No, there really isn't. Especially in an environment where people who aren't experts determine what is true and what is not. That's how Stalin did it.
With the notable exception that Child COVID cases aren't soaring, its just cases where kids are being asked to quarantine due to policy. Oops.
Science regarding masks. Not sCiEnCe. Be warned, requires critical thinking skills, so you might not understand if all you are about is a narrative: Emily Burns #SmilesMatter DM’s OK The overall effects of this study are miniscule—0.07% absolute reduction in seroprevalence. But the topline finding is “We decreased seroprevalence by 10%!” Technically true... But even this finding is questionable. Let's explore. poverty-action.org/sites/default/… What the study ACTUALLY measures is the impact of mask promotion on symptom reporting. Only if a person reports symptoms, are they asked to participate in a serology study—and only 40% of those with symptoms chose to have their blood taken. Is it possible that that highly moralistic framing and monetary incentives given to village elders for compliance might dissuade a person from reporting symptoms representing individual and collective moral failure—one that could cost the village money? Maybe? Given that the difference is tiny, if this had even a small impact, it could completely skew the results. Might the same factors be at play when an individual weighed whether or not to be tested? After all, a positive test would indicate that your village was “failing” The fact that age stratification shows that interventions had no impact on younger people, but did on older people calls this finding into question. There is no physical mechanism by which universal masking would protect the elderly, but not the young. Such a result could be explained by the mask promotion campaign creating a sense of fear that resulted in elderly sequestering themselves. If that were the case, a more elderly-targeted approach could achieve the same results. It is also possible that elderly people in intervention groups were less likely to report symptoms. 60+ are 2-3x more likely to be symptomatic than <40. Again, when having symptoms means you failed your village, might you choose not to mention them? Age and Likelihood of Developing Symptoms and Critical Disease After SARS-CoV-2 Infection in ItalyThis cohort study examines the association of age with the likelihood of experiencing symptoms and progressing to critical illness after infection with severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 …https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle/2777314 Perhaps the most compelling aspect of the study is the difference between surgical and cloth mask villages. The authors claim that this is supported by the different filtration efficiencies of cloth and surgical masks. However, these filtration efficiencies are taken in a no-gap scenario. And there is ALWAYS a gap. We can see that when considering gaps—the most important element of filtration--fabric & surgical masks perform nearly identically--not at all. Given physical improbability, it is possible that this effect too, might be an artifact of bias in the control group. Surgical masks are “fancier," & might feel like more of an intervention, and may make those in such a village even more likely to repress symptom reporting. Whatever the result of the surgical masks, this shows that the impact from cloth masks is 0. (.02% absolute reduction and a p-value of 0.540 is zero, even if the authors want to pretend otherwise). Color me skeptical on this one. This study increased mask wearing to 40%. In much of blue America mask compliance approached 100% for almost a year. Even with that kind of incredible compliance, there was no impact on case transmission rates.
My son says he hasn't had to wear his mask in over a week and a half. Most teachers aren't saying anything anymore.
So let's read the Conclusions on the first page of the study: Conclusions: Our intervention demonstrates a scalable and effective method to promote mask adoption and reduce symptomatic SARS-CoV-2 infections. (Nothing more needs to be said)