Howdy. I haven't been on Steem for a while; prior to the Hive Fork. Haven't been on that much, even after. That said, I wanted to reach out, and share my own info.

First off: Covid HAD infected only about 1% of the global population. The recovery rate is about 70%! https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/

https://wwwnc.cdc.gov/eid/article/26/5/19-0994_article "... from literature published during 1946 - July 27, 2018. In pooled analysis, we found no significant reduction in influenza transmission with the use of face masks..."

Others on masks being ineffective:

Annals of Internal Medicine: https://www.acpjournals.org/doi/10.7326/M20-6817

Oxford Centre for Evidence-Based Medicine: https://www.cebm.net/covid-19/masking-lack-of-evidence-with-politics/

University of East Anglia: https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.05.01.20088260v1.full.pdf

University of Illinois: https://www.cidrap.umn.edu/news-perspective/2020/04/commentary-masks-all-covid-19-not-based-sound-data

New England Journal of Medicine: https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMp2006372

Cochrane: https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.03.30.20047217v2

Norwich School of Medicine: https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.04.01.20049528v1

British Medical Journal BMJ Open: https://bmjopen.bmj.com/content/5/4/e006577

With all these sources clearly stating masks are ineffective (some say "more research...may show effectiveness...") what is the reason?

People may want to also use a VPN, and connect to TOR. Or they may want to use TAILS, WHONIX, Qube, etc...