How many waves that are bigger than the one before while we had mask mandates do you need to show their effect is pretty piss poor.
So, you believe that masks are causing successive waves to be larger, or what is your point? Maybe you think in binary - the masks did not 100% stop COVID therefore they must be 0% effective? Or maybe it’s a sort of survivor bias - you can’t see the numbers that did not die because of masks therefore it must be zero?
If we're not allowed to compare influenza as a seasonal illness to COVID,
You can make a comparison, but you can’t honestly say they are the same. As compared to influenza, the waves of COVID kill more people, put greater strain on healthcare systems, and come more frequently. There is no “long influenza” nor a measurable reduction of brain size that can be found after a case of the flu.
[comparing] seatbelts to mask mandates is absolutely ridiculous.
There are repeatable studies done on both to show they reduce the harms that are intended to protect against. Similarly, the introduction of each was met by gnashing of teeth and whining from special fragile snowflakes who declared themselves manly men, too brave for such horrible inconveniences. I’ll give you one thing though, seatbelts generally don’t protect other people’s safety while masking does measurably protect others. I suppose the argument could be made that rallying against seatbelts is less selfish.
Wear a damn bubble suit if you want, I could care less. I'm not scared of a cold, and can rationally see that anything other than a KN95 or N95 has marginal protection against Omicron (and whatever our next seasonal variant in Fall 2022 will be). Your fear should not equal a blanket mandate
Yeah, see above about fragile and selfish snowflakes self identifying as tough guys.
Remember where the burden of proof (not correlated data) lies with the individual wanting the mandate, not the people wanting normal.
There are lots of studies that have proven masks reduce transmission and linked mask wearing to reduced virus severity. Many of these studies have even been posted on this site. Cringing about burden of proof is only legitimate when you are not ignoring the proof that challenges your desired conclusion. I’ve seen opinion pieces against public health measures that cite rising suicide rates, but when I have checked stats they show rates have been down through the pandemic. I’ve seen arguments that public health measures are harmful to mental health in general and these point to an uptick in calls to mental health lines but these arguments only show correlation. Personally, I think having friend or family in hospital for COVID would tend to harm mental health in general, but the correlation arguments link the uptick to public health measures and most strongly to measures that close businesses and schools … masks are almost an afterthought opposed on anecdote.
So we have strong evidence that masks reduce COVID, and an argument that “lock-downs” may harm mental health. Masks in a worst case can delay “lock-downs” and accelerate their end while preventing them all together in a best case. If you are pro mental health or anti lockdown, are then masks seem like an easy win.
Anyway, going all the way back to my initial point: COVID is alive and evolving to maximize its spread. It does not care that it has been around for two years or three years or four years, and it does not care that people are tired of health protection measures (though it will exploit that). It may become more or less transmissible, and it may become more or less lethal. But to stand-up now and declare that future use of masks will be proof of an authoritarian Canadian government? That remains asinine.