Their fundamental message was that masks do not work. They hedged in their language, but their recommendations were predicated on the idea that they are ineffec

Their fundamental message was that masks do not work. They hedged in their language, but their recommendations were predicated on the idea that they are ineffective at slowing transmission. This is and was disastrously false. Saying that "there's no evidence that masks work" is tantamount to saying they don't work. There is also no formal evidence that standing next to an infected person is a risk. I'm not aware of any studies that have officially proven that yet. But we still know that it is, and saying "there's no evidence that exposure to an infected person puts you at risk of infection" would be a ridiculously inaccurate thing to say.