Perhaps you don't know what "confirmation bias" means.
I do. Your whole post is full of it.
You want to believe that masks don't do any good, and so you ignore all of the data.
Now that's rich. If you look at our conversations over the past few weeks, I have posted countless charts and data points. You cling to your cherry-picked data, reposting it over and over again, as if proof by repeated assertion is convincing.
Even when you see the connection between masks and lower infection rates, you refuse to admit it.
That's because there is no such correlation. The data is all over the place. Some places fared better, some fared worse. There is no clear correlation, and there are a myriad of factors. But because you so desperately want to prove that masks work, you draw a correlation where none exists and ignore all data points that illustrate that.
So let's go to the data. Why do Louisiana and Alabama, both of which have mask mandates, have lower infection rates than North Dakota, which does not have a mask mandate?
As you learned, it's because masks prevent infections. What masks can't do, is prevent deaths once a person is already infected. I thought you realized this. If you thought about it for a minute, I'm sure you would realize why.
Masks do not
prevent infections. Even you have admitted that you believe masks only
reduce your risk. But in your zeal to defend masks, you say things that are flatly untrue. A mask does not
prevent infections, and you know this. Yet you say it over and over and over again, overstating the efficacy of masks and giving people a false sense of security.
But let's go back to your original point. You said that the the reason New York and New Jersey had such high death rates was because they were hit early. But Louisiana and Alabama weren't hit early. Your hypothesis isn't valid in this case. So let's try again; why does North Dakota, which has the HIGHEST infection rate in the country have a LOWER death rate than those 2 states? And we've already established that it's not because they were hit early, because they weren't. They were hit considerably later when doctors had gotten better at saving people's lives.
Sure. There is some variation. For example, Florida had no statewide mask mandates. But many counties imposed them anyway, and while their infection rate is high, (it's almost exactly the same as New York's, in spite of an initial response of keeping older people in nursing homes where it could spread rapidly) it's nowhere as high as that of North Dakota, which didn't have local or state mask mandates.
However, as you have seen,the trend is for infections to be lower where masks are mandated. For reasons we all understand.
Perhaps you've lost the plot. In your zeal to defend masking, you don't seem to realize that masks aren't reducing hospitalizations and/or saving lives. Should our goal be to reduce infections or to save lives?
Since you are completely and utterly convinced that masks slow the rate of infection (I’ll humor you for a moment), is that actually a good thing?
You'd think the whole point of wearing mask is to
protect people, right? But when you examine death rates, you actually find higher death rates in states with lower infection rates. That's why despite protestations that masking is a good thing because the top 5 infection rates (except for one, that he has never explained, but who are we to question SCIENCE!) are owned by states without mask mandates, those states don't also have the lowest death rates. In fact, the highest hospitalization and death rates are owned by states that have heavily mandated masks. Why is that?
The Great Barrington Declaration (written by real doctors and scientists, but with not nearly as much celebrity as Dr. Fauci) posits that Focused Protection is the answer. Lower infection rates means delayed herd immunity. So if fewer people are being infected, that means the virus still has many more susceptible hosts. This puts the vulnerable at greater risk, since the virus has many more vectors of transmission to get to them.
This is why you stay laser focused on "infection rates", because you know darn right well that if you look at what really matters, which is how many people are critically ill and must be hospitalized, and how many people have died, your premise falls apart at the seams. It becomes glaringly obvious that masking does not translate to "lives saved", nor less hospitalizations as we've been told.
So is lowering infection rates by requiring masks and social distancing and lockdowns prudent, or would it be better to permit (as we always have) people to assess the risks themselves, and live life? Some of these people might get infected, and they'll never know it. Some of these people might fall ill for a few days and be fine. And yes, some of these people may get the virus and die. But each person would be able to assess that risk and decide for themselves. And each infection that occurs regardless of outcome brings you one step closer to the ultimate goal; herd immunity.
Now I know you've been told that herd immunity can only occur with a vaccine, but that's complete nonsense. Herd immunity can be achieved naturally, and the WHO and CDC know this and even had it on their websites until political pressures required them to change their definition of herd immunity. But EVERY pandemic of the past has concluded NOT with a vaccine, but with natural herd immunity. That's not to suggest that vaccines can't hasten our journey to herd immunity, but it's foolish to toss that historical precedent of natural herd immunity aside.
One day, long after this pandemic is over, people will look back in hindsight and wonder how in the world our "experts" got it so wrong for so long. But not only that, how they were able to get so many people to believe the gaslighting in the face of mountains of data that proved what we were being told wasn't working.
Someone has already corrected you. The percent difference is about 23%, not 0.0094%. Hawaii's death rate is about 77% of Alaska's. Math can be challenging, but if you thought about it for a minute, it should be clear to you.
And 23% is significant.
I sincerely hope you are being intentionally obtuse as opposed to not actually comprehending that while there is in fact a 23% difference between 0.0319% and 0.0413% (something I've never denied), that absolute difference is not significant. It's 3/100 of a percent vs. 4/100 of a percent.
