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I thought masks will reduce the viral load and lessens the severity of infection

I though the same. Maybe it has reduced the severity. It seems 99% of infections in Bangalore are asymptomatic. Actual number of infections might be very large.

That's been the messaging around masks from the scientific community from the beginning, and also partly why they were hesitant to recommend universal masking early in the pandemic.

It was advertised like that. The mask deniers were louder.

India really needed to keep up consistent messaging about wearing masks, promote easy to understand infographics (for folks who cannot read)

https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/prevent-getting-si...

The government, the lax attitude of the public and inconsistent messaging has lead to this situation. It is heart breaking to see so many lives lost needlessly where something as simple as wearing a mask effectively could have averted this disaster.