I've read through your replies and appreciate your nuanced good faith arguments. But I have a totally different view and agree with the other poster.
I'm not debating whether a mask can stop a sneeze (if it's aerosolized then definitely not) but I do absolutely think mask mandates do not "probably" work. I think my blog post is valid. We see this not only in LA, but most places. They do nothing at a population scale. They were implemented, mandated at a population scale. We naysayers expected this. Forcing an uninformed public to strap a dirty cloth to their face assuming it would go like surgeons at the hospital is an example of naivety.
I read your report results but Australia itself is in a unique situation as it was one of the few to "control" it. Though the crux of our argument is you can't really control it - and attempting to do so comes at great expense. As evidenced by the irony of a 6th lockdown. That is not "great" to me. Who knows what will happen if you ever open up to the outside world again. Our argument is that it's mostly down to environmental and population factors.
Flippancy with these lockdowns is "let them eat cake". Upper class lumping this on the working class. Not being allowed to leave my house for being fined by police is insanity to me. You are stuck in your house while the past year the Swedes have lived free. They experienced no special calamity. Average in Europe. Sure - there have been deaths, but it hasn't really been preventable outside a few remote island nations... (yeah, you managed to stop community spread as well). I would not trust China to have been able to stop anything - they simply understood the threat and have lived with it since
Not to mention - all this for a virus that's not that much of a calamity. 1% of America is 3.5 million people. So you weigh the needs of the majority against much less than 1%. And you have to understand what's in a number. This is not 600,000 healthy people who have fallen over and died. Consider most are above life expectancy.
You're right though, in the end it comes down to opinion, my culture is not your culture. Do you want to make your entire life and society about this problem? A society which sacrifices the young for the old? Unfortunately, the authoritarians take all the opposed with them (happens in my country as well).
Unfortunately I don't have time for a full argument with sources, but my profile has more.