Man, science changes quickly. One month and the physical laws of the world change completely. Nothing in this article refutes any previous mask studies prior to COVID. A lot of conjecture and not much substance.
"Two compelling case reports also suggest that masks can prevent transmission in high-risk scenarios, said Chin-Hong and Rutherford. In one case,
a man flew from China to Toronto and subsequently tested positive for COVID-19. He had a dry cough and wore a mask on the flight, and all 25 people closest to him on the flight tested negative for COVID-19. In another case, in late May,
two hair stylists in Missouri had close contact with 140 clients while sick with COVID-19. Everyone wore a mask and none of the clients tested positive."
Oh boy, that proves it. Masks are the great savior of the world. But wait, I was at a birthday party with 15 other people without masks and one of the attendees tested positive two days later but no one else at the party subsequently tested positive. So, I guess that proves that masks are worthless.
Or this little ditty:
"A recent study published in
Health Affairs, for example, compared the COVID-19 growth rate before and after mask mandates in 15 states and the District of Columbia. It found that mask mandates led to a
slowdown in daily COVID-19 growth rate, which became more apparent over time. The first five days after a mandate, the daily growth rate slowed by 0.9 percentage-points compared to the five days prior to the mandate; at three weeks, the daily growth rate had slowed by 2 percentage-points."
So from this we can maybe assume that masks slow but don't stop spread. But wait, when did those mask mandates actually come in the life cycle of the virus. From everything we know about virus spread throughout the history of the world, they spike fast and furious at the beginning and then growth rate decreases in almost the same fast and furious rate as it accelerated (see chart below). So, we have no idea where on the epidemic life cycle the virus was at when the mask mandates went into effect. So, was this slowdown the result of the normal viral life cycle or the masks. No way to know for sure. Here's the epidemic curve of equine influenza from the 2007/2008 season. Does it look familiar? It should it is the exact same pattern from viral outbreaks throught the history of time; people, horses, any other mammal, it is always the same unless unnatural forces are exerted.
But here are a couple of charts from California and Los Angeles County on mask mandates. No correlation that masks reduced the spread of COVID. Without correlation you can not have causation. So from this data, you can prove that masks don't stop the spread of COVID.
I guess the reason why we have just 4% of the world's population and yet a quarter of the deaths in the world from Covid is because we must be just more prone than the rest of the world to contracting it and dying from it. 
