Researchers at
Texas A&M declare that face masks prevented more than 66,000 infections in New York City in less than a month. The study makes hasty assumptions of universal consistency in mask quality, mask fit, duration of time worn, assumptions that the wearers aren’t touching their face, that their aerosols and droplets aren’t being deflected and sprayed all over their face, hair, clothes, and creating clouds of droplets from above, below, and through the sides of the mask. And it’s also assuming that the masks are effective in the first place, which the vast majority of real-world clinical trials show that they’re not. Lastly, their graph demonstrates a downward trend in infections prior to mandatory masking and doesn’t differentiate the effects from social distancing, shelter-in-place, etc.