Anecdotally: Look at Hong Kong. The population wear mask, use distancing, and disinfectants on floor mats when you enter a building. The closed the borders to China (And everywhere else) They’ve had fewer than 200 deaths in a city the size of NYC and that is even more crowded. Most of the hygiene measures are just done. The government does not mandate it.
The government does power wash sidewalks with disinfectant and quarantine any HK residents returning from abroad. If you do not have a place to live or violate the home quarantine, you are placed in a converted summer camp in Tseng-Kan-O for 2 weeks.
Is that a scientific study? No. But I bet if people in Houston did those things the virus wouldn’t be a problem.
That all might be true but if they didn’t eat bats and dogs they wouldn’t need the masks to protect them from all the diseases they have flying around. just sayin.
I bet it's the closing the borders to everywhere else which is the main factor, perhaps the only factor. And unfortunately Houston, or any other US city, or even the US as a whole, can't do that.
Residents of Hong Kong wear masks due to the smog.
For instance, a while ago a guy over there decided he was going to take an ultralight and fly it into some off limits grounds. Once airborne he quickly got lost due to visibility being so poor.
Everyone realizes you can see the smog there from space right?
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/19216002/
Conclusion: Face mask use in health care workers has not been demonstrated to provide benefit in terms of cold symptoms or getting colds. A larger study is needed to definitively establish noninferiority of no mask use.
Fauci don't like that word.
Look at Hong Kong. The population wear mask, use distancing, and disinfectants on floor mats when you enter a building. The closed the borders to China (And everywhere else) They’ve had fewer than 200 deaths in a city the size of NYC and that is even more crowded.
New York has had compulsory masks for months. How did that work out?
South Dakota entirely optional masks. They have one of the lowest infection and death rates on the planet.
And in china where people almost universally wear masks? I’ll bet they didn’t have much disease .... oh wait. Maybe it isn’t the masks.
Interesting update on Hong Kong.
Since Houston has a mega-sized medical treatment community, what are the stats on age, co-morbidity, and other discriminators needed to analyze Houston’s problem?
Are the deaths occurring among the cohort that is already in the hospital and being treated for multiple conditions?