> You may want to fact-check that statement more. Here is a list of mask research that could help...
I did. Most of the data is on medical workers, pitting N95 against surgical masks. We already know that even N95 masks, which are unlikely to have good sealing over a longer period of time, are not very effective in protecting against viruses. Obviously, there is no data on medical workers wearing no masks.
There is almost no data on the general population wearing masks (or not), and the data that exists doesn't seem to provide a strong argument either. Please correct me if I overlooked something.
Here's some quotes that don't exactly inspire confidence:
"Improvised homemade face masks may be used to help protect those who could potentially, for example, be at occupational riskfrom close or frequent contact with symptomatic patients. However, these masks would provide the wearers little protection from microorganisms from others persons who are infected with respiratory disease"
from "Testing the Efficacy of Homemade Masks"
"Home made masks, and to a lesser degree surgical masks, are unlikely to confer much protection against transmission of small particles like droplet nuclei, but as the reproduction number of influenza may not be very high [14] a small reduction in transmissibility of the virus may be sufficient for reducing the reproduction number to a value smaller than 1 and thus extinguishing the epidemic."
from "Professional and Home-Made Face Masks Reduce Exposure to Respiratory Infections among the General Population"
"Neither face mask use and hand hygiene nor face mask use alone was associated with a significant reduction in the rate of ILI cumulatively"
from "Mask use, hand hygiene, and seasonal influenza-like illness among young adults: a randomized intervention trial."
"Moisture retention, reuse of cloth masks and poor filtration may result in increased risk of infection."
from "A cluster randomised trial of cloth masks compared with medical masks in healthcare workers"