What are your thoughts on COVID-19 & Masks & mis-information?
I think we should listen to doctors (like Fauci) and epidemiologists. Who universally say masks protect people.
Do you feel like you can easily determine the truth? If so, how?
Yes. Misinformation spreads easily on social media sites and lesser known fake news sites. Stick to reputable news sources and pay close attention to where the information is coming from. Do they have a vested interest in peddling falsehood?
Some people claim COVID-19 is a complete hoax, despite that would require every government worldwide having either fallen for it or be complicit in this hoax.
Some people can claim we are in fact living in the recesses of Europa, inside an alien's armpit. The point is, you can claim anything without evidence.
Some people claim masks are useless or unhealthy. Others claim areas and cultures that regularly use masks when having any symptom of sickness have already largely recovered (ex. Japan).
Not sure about that. Do a literature review and get back to me.
Some people claim mask usage helps with privacy and protects to some degree against facial recognition. That clearly incentives some corporations and anti-privacy advocates (hard on crime type people) to oppose mask usage.
True but I've not seen any evidence of that.
Some people claim that that common cold and the flu are being intentional misdiagnosed as COVID-19. Why would this be done? Who benefits? The yearly flu vaccine already makes money, such the producers of that vaccine would lose money? At least until they can sell the COVID-19 vaccine? Big-tech and billionaires are making money, but their money is also worth less with the large uptick in inflation (maybe that doesn't matter with their investments being in things other than money?).
A lot of your points start with 'some people'. Who? Donald J. Trump? The Surgeon General? The crack addict who lives at the end of your block? Sounds like a bullshit conspiracy theory.
Some people claim that the number of deaths are being inflated by intentionally misattributing other causes of death as COVID-19. Some people claim that doing this in financial advantageous for the hospitals.
On the last point, God bless amerikkka. In the civilised world, you can look at excess death statistics and you can see for yourself the direct and indirect consequences of Covid-19 (compare 2019 deaths to 2020). There is some debate of when to issue the cut off for a Covid death, 30, 60 or 90 days post test. I think dying with symptoms is the most accurate.
I probably have heard a lot of other information/misinformation, but I don't know what to believe. I don't think anything anyone tells me will be able to convince me that I am actually able to verify things for myself, but at least I can try to get a better understanding of why and where mis-information is coming from.
BBC podcast 'More or Less' has done a podcast series about Covid-19, you should listen to that.
tl;dr stay off social media stick to mainstream, non state-sponsored, objective, news sources. E.g. Reuters.