By now, we are all well familiar with the fickle vacillation of public health guidance around community masking. Initially, masks were simply not really effective. Shortly thereafter, they were not only effective for protecting others, but also for protecting oneself. Then they were mandated. Most recently, those cloth masks that have become commonplace, which were encouraged for nearly two years, which we were taught to hand-make by news outlets, were suddenly, as if overnight, relegated to ‘facial decorations.’ How can it be that a tool which has been around and studied1 for well over 100 years in the context of...