Masking was never inherently a political issue, even if some people tried to make it one.
From a purely scientific perspective, and regardless of one's political leanings or preferences, it was obvious from the start that widespread everyday masking simply isn't effective, nor is it practical.
If such masking was even just somewhat effective, the entire situation would have been over by mid-2020 at the latest. That clearly wasn't the case.
Even in large regions with strictly-enforced masking (even outdoors, in some cases!), combined with numerous other onerous restrictions, we still saw massive case number spikes. Those would not have happened if masking worked.
Of course, there are also the numerous harmful effects of masking that must be considered. It causes many accessibility problems, it causes childhood development problems, it causes social strife (including discrimination), it enables abusive policing, and so forth.
Hopefully, society as a whole has been reminded how masking just doesn't work, and that's exactly why we didn't bother with it until this recent debacle.
From a purely scientific perspective, and regardless of one's political leanings or preferences, it was obvious from the start that widespread everyday masking simply isn't effective, nor is it practical.
If such masking was even just somewhat effective, the entire situation would have been over by mid-2020 at the latest. That clearly wasn't the case.
Even in large regions with strictly-enforced masking (even outdoors, in some cases!), combined with numerous other onerous restrictions, we still saw massive case number spikes. Those would not have happened if masking worked.
Of course, there are also the numerous harmful effects of masking that must be considered. It causes many accessibility problems, it causes childhood development problems, it causes social strife (including discrimination), it enables abusive policing, and so forth.
Hopefully, society as a whole has been reminded how masking just doesn't work, and that's exactly why we didn't bother with it until this recent debacle.