This study, like many other studies of “Mask mandates”, made no effort to assess mask WEARING.
A county or state with a “mask mandate” might have less public mask wearing than, say, a Publix or Winn Dixie in the Villages.
The fact is, CDC ran zero cluster randomized control trials of the effect of mask WEARING, not mask MANDATES, on transmission - with the result that the question remains open after 30 months.
Unbelievable.
There is no “science” to follow.
And WHO made “science” Almighty?