What a lot of people have forgotten is that in March 2020, they thought COVID was droplets, not aerosol - remember all the emphasis on washing hands and hand sa

What a lot of people have forgotten is that in March 2020, they thought COVID was droplets, not aerosol - remember all the emphasis on washing hands and hand sanitizer? - and as such, masks would be overkill for most. Combine that with the worry that people would hoard masks when PPE was in short supply for people would be interacting directly with patients, then the initial discouragement on masks seems more understandable. As the science changed to suggest that COVID was aerosol, scientific opinions on masks got updated as well. It also didn't help that some hyper-rational people got hung up on ranting about how masks weren't perfect, and how the virus could still get through if you wore a mask. It was as if they imagined they heard someone said "masks are 100% effective" and really really wanted to register their counterpoints. So they said "they don't work!" when they meant "they're not 100% effective!", and other people heard "they don't work!" and took it to mean "they're 0% effective!" That's one of those patterns you start to see all over the place when you know to look for it - people confusing "there exists" and "forall".