Pray tell, what are those collosal downsides that render such an effortless thing like wearing a mask in public such a prohibitively costly endeavor?
Bullshit. People have been wearing protective equipment such as masks for decades, and the negative effects are none.
The anti-maskers' irrational tirade about even low-effort/high-reward protective measures that are demonstrably safe and terribly trivial to pull off is the key factor in this pandemic taking so long to just die off, and you should be ashamed of yourself for contributing to this state of affairs.
Have you yourself seen studies that say the negative effects are none? If so, point me to them; I've only found a few, and they all seemed flawed.
> you should be ashamed of yourself for contributing to this state of affairs.
I have no shame in defending true science against propaganda.
[1] is a blog post I wrote about masks and carbon dioxide, where I wrote a model and ran it on various parameters. The net result was always the same: there was half oxygen and half carbon dioxide behind the mask.
Dr. Anthony Fauci knew that masks were ineffective. [2]
The CDC did a study that failed to show that masks were effective. [3]
Another study showed that masks did not work. [4]
There is a review of older papers concerning masks [5] as well as a follow-up. [6] (Though I do not know the political bent of that website; the review may be cherry picked.)
In other words, there is evidence that masks don't work and that there are downsides. If masks reduce oxygen, which makes us more vulnerable to disease, and they don't work, it's possible that the masks actually made things worse, by making us more vulnerable while doing nothing.
That is why I will never feel shame for my "irrational tirade" because it's not a tirade, and it's not irrational.
[1]: https://gavinhoward.com/2020/08/masks-and-carbon-dioxide/
[2]: https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/fauci-said-masks-were-not-...
[3]: https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/69/wr/pdfs/mm6936a5-H.pdf
[4]: https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.05.18.21257385v...
[5]: https://www.rcreader.com/commentary/masks-dont-work-covid-a-...
[6]: https://www.rcreader.com/commentary/still-no-conclusive-evid...
Fascinating. Oxygen normally only makes up 21% of breathable air - it would seem that masks are increasing oxygen levels. In addition, where is your null hypothesis test?
Of course, it could be even worse, that carbon dioxide starts replacing the nitrogen behind the mask. More testing needed.