[Goose]

My basic conclusion is if everyone wears masks inside public places, and wears them outside in gatherings of more than a couple people, we should be able to contain spread to a manageable level so we don't need to do any more lockdowns.

The problem, of course, is there are far too many dumb asses who won't wear a mask because they are making some pointless political statement with the "don't tread on me" nonsense. 

The U.S. will be at 2 Million reported cases by Monday in large measure because of this.

I hope you are correct, but I haven't seen any conclusive data that says you are. Until fairly recently wearing a mask was considered ineffective for the general public. We are now getting some data indicating that it might in fact be useful. I have been wearing one even when I do exercise (which isn't optimal) more as a message than in the belief I am actually preventing others from getting infected. I am mostly far enough away that it probably wouldn't matter. In other words, I wouldn't count on that as enough, given what I know at this time.

I am concerned that people are reasoning as follows: Taiwan, HK, and Korea have managed to contain the virus. People in those countries wear masks. Therefore, if we wear masks, we will also contain the virus. They forget that there are major quarantine and contact tracing operations going on in those countries. One could argue that if we match that level of effective effort as well, it will be apples to apples and we can expect (or at least reasonably hope for) success. However, expecting containment only by wearing masks is a big reach IMHO, even if everyone complies. That said, give how slow our counties have been to generate any credible track and trace program, we may have no other option for a period of several months at least.

[Goose]

My basic conclusion is if everyone wears masks inside public places, and wears them outside in gatherings of more than a couple people, we should be able to contain spread to a manageable level so we don't need to do any more lockdowns.

The problem, of course, is there are far too many dumb asses who won't wear a mask because they are making some pointless political statement with the "don't tread on me" nonsense. 

The U.S. will be at 2 Million reported cases by Monday in large measure because of this.

I hope you are correct, but I haven't seen any conclusive data that says you are. Until fairly recently wearing a mask was considered ineffective for the general public. We are now getting some data indicating that it might in fact be useful. I have been wearing one even when I do exercise (which isn't optimal) more as a message than in the belief I am actually preventing others from getting infected. I am mostly far enough away that it probably wouldn't matter. In other words, I wouldn't count on that as enough, given what I know at this time.

I am concerned that people are reasoning as follows: Taiwan, HK, and Korea have managed to contain the virus. People in those countries wear masks. Therefore, if we wear masks, we will also contain the virus. They forget that there are major quarantine and contact tracing operations going on in those countries. One could argue that if we match that level of effective effort as well, it will be apples to apples and we can expect (or at least reasonably hope for) success. However, expecting containment only by wearing masks is a big reach IMHO, even if everyone complies. That said, give how slow our counties have been to generate any credible track and trace program, we may have no other option for a period of several months at least.