People have pinned so much misguided hope and faith on masks. Clearly, they don’t work among the general population, which has been conventional wisdom for a century.
We’re just validating that finding once again, on a massive global scale. MAYBE if everyone wore them perfectly ALL the time, MAYBE that would help a little.
But people won’t. We let them slip down, we avoid wearing them because they are uncomfortable and hot and gross and make talking awkward, we don’t wash them enough, and most importantly we’re never gonna wear them for long-contact periods with our friends and family. Everyone sitting around watching the football game in masks...never gonna happen.
They are, quite simply, a failure of a solution...a solution that is so crappy and unpleasant that it’ll never work on a large scale.