[thu2111]

I think you have been misled. The sudden benefits of masks is a fiction invented out of whole cloth just weeks ago.

Here's what the US CDC was saying about masks before COVID:

https://wwwnc.cdc.gov/eid/article/26/5/19-0994_article

Although mechanistic studies support the potential effect of hand hygiene or face masks, evidence from 14 randomized controlled trials of these measures did not support a substantial effect on transmission of laboratory-confirmed influenza

The idea that anything about this topic is clear or demonstrable is ridiculous. Masks are an ideological issue by the left, which is why my entirely reasonable post has been so aggressively downvoted.