This is a bad faith post intentionally spreading misinformation.
Ignoring the quality of these studies, the first concluded that cloth masks were less effective than medical masks, not that the are worse than no mask. It also evaluated and discussed the use of cloth masks to protect health care workers, not to slow the spread of sars-cov-2 via respiratory droplets.
The second, tiny, study says nothing about damage. Their results suggested that surgical masks reduce cardiopulmonary function slightly with surgical masks and a little more with N95 masks.
That is not what the paper found, all you need is to read the abstract:
"Cloth masks also had significantly higher rates of ILI compared with the control arm"
As for the second paper here is the summarry:
"The increased breathing resistance is especially problematic for patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary diseases. Patients with diffusion disorders have reduced capacity to compensate due to the reduced tidal volume. Another example of a population at risk is patients with heart failure. The observed mechanisms may lead to more severe symptoms in individuals with impaired capacity for myocardial compensation."
All I am pointing out is that masks are likely to have serious side effects, all which are completely disregarded and downplayed.
I'm glad both exist for sure. My favorite thing about the chip is lipo charging built-in. But micro-sd, HDMI, and the camera connector on the Pi are useful too.
