This has been a growing, serious concern in recent months as the dangerous health and emotional effects, especially on children, who are at almost zero risk of Covid harm, are becoming more pronounced and deeply worrisome.

VARIOUS FACE MASK STUDIES PROVE THEIR INEFFECTIVENESS
1. Surgical mask / cloth face mask studies
Community and Close Contact Exposures Associated with COVID-19 Among Symptomatic Adults ≥18 Years in 11 Outpatient Health Care Facilities — United States, July 2020

The US Centre for Disease Control performed a study which showed that 85 percent of those who contracted Covid-19 during July 2020 were mask wearers. Just 3.9 percent of the study participants never wore a mask.
Original:
Erratum. correction:

2. Facial protection for healthcare workers during pandemics: a scoping review
This study used 5462 peer-reviewed articles and 41 grey literature records.

“Conclusion: The COVID-19 pandemic has led to critical shortages of medical-grade PPE. Alternative forms of facial protection offer inferior protection. More robust evidence is required on different types of medical-grade facial protection. As research on COVID-19 advances, investigators should continue to examine the impact on alternatives of medical-grade facial protection”
So how is your cloth and surgical mask working again if EVEN medical grade alternatives are failing ?
Study Article:

3. Physical interventions to interrupt or reduce the spread of respiratory viruses
“There is moderate certainty evidence that wearing a mask probably makes little or no difference to the outcome of laboratory-confirmed influenza compared to not wearing a mask”

Study article:

4. Disposable surgical face masks for preventing surgical wound infection in clean surgery
“We included three trials, involving a total of 2106 participants. There was no statistically significant difference in infection rates between the masked and unmasked group in any of the trials”

Study article:

5. Disposable surgical face masks: a systematic review
Two randomized controlled trials were included involving a total of 1453 patients. In a small trial there was a trend towards masks being associated with fewer infections, whereas in a large trial there was no difference in infection rates between the masked and unmasked group.

Study article:

6. Evaluating the efficacy of cloth facemasks in reducing particulate matter exposure
“Our results suggest that cloth masks are only marginally beneficial in protecting individuals from particles<2.5 μm” Study article: 7. Face seal leakage of half masks and surgical masks “The filtration efficiency of the filter materials was good, over 95%, for particles above 5 micron in diameter but great variation existed for smaller particles. Coronavirus is 0.125 microns. therefore these masks wouldn’t protect you from the virus” Study article: 8. Comparison of the Filter Efficiency of Medical Nonwoven Fabrics against Three Different Microbe Aerosols “The filter efficiencies against influenza virus particles were the lowest” “We conclude that the filter efficiency test using the phi-X174 phage aerosol may overestimate the protective performance of nonwoven fabrics with filter structure compared to that against real pathogens such as the influenza virus” Study article: 9. Aerosol penetration through surgical masks