This has always been my concern with masks. People begin to rely on them in illogical ways like wearing a mask inside your car when you're alone. Hell, even if you're in your car with other people, a mask isn't going to do anything when you're in an enclosed space unless you are quite literally spewing bodily fluids all over the place.
Social distancing has always been the prevention to COVID spread, but masks became a political statement. I don't mind them because they don't actually hurt anyone (despite the conspiracy theories about adverse health effects), but they give people a false sense of security.
If you actually look up studies about mask effectiveness using Google scholar, you'll find some studies downplaying the effectiveness of masks have authors notes that rebuke the conclusions of the study by pointing out experimental design flaws. The fact is, *every* scientific have flaws which do not make it completely accurate. But, the politicization of masks have probably made scientists a bit hesitant to actually go on the record about the true effectiveness.
When Dr. Fauci said masks were not useful in March, he wasn't lying. If you touch your mask, you are suppose to throw it away because you've contaminated the mask. You're not supposed to reuse masks. You need masks that create a proper face seal. You need to wear it over the nose. How many people in the world have been following these all these guidelines? Point being -- it's dangerous to give people a false sense of security that masks are a significant barrier for COVID spread because people rely on these false hopes oppose to demonstrable mitigation tactics like social distancing. Again, I'm someone that doesn't mind masks because they don't do physical harm. BUT, the moment masks are used as the end all be all solution to COVID, I begin to really not take you seriously.