Some people don't think COVID is over & are wearing masks and ruining their lungs in the process.

Question

Some people don't think COVID is over and are wearing masks and ruining their lungs in the process.

Answer 1

This claim is technically true, as far as people believing that "covid is not over", however, the claim that wearing masks has negative effects on lungs is not true. This is further proven by following the link to the source used in this claim, which is a response to an article on social media platform X. The response which is quoted says "Wait People Think #covidisnotover and they are still wearing masks?" and goes on to say "Great way to ruin your lungs" (X). This was posted in response to an article from UnityPoint Health stating that several myths on masks having negative effects are untrue. The article definitively states "Wearing a face mask is one of the CDC approved strategies recommended to decrease the spread of the virus" (UnityPoint Health). To further investigate this claim, I looked to the National Library of Medicine, which performed a study on this very issue, and found that masks themselves have no discernible negative effects, "Our results suggest that wearing a surgical mask does not produce significant respiratory impairment in healthy subjects nor in subjects with asthma" (NIH). This claim is true in large part but includes a falsity and is therefore misleading.

https://bsky.app/profile/did:plc:z3nykmac5u6qn6shqbno7ljt/post/3lbldim3sfk22

https://www.unitypoint.org/news-and-articles/expert-sets-straight-5-common-face-mask-myths

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7809976/

Comments

This is a great fact check, it's impressive how many sources you drew together to show the flaws in the claim being made in the tweet. You did a good job selecting credible and noteworthy sources, which contrasted with that which is cited in this claim pretty heavily. Great job, the only thing I would consider further is whether this is exaggerated, or just plain false. The masks ruining your lungs seem pretty central to the claim, and that seems beyond a doubt false.