Real Science on Masks? "Don't Bother."

Since the City of Milwaukee intends to commit suicide-by-mask, we'll note a few facts about Teh Mask Fetish for other cities (and businesses) who might not agree with the ultra-Left sponsor of the Milwaukee ordinance.

...A controlled study reported in “Nature Medicine,” April 3, 2020, indicated that properly fitted surgical face masks might reduce human non-COVID-19, cold-causing coronavirus emission into exhaled aerosols and large respiratory droplets, among patients acutely ill with respiratory infections. However, these investigators also noted that in samples collected from those comparably ill patients randomly allocated to the group not wearing masks, “the majority of participants with influenza virus and coronavirus infection did not shed detectable virus in respiratory droplets or aerosols.” Furthermore, viral “shedders” transmitted small amounts of virus, and the authors suggested that “prolonged close contact would be required for transmission to occur, even if transmission was primarily via aerosols, as has been described for rhinovirus [i.e., common] colds.”

These limited, immediate-term experimental observations — equivocal at best — provide no rational, evidence-based justification for daily, prolonged mask usage by the general public to prevent infection with COVID-19. Moreover, a subsequent pooled (so-called “meta-”) analysis of ten controlled trials assessing extended, real-world, non-health-care-setting mask usage revealed that masking did not reduce the rate of laboratory-proven infections with the respiratory virus influenza. The findings from this unique report — published May 2020 by the CDC’s own “house journal” “Emerging Infectious Diseases” — are directly germane to the question of masking to prevent COVID-19 infection and merit some elaboration....

The rest of the linked essay is worth the read.  In short:  it doesn't work.

We COULD conclude that the Mask Fetish is a question of social controlling, but that might be cynical.