I am curious as to what studies show about the effectiveness of widespread mask usage in preventing other airborne infections/diseases like the flu, etc. Is there a drop in recorded cases of respiratory infections? If there is, even a little bit, I don’t mind wearing one in the long-term to protect myself as much as possible. Besides the political and religious reasons, how can it not be anything but good and hygienic for you to do so in general when in public? Are there any documented health risks associated with wearing masks in the long-term?
"Global disappearance of B/Yamagata viruses during the COVID-19 pandemic
Influenza virus detections dropped dramatically from April 2020 (Fig. 1), with a ~99% reduction compared with previous years despite roughly similar levels of testing2. Behavioural changes (social distancing, mask wearing and hygiene measures) and travel and movement restrictions are thought to be the major factors driving the reduction in influenza incidence, which was also observed for other common respiratory infections such as respiratory syncytial virus3. The genetic diversity of influenza viruses has also dramatically diminished (Supplementary Fig. 1). The number of clades detected has fallen for both influenza A(H3N2) and A(H1N1) subtypes, and, similarly, diversity has diminished for the B/Victoria lineage."
It’s hard to isolate the benefits of mask use, when there are so many other changes in our behavior over the past two years. What effect is due to working from home, or washing hands more, etc.
Not to mention, isolating the benefits of different kinds of masks, and the benefits of mask-wearing by healthy people to prevent them from getting sick vs. the benefits of mask-wearing by infected people to prevent them from spreading their infection.
I imagine it might be non-hygenic to keep wearing the same mask for too long without washing (if it’s washable) or replacing (if it’s disposable). Especially if one has been doing a lot of talking, and/or some sneezing or coughing, while wearing the mask.
Mask-wearing also makes it harder for humans to communicate with each other, verbally and by facial expressions, so there’s something “anything but good” about it.
The data from Australia is relevant here. For much of covid there were very widely followed masking and social distance regimes, so the opposite of US experience.
In a normal flu season there are about 100,000+ notifications of flu reported here. In 2021 [to end Nov, not quite full year yet] there were 598 notified cases, so flu was reduced to a fraction of one percentage point.
I’ve not seen anything that convincingly divides that massive effect into what can be attributed to masks alone, but the public health point was always that different measures work in combination to suppress transmission.
The other point to make is that masking and distancing can almost make the flu disappear, but covid is so infectious that it can punch right through that.