The CDC recently published a randomized control study looking at people who wear face masks compared to people who don't. One of the outcomes of this study showed who was getting a coronavirus infection, or specifically, who was testing positive or negative in a SARS-CoV-2 RT-PCR test.
The results were the masked people were being infected at a much higher frequency. Of the people who never wore masks only 3% got a test positive result, while 70% people who always wore masks got a positive test.
It's a low sample size, but it corroborates the existing decades of data and studies about masks. That they either don't have a significant effect on preventing infection, or they can make one more susceptible to being infected.
There are other studies about masks that show they reduce oxygen intake, increase carbon dioxide, and have other negative health effects like on making breathing harder. Yet, the media and governments won't use the data to make their decisions. They are going against the science, and using wishful thinking to deny it.
The belief in the effectiveness of wearing masks is a religion. People will defend the use of masks aggressively. They will accuse those who don't believe as they do or act as they do or being conspiracy nuts, of being anti-science, or being murderers. This is a religious mindset.
It's a belief. A belief that something is, despite it not being demonstrable in reality and despite previous data from reality showing the opposite of the belief. That's a religion in my book.