whereswhat

I want to thank you again for sticking to reputable sources and scrutinizing in an honest way. If OP had shared something similar to your latest comment, I would not have left such a scathing response.

While I still do not agree with your final conclusion, I will concede that anything done post covid panic should be subject to extra scrutiny.

The main transmission route for these viral respiratory diseases is very fine aerosol particles that are supported as part of the fluid air. These particles are so fine that they can make their way around any mask through the wrinkles in skin etc. It is known that masks can not prevent transmission of these very fine particles. Transmissivity is high in the winter as the humidity is low and the particles stabilize in the air, while in the summer when the humidity is higher transmissivity drops by a factor of 4 or 5. Transmission primarily occurs in buildings in the winter with particles suspended in the air.

100% correct. Fact is, masks do nothing when the local environment is already contaminated. I find it concerning how the general population seems so unaware of this.

In the situation where the local environment is clean (i.e. no virus matter), wearing a face mask will reduce spread because "the main transmission route for these viral respiratory diseases is very fine aerosol particles that are supported as part of the fluid air". Hence, when an infected person breathes in a clean environment, limiting the distance that their breath travels from their face also limits the volume of space in which transmission might occur.

I agree that more informative studies on the topic would be easy to conceive but I do believe my claims above are supported by the, albiet slightly flawed, existing literature.

In the community, masks appear to be effective with and without hand hygiene, and both together are more protective (Aiello et al., 2012; Aiello et al., 2010; MacIntyre et al., 2009)

But none of those studies show statistical evidence as such.

I agree that individually, nither of the Aiello studies hold up very well. The MacIntyre study from 2009 is better but still has shortcomings. However, the collation of all this data and the added post-hoc analysis in the review I cited does show statistical significance.

The Simmerman study's own authors point out that their study cannot be relied upon alone. I also detect a hint of bias in your interpretation of the Larson findings:

In this population, there was no detectable additional benefit of hand sanitizer or face masks over targeted education on overall rates of URIs, but mask wearing was associated with reduced secondary transmission and should be encouraged during outbreak situations.