To mask or not to mask... that is the question?

Proof that taking an actual logic class in college was worthless in 2020

So to have it be told, this is another no lose or no win situation. Apparently whether or not there is any statistical evidence that masks work, they work because Fauci and Birx say they do? 

Look, I can understand if states that do not have a mask mandate are seeing a spike in cases, that it might be logical or fair to consider this as an indictment of the policy. But if you are seeing a large spike in cases in states that are using a mask mandate, there seems to be the additional argument that this "also" suggests that mask mandates are working? 

It's all a little like Paul Krugman economic reasoning. The reason why Keynesian economic policy has never worked, no matter how many times it's tried isn't an indictment on Keynesian economic policy. It's just prove that we have never gone "far enough" to make it work. 

But I digress.  

Let's face the facts. This virus has at one time or the other spiked in different areas of the country. It was originally a coastal thing, then it became a sun belt state issue, and now the worst of the virus appears to be crawling up the country into the midwest. That seems to be more of a natural course of events, rather than something controlled by how portions of the country are handling things. 

Let's take Montana, Wyoming, and Idaho which sit right next to each other. Montana has a full mask mandate, while Wyoming and Idaho only has portions of the state under a mask mandate. Montana is currently seeing 55 cases per 100K over the past 7 days, Idaho is seeing 41 cases per 100K, while Wyoming is seeing 35 cases per 100K. If the mask mandate is supposed to be the virus killer, why is Montana not seeing less cases than their neighbors? Only North Dakota (which borders them on the east) is seeing more cases?

To be clear, there is currently a full 100% mask mandate effective in States that affects over 238 million Americans or about 75% of the country. The rest of the country (with the exception of the 4 million who live in South Dakota and Utah) are in partial mask mandates, generally requiring them in most larger cities, most places of business, and requiring them for any employee who works in public. So it would likely be fair to say that upwards of 90% of our country (or possibly more) is under a strict mask mandate currently and 99% of the country is under some mask mandate. 

Yet our cases continue to spike nationally in spite of nearly every American putting on masks? 

The reality (as much as this hurts some) is that we cannot blame South Dakota or Utah for a spike in cases in Wisconsin ,Minnesota or Illinois. Nor can we really blame North Dakota or Wyoming and their few hundred cases a day for the national average shooting up. The virus appears to be gaining more steam everywhere. Maybe the mask mandates are helping to keep the virus from being worse, but that is a difficult thing to "prove" at this point.

I hate to keep beating the dead horse here, but if you look at Sweden (as your example of what not to do according to Fauci and Birx) they have not yet seen a second wave, much less the third wave that we are experiencing now. Yesterday the entire country of Sweden reported under 700 new cases and not a single new death. They have seen less than 200 dead over the past four months. Think about that... less than 200 since July 21st? That is a bad day for California, Texas or Florida. 

We are doing it right... as we head into wave three with an average of around 700 deaths per day and 99% of our country on mask mandates. Sweden who according to Fauci doesn't even have a strategy, has had no secondary waves, are averaging less than 2 deaths per day, and are under no mask mandate. 

Perhaps someone can explain the logic to me? 

Because this was never taught in logic 101.