vaccines due to potential issues like blood clots. Sure, there are a lot of factors that might make a particular medication dangerous for some people. But you cannot deny that anyone suggesting a more moderate approach or asking the "wrong" questions was shouted down, vilified, and effectively censored. And that included knowledgeable people like doctors. To me, science is based upon the concept of asking questions and coming up with theories that we can prove or disprove. But in this case people when people did ask those questions they were not answered and, in some cases, we were misled.

As for disbanding the pandemic response team, hindsight is 20-20. One could argue that had Faucci not funded gain-of-function research this might not have happened. If Faucci had not actively tried to kill the origin-in-Wuhan-labs theory, we might have prevented widespread infections in the US. There's certainly a lot of what-ifs.

Click to expand...

Vaccines have not been largely voluntary. They have been forced for many many years. We all as kids have had our vaccines to prevent diseases or they dont even let you in public schools without them. I had to prove I had them to get into college in 2001 even.

I saw the same folks you claim to be villified villifying anyone who spent their life studying medicine saying it was ok. And it largely was. Billions vaccinated. The death threats against dr's and folks who have spent their entire career helping people just because someone on the internet told them so. We need to be making our decisions based on science and not feeling of some guy with a podcast.

Its ok to ask questions, im not villifying anyone who asks questions. I only saw folks claiming Covid was fake and made up and wasnt real. Lots of idiocy. Hell, I even had my own life threatened when I talked about my wifes parents almost dying to covid during the early years because it was a "made up liberal disease".

Asking questions is different than the rhetoric that came out which was: Liar, you created the disease, death threats, making up conspiracy theories, absolute complete denying the pandemic and all other manners of absolutely unacceptable behavior. If it was just asking a question, it wouldnt have been vilified.

Were mistakes made, absolutely. I wouldnt say no. Im not clouded here. Im trying to be reasonable. The understanding of covid is much better now than it was before and you can see we have adjusted to that knowledge. I work in technology and when you have a disaster, mistakes happen. You always have a lessons learned and do better in the future, that should be done here, absolutely.

The mrna vaccines are now fully approved by the FDA. I fully get not trusting an "emergency" vaccine that hasnt been fully approved. However, they have been tested for generations. We are just getting started with this breakthrough in the medical industry but its been around for like 50+ years.

We could speculate on what-ifs to the cows come home but anyone who thought disbanding a pandemic response team was a good idea, shouldnt be making decisions in my eyes. That I would think most people would agree was a bad call.

lonetac said:

SNIP

I dont even know how to combat the argument that entire worlds health professionals in every country across the globe is a fraud because every single one is out for wealth and prosperity. Its such an absurd thing to say it shouldn't even need to be addressed. Its such a far fetched crazy thing to say.

Click to expand...

I'm not so sure it's "every" health professional in the world, but there are some who wield certain power who may not have your best interest at heart. As much as we would like to think every Congressman has the public's best interest at heart, we know that is not always the case. And so, I would assume that some health care professionals are the same. It's not like there isn't competition for grant money or research positions and what not. Some people are motivated by that.

After the fact we now know that some people within the government decided to suppress information as well as the people who were asking questions that didn't fit the narrative. The excuse of "we didn't know what we didn't know" is lame at best. Why then put out information you cannot possibly validate if you don't know what you don't know?

I like what George Carlin had to say about "conspiracies". He said that you don't need a large group of people working together to have a conspiracy, but you can have like-minded people who independently work to achieve the same goals. I think the latter is mostly likely the case during Covid. People were trying to do the right thing as told to them by authority but also knowing that maybe the information wasn't 100% right.

waclark said:

As it should have been. I took the jab and have had no issues other than getting Covid regardless of getting the vaccine and 2 boosters.

The issue is that some people, in some states, were fired because they refused. Now that we know more about the "vaccine" these people are not being reinstated. In WA State they fired a bunch of ferry workers and now they have trouble running ferries due to short staffing, but they won't hire these already trained and experienced people back.

Click to expand...

I agree that workers or military members that were fired, should have their jobs returned. With BACK pay!

waclark said:

I'm not so sure it's "every" health professional in the world, but there are some who wield certain power who may not have your best interest at heart. As much as we would like to think every Congressman has the public's best interest at heart, we know that is not always the case. And so, I would assume that some health care professionals are the same. It's not like there isn't competition for grant money or research positions and what not. Some people are motivated by that.

After the fact we now know that some people within the government decided to suppress information as well as the people who were asking questions that didn't fit the narrative. The excuse of "we didn't know what we didn't know" is lame at best. Why then put out information you cannot possibly validate if you don't know what you don't know?

I like what George Carlin had to say about "conspiracies". He said that you don't need a large group of people working together to have a conspiracy, but you can have like-minded people who independently work to achieve the same goals. I think the latter is mostly likely the case during Covid. People were trying to do the right thing as told to them by authority but also knowing that maybe the information wasn't 100% right.

Click to expand...

There are absolutely people of every make and profession who might not have your best interests. In fact when it comes to politicians, even more so.

Every health professional, I agree is poor wording and I apologize for that. I often hate sweeping generalizations. Let me try that again, the worlds overwhelming majority consensus from medical professionals using peer reviewed studies that follow the scientific process do say its safe.

But in other countrys and parts of the world, the medical industry isnt for profit. They dont gain anything by making people sick. Governments fight to keep people alive. Every citizen is more taxes. Its the main driving force behind the "must have kids" route. They are not looking to kill off millions.

Why did they say something? If they didnt say anything your outrage would be even worse. There is no right answer. They said what they thought they knew. The politicians and talking heads on tv came up with any number of other stuff that had nothing to do with what they were saying. Getting your information from the likes of MTG, football players or the likes of Joe Rogan is why we are here. If you were listening to the actual health professionals it wasnt that hard to follow. N95 up, get your vaccine to help REDUCE symptoms.

Say what you will and come up with as many quotes as you want about conspiracies, if you believe the entire worlds medical industry was around peddling medicine for profit so they manufactured a virus, you have lost me and we need to walk away (or that the virus was fake). I dont subscribe to world is flat theories, no offense. Maybe thats an extreme take on what you are describing.

Countries that dont have anything to do with us, hate us, they all in it? It doesnt work that way. Thats one hell of a coordinated effort. They deserve to be praised for it. Anectdotal evidence of one thing or another doesnt prove anything. Scientific evidence does. I believe there are more good people doing good for the world than bad instead of such a defeatist view.

The government is suppressing information from you every single day man. And it doesnt matter which talking head is at the top. Im polish decent. For the longest time it was taught the germans killed my family. Turns out it was the soviets because our government lied to us about who the enemy was until it was declassified. You should hear some of my grandpa's stories whom spent some time in a concentration camp. They have that whole public interest and must keep the peace thing going on. And im not saying I agree with any of that and explain that its even personal to me. We all know its happening, its been exposed so many times (snowden and numerous other examples).

I perceive you to have some questionable theories about medical professionals. Go meet a few scientist. You will find out they want to help people and are not some evil profiteering class peddling lies. They spend their free time researching because thats what they do, staring at samples, testing, etc, its a joy to discover something new or progress research. They have done more for progressing humanity than almost any other profession (maybe engineering competes) and will continue to do so.

*EDIT* I want to add that when the vaccine was not fully approved, I fully support folks being able to decide they dont want it. Referring to the ones that did cause issues. I support a right to your body and what goes in it and the treatment for it (such as womens rights as well). Just want to clarify that as I didnt address it above. Your body, your choice. That includes vaccines, circumcision, abortion, etc.

lonetac said:

If you were listening to the actual health professionals it wasnt that hard to follow. N95 up, get your vaccine to help REDUCE symptoms.

Click to expand...

Except that "actual health professionals" were being censored too. And most of the 'official' information ranged from disputable opinion to outright nonsense and even intentional lies. Such as:

- It was "scientifically proven" that Covid didn't result from a lab leak
- The US never funded gain-of-function research in China.
- Masks and social distancing precautions were necessary even outdoors.
- Mask use by the general public (rather than trained medical professionals in controlled settings) would reduce the spread of a highly-infectious respiratory virus
- Children and young adults should receive the Covid vaccine
- Mandated shutdowns were necessary.

Instead, we now know that the lab-leak hypothesis is by far the most likely explanation, mask use was largely ineffective, the risks of the vaccine for the young far outweigh the benefits, and the year (in some areas, two years) of social contact that many children lost did nothing to control the spread of Covid, but caused them serious -- in some cases, lifelong -- emotional and development deficits.

What's particular ironic is that the prevailing research before Covid stated quite clearly that masks were ineffective against respiratory viruses in public settings. Despite dozens of research studies verifying this (many of which I posted to this very forum in early 2020), in May 2020, the CDC suddenly reversed their guidance to claim masking was necessary.

And all this ignores all the NON-Covid stories that the FBI forced Facebook to censor, such as the bombshell Hunter's laptop story that Facebook literally banned outright the major newspaper that broke the news ... coincidentally just before the Presidential election with Hunter's father the primary candidate.

Neatfeatguy said:

Co-worker of my wife's, her husband (was 45 years old) dropped dead from a heart attack 3 days after his second pfizer shot. Zero heart issues in his family, no one ever had a heart attack on his side of the family....he was the first.

Click to expand...

p51d007 said:

My younger sister on the other hand got 2 jabs along with her husband because they also care for his elderly mother. In April, my sister had a mild stroke that caused her right side to have issues.

Click to expand...

Between every member of my staff, and my family members, we saw 11 cases of COVID. 10 of them had minor sniffles and other mild symptoms. 1 also had a fever of a little over 100 for 2 days.
4 of those people are over the age of 60. All vaccinated. All recovered.
I mention this because, well, apparently some people think what happens in their house, also happens worldwide.

lonetac said:

As far as the mask thing, I think folks become unreasonable with expectations around this. Nobody knew what we were up against.

Click to expand...

"The mask thing" and its effectiveness, is really easy to work through.
Remember all the badly named super-spreader events?
Research them, and find out how many of them happened when masking was not required, then how many happened when masks were required.
And as Charlie Daniels once said:
"Then I think you'll finally understand."

scavengerspc said:

Between every member of my staff, and my family members, we saw 11 cases of COVID. 10 of them had minor sniffles and other mild symptoms. 1 also had a fever of a little over 100 for 2 days.
4 of those people are over the age of 60. All vaccinated. All recovered.
I mention this because, well, apparently some people think what happens in their house, also happens worldwide.


"The mask thing" and its effectiveness, is really easy to work through.
Remember all the badly named super-spreader events?
Research them, and find out how many of them happened when masking was not required, then how many happened when masks were required.
And as Charlie Daniels once said:
"Then I think you'll finally understand."

Click to expand...

Yeah man, my wifes grandparents were 80+ and one has a pacemaker, thankfully they recovered and they were vaccinated as well.

im really fortunate that everyone in my family survived. All of us vaccinated as well. Many were not, everyone I know that died was not vaccinated. Interesting how that anecdotal evidence works instead of a story about one co worker.

Thats why we should rely on science. And spot on about the super spreaders.

Then you have folks downplaying a specific president disbanding the pandemic response team as hindsight. Well duh, its a pandemic response team...

scavengerspc said:

"The mask thing" and its effectiveness, is really easy to work through.
Remember all the badly named super-spreader events?
Research them, and find out how many of them happened when masking was not required, then how many happened when masks were required.

Click to expand...

"For medical questions, a major source of high-quality, reputable meta-analyses is Cochrane, a UK-based nonprofit that publishes long and comprehensive meta-analyses of current evidence on medical interventions....

...Nearly all of us wore masks at one time or another, and many of us still do. Did that even help?

It doesn’t seem like it, according to the Cochrane review: “Wearing masks in the community probably makes little or no difference to the outcome of laboratory-confirmed influenza/SARS-CoV-2 compared to not wearing masks.”...."

Do physical measures such as hand-washing or wearing masks stop or slow down the spread of respiratory viruses?

www.cochrane.org

lonetac said:

Interesting how that anecdotal evidence works instead of a story about one co worker.

Click to expand...

Absolutely, and well put. It's like climate change.
They actually seem to wonder how the average temperature of the entire planet can be rising, when it is freezing cold on their front porch. We will always remember the fool that brought a snowball in to congress.

A very sad collection of people develops when they allow others to give them their opinion, and not thought through for themselves.

Endymio said:

"For medical questions, a major source of high-quality, reputable meta-analyses is Cochrane, a UK-based nonprofit that publishes long and comprehensive meta-analyses of current evidence on medical interventions....

...Nearly all of us wore masks at one time or another, and many of us still do. Did that even help?

It doesn’t seem like it, according to the Cochrane review: “Wearing masks in the community probably makes little or no difference to the outcome of laboratory-confirmed influenza/SARS-CoV-2 compared to not wearing masks.”...."

Do physical measures such as hand-washing or wearing masks stop or slow down the spread of respiratory viruses?

www.cochrane.org

Click to expand...

Still, Chou said that overall, this other evidence outside randomized controlled trials “supports some benefits of masks.”

And keep in mind I'm not saying, and never have, that masking was a cure all.

Also, what I said in the post you quoted is easily researched. Masking helped greatly in large gatherings. Especially indoors.