Sounds like a self-fulfilling prophecy. If people were observant of some rules in public, but not in private, it would almost certainly make private transmissio

Sounds like a self-fulfilling prophecy. If people were observant of some rules in public, but not in private, it would almost certainly make private transmission more prevalent. That doesn't mean masks and distancing didn't work. It's quite possible that if they weren't being observed at all in public, the spread might have been a lot higher in this space. Assuming the above is true, it's quite possible that public + private spread would have driven the pandemic to much higher numbers.