The problem is that while N95 and P100 masks offer better protection in the lab, in practice they only have about a 40% efficacy in preventing infection. https://uwaterloo.ca/news/media/study-supports-widespread-use-better-masks-curb-covid-19

This is among trained professionals though, and the efficacy drops to zero when forced upon toddlers and children.

The linked study (and others) shows it's better to focus on better indoor air quality in general - which was already a problem long before COVID.

ReconfigBehSci [@SciBeh]. (2021, October 1). @alexdefig and I didn’t say we should mandate them. I simply pointed out that when considering the impact of passports on uptake we should probably look at actual uptake in response to actual mandates in addition to survey data, which may or may not translate into action, no? [Tweet]. Twitter. https://twitter.com/SciBeh/status/1443958577173917699

ReconfigBehSci [@SciBeh]. (2021, October 1). @alexdefig I get that you are against mandates. I am responding to the reasons you give for this. Those reasons should be evidence based, right? And they should also not include the claim you are trying to justify. That’s all. [Tweet]. Twitter. https://twitter.com/SciBeh/status/1443960408105107459

Stephan Lewandowsky. (2021, September 20). Major update to the wiki underlying our COVID-19 Vaccination Communication Handbook https://sks.to/c19vax 1/n https://t.co/gosByQsg4y [Tweet]. @STWorg. https://twitter.com/STWorg/status/1439854554477105162

Wu, K. J. (2022, March 2). The Biden Administration Killed America’s Collective Pandemic Approach. The Atlantic. https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2022/03/covid-cdc-guidelines-masks/623337/

Deepti Gurdasani. (2021, December 23). Some brief thoughts on the concerning relativism I’ve seen creeping into media, and scientific rhetoric over the past 20 months or so—The idea that things are ok because they’re better relative to a point where things got really really bad. 🧵 [Tweet]. @dgurdasani1. https://twitter.com/dgurdasani1/status/1474042179110772736

Press, Associated. ‘Texas Drops Mask Mandate Ban Enforcement in Public Schools’. POLITICO. Accessed 23 August 2021. https://www.politico.com/news/2021/08/19/texas-drops-mask-mandate-ban-schools-506339.

Leatherby, Lauren, and Rich Harris. ‘States That Imposed Few Restrictions Now Have the Worst Outbreaks’. The New York Times, 18 November 2020, sec. U.S. https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/11/18/us/covid-state-restrictions.html.

Useful to circle back to these remarks after introducing the concept of "unfunded mandates" to H.S. students.