It adds up to significant unnecessary suffering. It’s clear to me that doing, e.g., human challenge vaccine trials was a much more cost-effective measure (nowad

It adds up to significant unnecessary suffering. It’s clear to me that doing, e.g., human challenge vaccine trials was a much more cost-effective measure (nowadays just get the bloody vaccine and be done with pandemic), and masks are just a weak band-aid for which I have not seen much more evidence since the Slatestarcodex review (which called CDC on its bullshit very early: masks probably help a bit, but not much, and the evidence is weak either way), and they are being used first and foremost as a political signaling and psychological comfort device (remember the whole “masks more effective than vaccines” rhetoric).