If you're advocating the wearing of masks premised on that sort of evidence, you should be advocating Vitamin D supplementation, and you probably should be advocating Zinc+HCQ as a prophylactic, because you just lowered your scientific standards by that much.
In fact, I don't need more evidence to wear masks. I have no problem with wearing a mask. I have no problem with advocating the wearing of masks in an honest fashion. It's plausible that masks do help to some degree. It's however also plausible that they hurt in some ways, that they serve as a reservoir for viruses and bacteria.
If anything, I have a problem with the intellectual dishonesty surrounding the advocacy of masks.
There is maybe some point of diminishing returns in wearing masks, but what the limit is isn't clear. Sweden seems to agree with you and against general use of masks, although my trust in their approach is limited by their pretty terrible results: death rate of nearly 600/M against HK's 12/M.
Regarding increased risk of falling ill because of the mask, there is not much evidence to support that. That's not saying it doesn't or can't happen but while you emphasise a lack of evidence to convince you that masks are worthwhile at scale, there is even less evidence that wearing a mask will cause any other type of hurt that would cancel-out the benefits.
I personaly hate masks, they itch, are uncomfortable and they pollute. It's clear they are not a panacea. They are however part of the small set of limited practical measures that we can take to help slow the rate of infection (by limiting the exposure of others to the crap we exhale).
Hong Kong will be an interesting experiment to follow because I foresee that people will continue wearing masks long after everyone else. We'll see the long term effects this has on the 8M people living there. I'm sure it will be worthy of a few papers.
No matter how often I say "I'm not against masks", people still read it is "this guy is against masks", merely because I question the quality of the scientific evidence. No sane discussion on this topic is possible anymore, it's all "which side are you on, boy?", which is disheartening.
> That's not saying it doesn't or can't happen but while you emphasise a lack of evidence to convince you that masks are worthwhile at scale, there is even less evidence that wearing a mask will cause any other type of hurt that would cancel-out the benefits.
I literally said I don't need more evidence in favor of masks. It's not about masks, it's about Vitamin D in light of our treatment of masks. I don't need more evidence in favor of Vitamin-D supplementation, either. Go for it, just be honest about it.
You've said you're against advocating mask usage. We are arguing that although there could certainly be more and better evidence, that there is more than sufficient evidence to advocate for their widespread usage.
I haven't said that either.