Follow the science not the news media.
First they said masks don’t work because there are plenty of studies showing masks do not effect the transmission rate of a virus through a crowd.
Second the news media started claiming “but it’s a novel virus and we don’t know if masks work or not.” They then cited the study that show the effectiveness of masks with regards to filtration.N95 masks filters 95% of particlescotton t-shirt filters around 25% of particles
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/258525804_Testing_the_Efficacy_of_Homemade_Masks_Would_They_Protect_in_an_Influenza_Pandemic
But does that tell you how effective these masks are at stopping the spread through a population?
No it does not.
Then the demark study comes out that is a RANDOMIZED CONTROLLED STUDY that shows a difference between masks and no mask at 0.3%
https://www.acpjournals.org/doi/10.7326/M20-6817
if masks were effective it would have shown a difference equal to the filtration rate.
But there is another study that is a randomized controlled study, that was done on a group of nurses within a hospital. It showed the same result. 0.3% infection between the 2 groups.
But twice as many people got infected.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32758438/
If you know how scientific studies work. You can look through the references, cited past studies and see all the work that has been done that show masks are not effective at slowing the spread of a virus in a population. Indoors or outside.
If multiple studies come to the same conclusion. It becomes a FACT.
But around the time this study gets released. Politicians start saying “We wear masks to show solidarity”
https://youtu.be/glXniEjDb54?t=3850
Then another study comes out showing the air that escapes around the mask along with details of particles that get through the mask.
https://aip.scitation.org/doi/10.1063/5.0015044
The response to that study is the news media starts pushing double masks.
If you notice the news media is controlling the narrative. Not scientists. Not experts. The News Media.