[Goose]

Wear masks until a vaccine is available, so we can all get back to something closer to normal ASAP.

Totally agree. My rationale is that it doesn't hurt and it undoubtedly helps to some degree. It for sure alters other peoples behavior. If you are outside walking and wearing a mask, other pull theirs up and often try to "social distance" which they do not if you aren't wearing a mask. I see this every day.

How much does it help? Who cares really, by the time we can answer that question we should have a vaccine.

I think we all should want to know how much it helps. Remember when this started, conventional wisdom was that it didn't help enough to matter? We could end up back there if there is no good data showing masks help. If we could actually demonstrate the effects of masking, it would make it much harder for people to "opt out" and much easier to convince politicians enforcement is justified. OTOH, if we can't detect a substantive difference, we may be just fooling ourselves. This whole scenario can play out again next year with a different virus. We need to know what works and how to determine what works, because what is true of COVID-19 may very well not be true of the next iteration.

[Goose]

Wear masks until a vaccine is available, so we can all get back to something closer to normal ASAP.

Totally agree. My rationale is that it doesn't hurt and it undoubtedly helps to some degree. It for sure alters other peoples behavior. If you are outside walking and wearing a mask, other pull theirs up and often try to "social distance" which they do not if you aren't wearing a mask. I see this every day.

How much does it help? Who cares really, by the time we can answer that question we should have a vaccine.

I think we all should want to know how much it helps. Remember when this started, conventional wisdom was that it didn't help enough to matter? We could end up back there if there is no good data showing masks help. If we could actually demonstrate the effects of masking, it would make it much harder for people to "opt out" and much easier to convince politicians enforcement is justified. OTOH, if we can't detect a substantive difference, we may be just fooling ourselves. This whole scenario can play out again next year with a different virus. We need to know what works and how to determine what works, because what is true of COVID-19 may very well not be true of the next iteration.