Is Volodymyr Zelenskyy the Problem?

The recent and very public argument between Donald Trump, JD Vance and Vladimir Zelenskyy has drawn the world's attention and has led to a great deal of criticism by the left-leaning, anti-Trump media about how Donald Trump was disrespectful to a leader whose nation is fighting a critical war for the "freedom of the world".  You'd almost think that the media has forgotten this bit of history from June 2022:

Here's a quote from the story as covered by NBC News in October 2022:

"It’s become routine since Russia invaded Ukraine: President Joe Biden and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy speak by phone whenever the U.S. announces a new package of military assistance for Kyiv.

But a phone call between the two leaders in June played out differently from previous ones, according to four people familiar with the call. Biden had barely finished telling Zelenskyy he’d just greenlighted another $1 billion in U.S. military assistance for Ukraine when Zelenskyy started listing all the additional help he needed and wasn’t getting. Biden lost his temper, the people familiar with the call said. The American people were being quite generous, and his administration and the U.S. military were working hard to help Ukraine, he said, raising his voice, and Zelenskyy could show a little more gratitude."

Does this sound familiar in any way?

Here's more from NBC:

"Before the June 15 (2022) phone call, the president’s frustrations with Zelenskyy had been building for weeks, three people familiar with the call said. Biden and some of his top aides felt that the administration was doing as much as it could as quickly as it could but that Zelenskyy continued to focus publicly on only what wasn’t being done."

And, to close:

"After the pushback Zelenskyy got in their June phone call, his team decided to try to defuse tensions, concluding it wasn’t productive to have friction with the U.S. president, according to two sources familiar with the Ukraine government’s view, congressional aides and two European officials.

Zelenskyy responded publicly that day by thanking Biden for the promised assistance.

“I had an important conversation with U.S. President Biden today,” he said in videotaped remarks. “I am grateful for this support. It is especially important for our defense in Donbas.”

Here's the NBC News video which covers the story:

If you take this story into consideration, it would certainly appear that Zelenskyy has bought into his own press, believing that he is a rockstar world leader.  One would have to wonder, however, if he isn't the one with the behavioural problem?  It would seem, at the very least, that Zelenskyy believes that he is entitled to an unending supply of free arms from the United States, a nation that has already supplied him with over $120 billion in military, humanitarian and financial aid.

Isn't it fascinating how the 21st century mainstream media has become just like the media portrayed in George Orwell's 1984 where history is memory holed when it becomes inconvenient to the deep state's narrative, in this case, it's anti-Trump mantra?

Health Misinformation Part 1 - The Role of the Biden Administration and its Surgeon General

After this announcement from Health and Human Services in mid-July 2021:

 

...and the Surgeon General Vivek Murthy made this announcement:

 

....the Surgeon General released this advisory:

 

...which, in large part, points the finger at social media for its collaboration in spreading health misinformation during the COVID-19 pandemic.  Since the Surgeon General is appointed by the President of the United States and confirmed by the Senate, his views are representative of the Biden Administration's viewpoint on key issues, in this case, the COVID-19 pandemic.  In this two-part posting, we'll look at the commentary regarding fake health information and how the Biden Administration wants to crush any dissenting views followed by a closer look at how one of America's most influential foundations plans to wage war on health misinformation.

 

Here is some of the background from the Surgeon General's advisory with my bolds throughout:

 

"During the COVID-19 pandemic, people have been exposed to a great deal of information: news, public health guidance, fact sheets, infographics, research, opinions, rumors, myths, falsehoods, and more. The World Health Organization and the United Nations have characterized this unprecedented spread of information as an “infodemic”.

 

While information has helped people stay safe throughout the pandemic, it has at times led to confusion. For example, scientific knowledge about COVID-19 has evolved rapidly over the past year, sometimes leading to changes in public health recommendations. Updating assessments and recommendations based on new evidence is an essential part of the scientific process, and further changes are to be expected as we continue learning more about COVID-19.  But without sufficient communication that provides clarity and context, many people have had trouble figuring out what to believe, which sources to trust, and how to keep up with changing knowledge and guidance.

 

Amid all this information, many people have also been exposed to health misinformation: information that is false, inaccurate, or misleading according to the best available evidence at the time.  Misinformation has caused confusion and led people to decline COVID-19 vaccines, reject public health measures such as masking and physical distancing, and use unproven treatments.  For example, a recent study showed that even brief exposure to COVID-19 vaccine misinformation made people less likely to want a COVID-19 vaccine.  Misinformation has also led to harassment of and violence against public health workers, health professionals, airline staff, and other frontline workers tasked with communicating evolving public health measures."

 

Certainly, the science has evolved over the past 16 months, however, it is very, very clear that many of the "experts" being relied on by the government and mainstream media are not providing us with a balanced viewpoint of the pandemic and the vaccines being touted as the only solution to the problem. 

 

According to the Surgeon General, there have already been some steps taken to build a healthier information environment:

 

1.) Trusted community members, such as health professionals, faith leaders, and educators, have spoken directly to their communities to address COVID-19-related questions (e.g., in town halls, community meetings, via social and traditional media)

 

2.) Researchers have identified leading sources of COVID-19 misinformation, including misinformation “super-spreaders”

 

3.) Media organizations have devoted more resources to identify and debunk misinformation about COVID-19

 

4.) Some technology platforms have improved efforts to monitor and address misinformation by reducing the distribution of false or misleading posts and directing users to health information from credible sources

 

5.) Governments have increased their efforts to disseminate clear public health information in partnership with trusted messengers

It has become very clear that these "trusted" individuals are generally disseminating only one side of the pandemic narrative.

 

He does note that there is much more to be done and that, most importantly, each of us has a role to play as follows:

 

1.) By taking a moment to verify whether the information that we are reading on social media is accurate and whether the source is trustworthy before we choose to share it with other people.  

  

2.) When talking to friends and family who have misperceptions, we can ask questions to understand their concerns, listen with empathy, and offer guidance on finding sources of accurate information.

  

He then suggests the following areas of action that need to be taken:

 

1.) Equip Americans with the tools to identify misinformation, make informed choices about what information they share, and address health misinformation in their communities, in partnership with trusted local leaders

 

2.) Expand research that deepens our understanding of health misinformation, including how it spreads and evolves; how and why it impacts people; who is most susceptible; and which strategies are most effective in addressing it

 

3.) Implement product design and policy changes on technology platforms to slow the spread of misinformation

 

4.) Invest in longer-term efforts to build resilience against health misinformation, such as media, science, digital, data, and health literacy programs and training for health practitioners, journalists, librarians, and others

 

5.) Convene federal, state, local, territorial, tribal, private, nonprofit, and research partners to explore the impact of health misinformation, identify best practices to prevent and address it, issue recommendations, and find common ground on difficult questions, including appropriate legal and regulatory measures that address health misinformation while protecting user privacy and freedom of expression

 

Given that there is significant disagreement regarding the source of the "novel" coronavirus, the actual deadliness of the coronavirus (i.e. dying with or dying from) and the use of novel vaccines that may or may  not be safe because they were rushed to market in unprecedented haste and that researchers and medical professionals who do not share the prevailing and government-promoted narrative have been shutdown by social media platforms and threatened by their professional organizations and employers, I found this part interesting:

 

As well, given that the mainstream media has been complicit in promoting the narratives of Big Government and Big Pharma, this is also interesting:

 

The Surgeon General also lays a substantial share of the problem with medical disinformation at the feet of Big Tech:

 

....a viewpoint that is obviously shared with Joe Biden as shown here:

Let's look at the summary of the advisory noting that the Surgeon General's greatest concern is the link between health misinformation and COVID-19 vaccine reluctance:

 

"During the COVID-19 pandemic, health misinformation has sowed confusion, reduced trust in public health measures, and hindered efforts to get Americans vaccinated. And misinformation hasn’t just harmed our physical health—it has also divided our families, friends, and communities.

 

While health misinformation has always been a problem, today it spreads at unprecedented speed and scale. We are all still learning how to navigate this new information environment. But we know enough to be sure that misinformation is an urgent threat, and that we can and must confront it together.

 

The only way to address health misinformation is to recognize that all of us, in every sector of society, have a responsibility to act. Every single person can do their part to confront misinformation. But it’s not just an individual responsibility. We need institutions to recognize that this issue is their moral and civic responsibility, too, and that they are accountable."

  

From my perspective, one of the key problems with accessing accurate medical information during the pandemic has been the lack of transparency by governments and their officials who repeatedly change their minds about various aspects of the pandemic including this:

 

...and government leaders doing this while the rest of us are locked down:

  

...and social media companies banning anyone, no matter how qualified that they are, who provide a viewpoint that doesn't follow their limited pandemic narrative and then changing their minds once additional evidence comes to the forefront as shown here:

 

....and professional organizations who take actions against their members who have taken a stance that contradicts the stance on the pandemic of their professional organization:

 

....how on earth, as mere mortals, are we supposed to winnow the "medical truth" from the "medical misinformation" when even governments, health officials, medical researchers, other scientists and physicians can't agree on the COVID-19 narrative and are promoting their own version of medical misinformation which benefits them?  Following the money seems to be the mantra that we all need to keep in mind during the pandemic since each interest group is promoting the narrative that benefits its stakeholders.

In part two, we'll take a closer look at the proposal to battle the "scourge" of medical misinformation from one of the world's most influential Foundations.

Coronavirus Skeptics and How They Use Scientific Data to Bolster Their Viewpoint

A recent paper on the MIT website entitled "Viral Visualizations: How Coronavirus Skeptics Use Orthodox Data Practices to Promote Unorthodox Science Online" by Crystal Lee et al examines how coronavirus skeptics use data visualizations which are then posted on social media accounts showing that governments' response to the pandemic was excessive.  Here is a summary of the goals of the study:

  

"This paper investigates how pandemic visualizations circulated on social media, and shows that people who mistrust the scientific establishment often deploy the same rhetorics of data-driven decision- making used by experts, but to advocate for radical policy changes. Using a quantitative analysis of how visualizations spread on Twitter and an ethnographic approach to analyzing conversations about COVID data on Facebook, we document an epistemological gap that leads pro- and anti-mask groups to draw drastically different inferences from similar data. Ultimately, we argue that the deployment of COVID data visualizations reflect a deeper sociopolitical rift regarding the place of science in public life."

  

It is important to note that the authors of the study use the term "anti-masker" to represent individuals and groups that are in opposition to the norms of the mainstream public sphere (i.e. the lamestream media).  They also note that anti-maskers can be described as "counterpublic", that is, the organize themselves into groups that are in opposition to mainstream civic discourse.

  

Here is an additional quote from the paper with bolds being mine:

 

"In approaching anti-maskers as a counterpublic (a group shaped by its hostile stance toward mainstream science), we focus particular attention on one form of agentive media production central to their movement: data visualization. We define this counterpublic’s visualization practices as “counter-visualizations” that use orthodox scientific methods to make unorthodox arguments, beyond the pale of the scientific establishment. Data visualizations are not a neutral window onto an observer-independent reality; during a pandemic, they are an arena of political struggle.

 

Among other initiatives, these groups argue for open access to government data (claiming that CDC and local health departments are not releasing enough data for citizens to make informed decisions), and they use the language of data-driven decision-making to show that social distancing mandates are both ill-advised and unnecessary. In these discussions, we find that anti-maskers think carefully about the grammar of graphics by decomposing visualizations into layered components (e.g., raw data, statistical transformations, mappings, marks, colors). Additionally, they debate how each component changes the narrative that the visualization tells, and they brainstorm alternate visualizations that would better enhance public understanding of the data. This paper empirically shows how COVID anti-mask groups use data visualizations to argue that the US government’s response (broadly construed) to the pandemic is overblown, and that the crisis has long been over.

 

The authors investigated how anti-mask and anti-lockdown activists use the rhetoric of scientific rigour to oppose these public health measures.  These activists do not ignore scientific evidence in their arguments, rather, they use "counter-visualizations" by using orthodox methods to make unorthodox arguments that challenge the governments' narrative that the pandemic is urgent and ongoing.   The authors examined data visualizations through two methods:

 

1.) quantitative analysis of close to half a million tweets that used data visualizations to discuss the pandemic out of a set of over 390 million tweets spanning the period between January 21, 2020 and July 31, 2020.  The researchers processed over 41,000 images, many of which are quite professional in their presentation.  This was supplemented with a six month-long observational study of anti-mask groups on Facebook, extending from March to September 2020 which provided researchers with an overview of what online discourse about data and its visual representation looks like both inside and outside anti-mask groups.  The researchers followed five Facebook groups, each with a range of followers between 10,000 and 300,000, collecting posts that included terms for coronavirus and visualization

 

2.) qualitative analysis of anti-mask groups provided researchers with a view of how these groups leverage the language of scientific rigour (i.e. criticizing data sources, stating the limitations of specific models) to support ending public health restrictions.

  

Here are some examples of counter-visualizations from the coronavirus skeptics user network:

 

Now, let's look at what the research discovered as quoted from the article again with all bolds being mine:

 

"Anti-maskers have deftly used social media to constitute a cultural and discursive arena devoted to addressing the pandemic and its fallout through practices of data literacy. Data literacy is a quintessential criterion for membership within the community they have created. The prestige of both individual anti-maskers and the larger Facebook groups to which they belong is tied to displays of skill in accessing, interpreting, critiquing, and visualizing data, as well as the pro-social willingness to share those skills with other interested parties. This is a community of practice focused on acquiring and transmitting expertise, and on translating that expertise into concrete political action. Moreover, this is a subculture shaped by mistrust of established authorities and orthodox scientific viewpoints. Its members value individual initiative and ingenuity, trusting scientific analysis only insofar as they can replicate it themselves by accessing and manipulating the data firsthand. They are highly reflexive about the inherently biased nature of any analysis, and resent what they view as the arrogant self-righteousness of scientific elites.

 

As a subculture, anti-masking amplifies anti-establishment currents pervasive in U.S. political culture. Data literacy, for anti-maskers, exemplifies distinctly American ideals of intellectual self-reliance, which historically takes the form of rejecting experts and other elites. The counter-visualizations that they produce and circulate not only challenge scientific consensus, but they also assert the value of independence in a society that they believe promotes an overall de-skilling and dumbing-down of the population for the sake of more effective social control. As they see it, to counter-visualize is to engage in an act of resistance against the stifling influence of central government, big business, and liberal academia.

 

It is pretty hard to argue with the 'dumbing-down of the population" given how many people get what little news they access on a daily basis from their social media news feeds or the mainstream media which has proven itself to be little more than a mouthpiece for governments during the pandemic.  One need only look at the complete lack of media coverage regarding the concept of cycle thresholds for RT-PCR tests to understand how many of the COVID-positive tests are invalid to gain a sense of the mainstream media's complicity.

 

Let's close with a quote from the paper's conclusions:

 

"...the CDC’s initial public messaging that masks were ineffective—followed by a quick public reversal— seriously hindered the organization’s ability to effectively communicate as the pandemic progressed. As we have seen, people are not simply passive consumers of media: anti-mask users in particular were predisposed to digging through the scientific literature and highlighting the uncertainty in academic publications that media organizations elide. When these uncertainties did not surface within public-facing versions of these studies, people began to assume that there was a broader cover-up....

...Instead of treating increased adoption of data-driven storytelling as an unqualified good, we show that data visualizations are not simply tools that people use to understand the epidemiological events around them.  They are a battleground that highlight the contested role of expertise in modern American life."

 

While governments and the mainstream media are doing their best to dismiss COVID skeptics as ignorant and ill-informed "anti-vaxxers" and in some cases linking them to white supremacy and far-right extremism as shown here:

 

...in fact, this research shows that COVID skeptics are quite capable of presenting the world with a cogent argument that governments, public health officials, NGOs and Big Pharma should not be trusted to tell us the whole truth and nothing but the truth when it comes to the current pandemic.

 

How Americans Get Their News

There is little doubt that we live in a post-truth era, particularly when it comes to governments and their mainstream media lackeys.  The reportage during the ongoing pandemic and the 2020 United States presidential election is proof that we can no longer trust the media for independent and thoroughly researched news coverage.  Given these observations, in this posting, we'll look at which sources of news Americans rely on for their daily intake of events that are occurring around the world.  

 

In mid-2020, Pew Research Center completed a survey looking at where Americans get their news.  Gone are the days when families would huddle around their television set around the supper hour or just before going to bed to catch up on the day's news.  According to the study from August/September 2020, the majority of Americans got their news from digital devices including smartphones, computers or tablets with a small minority getting their news from the old-fashioned print publications as shown on this graphic:

 

At that time, 52 percent of Americans said that they preferred a digital platform for their news with sources as follows:

 

This can be broken down further with preferences as follows:

 

1.) 26 percent preferred to get their digital news from news websites or apps.

 

2.) 12 percent preferred to get their digital news from search engines.

 

3.) 11 percent preferred to get their news from social media.

 

4.) 3 percent preferred to get their news from podcasts.

 

The preferred source of news varies with age as shown here:

 

Now, given the growing percentage of Americans who get their news from social media platforms, let's look at Pew's research into news use across social media platforms from early 2021.  Here is a graphic that shows which social media platforms are used by Americans as a regular source of news:

 

As you can see, Facebook is the most used by American adults as a regular source of news.  If we look at the percentage of each social media site's total number of users who regularly get news from each site, we find that Twitter is the most commonly used:

  

1.) Twitter - 59 percent

 

2.) Facebook - 54 percent

 

3.) Reddit - 42 percent

 

4.) YouTube - 32 percent

 

5.) Instagram - 28 percent

 

6.) TikTok - 22 percent

 

7.) Snapchat - 19 percent

 

8.) LinkedIn - 15 percent

 

9.) WhatsApp - 13 percent

 

10.) Twitch - 11 percent

  

The percentage of Americans who use social media as a news source also varies by political persuasion with more Democrats/Democrat leaners using social media than Republicans/Republican leaners:

 

1.) Facebook - Republican - 46 percent Democrat - 50 percent

 

2.) YouTube - Republican - 42 percent Democrat - 55 percent

 

3.) Twitter - Republican - 33 percent Democrat - 65 percent

 

4.) Instagram - Republican - 32 percent Democrat - 64 percent

 

5.) Reddit - Republican - 21 percent Democrat - 79 percent

 

Despite the use of social media as a news source, a very significant percentage of news consumers expect news on social media to be inaccurate as shown here:

 

Let's close this posting with a brief summary.  Given the growing use of social media/digital platforms as a source of news and a general decline in journalistic independence and research and the general distrust in social media news accuracy, it is interesting to see that a very significant portion of American news consumers still get their daily news fix from Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and other similar sources.  We all know that the technology sector generally leans fairly heavily to the left of the political spectrum, the fact that Americans rely on social media platforms for what passes as "news coverage" is particularly concerning given the growing political divide that is plaguing Washington.  Additionally, it really is no surprise that Americans (and people in other nations that rely on social media for their "news") are having trouble determining scientifically-proven facts from fiction during the pandemic.

 

India, COVID and Mainstream Media Truthiness

While India is garnering the mainstream media's ceaseless attention to all things COVID, there are a couple of things that we need to consider.

 

First, here is a graph from Our World In Data showing the number of cumulative COVID-19-related deaths per million people for the United States, the United Kingdom and India:

 

As you can see, India totally missed the first and second waves of COVID-19-related deaths which peaked at 0.18 percent in the United Kingdom in January 2021, 0.104 percent in the United States also in January 2021.  Currently, India's COVID-19 death rate is 0.018 percent, roughly one-tenth of the peak death rate of the United Kingdom.  Certainly, the death rate in India will increase as time passes but, as you can see, currently it is well below the rates experienced in two of the world's most affected nations and, as shown here, has relatively little to do with where the advanced economies of the world are headed.  Interestingly, we'll never see this reported in the mainstream media.

  

As well, thanks to the internet archive, here is a screen capture taken from a sad and rather alarming story that appeared in the New York Post on April 26, 2021:

Here is a closeup of the photo which appeared in the article purporting to show an Indian woman "dying" in the street of COVID-19:

 

Oddly enough, you can see the same woman wearing purple clothing lying on the sidewalk while the young woman in the multi-coloured top and white pants with a dark stripe in this photo:

 

The only problem is that this photo was found in a news story on Sky News dated May 7, 2020 reporting on a gas leak at an LG Polymers plant located in Andhra Pradesh:

 

 

So, either the same ill woman in India was lying on the sidewalk wearing the same clothing and being attended to by the same young woman nearly 12 months ago as a result of a gas leak and was ill yet again in late April 2021 due to COVID-19 or the mainstream media is lying to us or just doing sloppy reporting.

  

Fortunately for us all, the New York Post posted this small retraction at the bottom of the edited story, blaming Reuters for their misstep/sloppiness:

 

This begs the question; how often has this happened in the past year when it comes to reportage on the pandemic?

If there is one thing that the world has taught us in the past year it's that we are living in a post-truth era where the mainstream media has become a big part of propagating a false, government-created narrative that is being used to stoke fear and keep us all in line.

To Mask or Not to Mask - What is the Difference?

Before we get to the subject of this posting, let's look at some very recent headlines from the mainstream media regarding masks:

 

1.) NBC:  

2.) NYT:  

 

3.) CNN:

 

All three mainstream media reports refer to a recently released study by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention CDC which was published on Friday March 5, 2021.  Let's take a closer look at the study itself rather than just heeding the coverage of the study by the media.

 

Here is the lead page of the study:

 

The authors of the study looked at the period of time from March 1, 2020 to December 31, 2020, determining which jurisdictions had mask mandates and in-restaurant dining as described here:

  

"Starting in April, 39 states and the District of Columbia (DC) issued mask mandates in 2020. Reducing person-to-person interactions by avoiding nonessential shared spaces, such as restaurants, where interactions are typically unmasked and physical distancing (≥6 ft) is difficult to maintain, can also decrease transmission (2). In March and April 2020, 49 states and DC prohibited any on-premises dining at restaurants, but by mid-June, all states and DC had lifted these restrictions. To examine the association of state-issued mask mandates and allowing on-premises restaurant dining with COVID-19 cases and deaths during March 1–December 31, 2020, county-level data on mask mandates and restaurant reopenings were compared with county-level changes in COVID-19 case and death growth rates relative to the mandate implementation and reopening dates. Mask mandates were associated with decreases in daily COVID-19 case and death growth rates 1–20, 21–40, 41–60, 61–80, and 81–100 days after implementation. Allowing any on-premises dining at restaurants was associated with increases in daily COVID-19 case growth rates 41–60, 61–80, and 81–100 days after reopening, and increases in daily COVID-19 death growth rates 61–80 and 81–100 days after reopening."

 

The researchers obtained county-level data on state-issued mask mandates and restaurant closures , their effective and expiration dates and the counties to which they applied.  Masking and restaurant closures were defined as following:

1.) Mask mandates - were defined as requirements for persons to wear a mask 1) anywhere outside their home or 2) in retail businesses and in restaurants or food establishments

  

2.) Restaurant closures - were defined as prohibitions on restaurants operating or limiting service to takeout, curbside pickup, or delivery. Allowing restaurants to provide indoor or outdoor on-premises dining was defined as the state lifting a state-issued restaurant closure.

  

Over the period between March 1, 2020 and December 31,2020, state-issued mask mandates applied to 2,313 or 73.6 percent of the 3,142 counties and during the same study period, states allowed restaurants to reopen for on-premises dining in 3,076 or 97.9 percent of counties.  

  

Now, let's look at the conclusions of the research:

 

1.) Mask mandates - Mask mandates were associated with a 0.5 percentage point decrease (p = 0.02) in daily COVID-19 case growth rates 1–20 days after implementation and decreases of 1.1, 1.5, 1.7, and 1.8 percentage points 21–40, 41–60, 61–80, and 81–100 days, respectively, after implementation. Mask mandates were associated with a 0.7 percentage point decrease in daily COVID-19 death growth rates 1–20 days after implementation and decreases of 1.0, 1.4, 1.6, and 1.9 percentage points 21–40, 41–60, 61–80, and 81–100 days, respectively, after implementation. Daily case and death growth rates before implementation of mask mandates were not statistically different from the reference period.

  

2.) Restaurant closures - Changes in daily COVID-19 case and death growth rates were not statistically significant 1–20 and 21–40 days after restrictions were lifted. Allowing on-premises dining at restaurants was associated with 0.9, 1.2 , and 1.1  percentage point increases in the case growth rate 41–60, 61–80, and 81–100 days, respectively, after restrictions were lifted. Allowing on-premises dining at restaurants was associated with 2.2 and 3.0 percentage point increases in the death growth rate 61–80 and 81–100 days, respectively, after restrictions were lifted. Daily death growth rates before restrictions were lifted were not statistically different from those during the reference period, whereas significant differences in daily case growth rates were observed 41–60 days before restrictions were lifted.

  

Here is a table which summarizes the findings for the masking mandate and restaurant dining:

 

So, basically, the implementation of a mask mandate resulted in a maximum COVID-19 case growth rate of 1.8 percentage points 81 to 100 days after implementation and resulted in a 1.9 percentage point decrease in daily COVID-19 death growth rates 81 to 100 days after implementation.  Restaurant on-premises dining resulted in a 1.1 percentage point increase in the COVID-19 case growth rate 81 to 100 days after implementation and a 3.0 percentage point increase in the death growth rate 81 to 100 days after implementation.  

Let's close with this quote from the discussion portion of the paper which is different in the .pdf version than the HTML version (my bolds):

 

"Community mitigation measures can help reduce the transmission of SARS-CoV-2. In this study, mask mandates were associated with reductions in COVID-19 case and death growth rates within 20 days, whereas allowing on-premises dining at restaurants was associated with increases in COVID-19 case and death growth rates after 40 days. With the emergence of more transmissible COVID-19 variants, community mitigation measures are increasingly important as part of a larger strategy to decrease exposure to and reduce transmission of SARS-CoV-2. Community mitigation policies, such as state-issued mask mandates and prohibition of on-premises restaurant dining, have the potential to slow the spread of COVID-19, especially if implemented with other public health strategies."

 

As you can see, even the CDC is admitting that the use of mask mandates and closures of restaurants only "have the potential to slow the spread of COVID-19".  Given the large number of false positive test results from the RT-PCR test that governments are using to define who has been infected and who has not, we can be pretty certain that the small changes in infections and deaths related to COVID-19 are even smaller than what the CDC's research shows.  

But, you'd never guess that if all you read was the mainstream media and it shocking headlines, would you?