There has been so much confusion about masks
We were told they don't work, then we were told they work. Some studies seemed to show definitively the usefulness of masking during the pandemic, others not so much. My point is: there is a lot of ambiguity here. However, I think I have identified a rather simple confusion that most people have had about the topic.
Masks work and they don't
We live in a polarized time with people often trying to oversimplify things. But the real world is complicated. There is rarely only one side of an argument correct. More often the truth lies in between. To understand the main confusion about this topic you have to first see the different levels of efficacy for masks. Masks have a tendency to work in our daily lives. For example, when you sit for over 20 minutes in a room next to someone who has influenza, there is a high chance of getting infected. Masks reduce this infection by limiting the amount of virus particles that spread throughout the room. But they only do so if worn correctly and if they have a fine enough filter. It should be obvious that they can reduce the chance of infection in such situations.
But here's the confusion: Masks do not work on an epidemiological level. There is now clear and scientific proof from various studies that have shown this to be the case. There was just an opinion article in the NYtimes that sums up the arguments quite well. Essentially, on a societal level there is no statistical proof that masks significantly prevent infections. If we take societies (i.e. countries/states) A and B for comparison to see if masks have any significant statistical effect on people getting sick, we now know that we won't see any real differences.
This ambiguity is hard to grasp
Apparently not just for citizens, but also for politicians and scientists these results are hard to communicate. Proclaiming "masks don't work!" or "masks work!" is neither wrong or right: Both are true, depending on the context.
We have to learn from this for the next pandemic
The next time when a virus threatens society (and this time will come no question), we should not again mandate masks or lockdowns. Both have had no/little effect and the negative consequences of both have been overlooked severely. The science is in and it is clear about this. I have my doubts that this lesson will be learned, but if you have a chance try to inform the people around you about this finding, so we can all be smarter the next time.
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