[glofish]

the difference of course is that it that, unlike handwashing or dumping fecal matter in the water, there is still no scientific evidence that masks actually work (for reducing infections when worn on the street by a population where most people are not infected)

no seriously - I wish I were kidding!

[nick_kline]

I feel like that's misleading. The key thing you said is outside - inside there is plenty of research about various aspects of the protective value of masks in stopping droplets and comparisons of various masks. https://newsnetwork.mayoclinic.org/discussion/mayo-clinic-re...

[glofish]

If you study the scientific literature for works that measure actual infections with/without masks (and not hypothetical scenarios on droplet travel distances) you'll find that the science is far from being established.

Take a look here just how many works indicate no effect:

https://swprs.org/face-masks-evidence/

These may be cherry picked of course - no question there, still it is evidence that the science is not settled.

For a "home-run" review see the Cochrane review:

https://www.cochrane.org/CD006207/ARI_do-physical-measures-s...

Not even N95/P2 respirators were found to be effective.