Mask Theater

PJ Media has an article that looks at different countries and locales to see if there is any correlation between mask mandates and daily infection rates. If you want to click over there, you will find a lot of charts showing the daily infection rates over time along with markers showing when mask mandates were introduced. The short take, however, is that "these charts fail to show any correlation between mask mandates (which presumably increase the wearing of masks) and reductions in COVID-19 infections."

    In fact, it appears that all measures to contain the virus have failed: the WHO now estimates that 10% of the world's population--i.e., more than 760 million people--have been infected. On the bright side, the estimated number of people to have died from COVID-19, worldwide, as of September 28, 2020, was one million. That indicates a fatality rate of 0.13%, which is on the low end of the case fatality rate associated with seasonal flu (the CFR of flu ranges from 0.1% to 13.5%). By comparison:

• The 1918 H1N1 influenza pandemic caused 500,000-700,000 deaths in the United States—almost 200,000 of them in October 1918 alone—and an estimated 30-40 million deaths worldwide, mostly among people aged 15-35 years

• The 1957 H2N2 influenza pandemic (Asian flu) caused an estimated 70,000 deaths in the United States and 1-2 million fatalities worldwide

• The 1968 H3N2 influenza pandemic (Hong Kong flu) caused an estimated 34,000 deaths in the United States and 700,000 to 1 million fatalities worldwide

As of today, according to the New York Times, more than 7,498,300 people in the United States have been infected with the coronavirus and at least 210,200 have died. Assuming that these numbers can be trusted (which I doubt because I find it unbelievable that the United States, representing just 3.9% of the world's population, should account for 20% of the deaths), we are looking at something, in the United States, which is worse than the 1957 and 1968 flu outbreaks, but far less serious than the Spanish flu.