But I’m fucking mad! 22,000 people. Yes, the republicans of “we’re all going to die eventually” and they are working hard at making it happen.

Covid deaths are still averaging around 350 per week or 18,000 per year.

And I'm still masking inside when I do have to go somewhere like a doctor's office, etc.

and has had Covid twice, despite taking remediation measures on her own for her room. Being at Stage 4 Kidney Disease, it scares the hell of out me for her.

I used to work at one the Army Warfighting colleges, and let me tell you... it's as bad there as anywhere. I'm not talking covid, I was gone just before that hit. But I have a weakened immune system, and whenever the new semester would start, several of us would come down sick like clockwork. Little kids are bad because they're into everything and everybody... but even 20 and 30 yr olds in school settings are bad.

Not easily fixed at all.

a good portion of it and I didn't' see anything concrete there to substantiate the claim. The only fact that can be said with raw honesty is that it COULD have contributed. The study is based on what could also as easily be called coincidental timing. That is what difference-in-differences models are. While there is no real doubt that it could, to put a number on it and say that caused it is irresponsible and possibly very misleading.
The entire covid thing was politicized, and it is still being politicized now. This is the biggest travesty of all. In the way a virus pattern runs and the fast pace at which it changes, contributing these effects to any single action is is extremely difficult to say the least. It's no different than saying "People who took ivermectin felt better sooner because of it". None of that is based on measurable fact, it is based on assumption. This study isn't much different.
I don't mean to be contrary, but I insist on skepticism. I don't trust anyone anymore in this realm because almost all of them have lied to me in one way or another.

A recently retired coworker with COPD used to brag that he didn't need a mask because he never gets sick.

"Dude, in the past five years you've had COVID six times and the flu twice."

Shrugs. "But other than that, I never get sick."

In the past five years, I have been sick once and it was a stomach virus...I think I wore a mask for a week or less, because Tennessee didn't require any of that. Once everyone figured out that masks were becoming political and not useful, off they went.

I never got a covid vaccine nor did my wife and neither of us ever got covid that we know of. On a side note, I worked in a prison at the time with many older male inmates. Only one inmate died from covid and he was in his 70's, diabetic and congestive heart failure.

Hmm... From which side of the aisle have I heard that propaganda before?

Not being in exact lockstep and questioning everything, used to be a virtue and now it is often cursed as "propaganda".

If a mask isn't viewed as a political statement, then why would anyone care one way or another?

I am also familiar with the concept of questioning something for actual truth, especially when it seems to have become a badge of my own party.

And your claim of "questioning something for actual truth" echoes nearly verbatim that affected "skeptical" position maintained by Joe Rogan, Jordan Peterson, Alex Jones, and their ilk.

I am manifestly not accusing you of being a Rightwing troll, but your comments resonate very strongly with the dribble that we've gotten for years from self-declared truth-seekers.

Just before Christmas, a security guard at one place told me to remove my mask- I called for the Manager and showed them the directive from the Ministry of Health which was published three days before. The manager apologized and that was that.