California had early, aggressive social distancing orders and large parts of California had/have manditory mask orders in place.

Bay area: https://www.mercurynews.com/2020/04/22/coronavirus-bay-area-...

San Diego: https://www.10news.com/news/coronavirus/what-to-know-about-t...

Los Angeles: https://losangeles.cbslocal.com/2020/05/14/coronavirus-covid...

Mandatory masks orders for enclosed spaces, but not for outdoors, which is presumably what is meant by "universal".

Nope, also outdoor. If you're queuing up for e.g. shopping, you must distance and wear a mask.

From the first article I linked: "Are you leaving the house? Facial coverings are required to be worn by anyone older than 12 while waiting in line or inside any essential business, using public transit, riding in a taxi/Lyft/Uber or seeking healthcare, as well as anytime you come within 6 feet of someone from outside your household."

Exactly. if you're outdoor and 6 feet away from people (walking in the park, etc) you don't need a facial covering.

California also has a large proportion of East Asians, where mask-wearing is common, especially when you might have a cold, so that you don't spread it to the next person. Epidemiology is culture-bound. By now everyone knows that the incubation period for coronaplague is long and that pre-symptomatic people are a significant source of spread. It's not a long leap for an East Asian person to think that they might carry the disease without knowing and want to minimize spreading it.

This kind of speculation is cryptically racist. My observations are anecdotal, but walking around in public areas such as parks where mask wearing is asked for I see east Asians ignoring the requests as much as non east Asians (I'm of east asian extraction myself)

This is still a very us centric view. California isn't low compared to Asian countries. But all California shows is that you can achieve low transmission rates with lockdowns done early enough. But of course lockdowns are not sustainable. It's really odd to bring up Wyoming. Any rural area can potentially avoid outbreaks. South Dakota has outbreaks now though.

I remember when the first "we suggest wearing a mask" came out. It was followed with a worry about masks becoming a bigger deal than they should. I remember hearing over and over during the same meeting that masks were not a replacement for keeping a 6' distance between people. Now it seems the whole country is Mask vs No-Mask when the actual experts suggest it's the 6' distance that really counts. Masks were just as an additional precaution and not meant to be front and center.

Meanwhile, in other countries where they actually want to get their economies going, people simply wear masks, because they're an added layer of protection, cheap, easy, and current evidence is that they do help contain the spread of the disease.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2020/04/04/czech-gove...

Sure, the US isn't as advanced or well-run as... the Czech republic, but we should at least try and aim for what those kinds of countries can accomplish.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ICc_H75R05A

yes they do help some but they're not the end all be all of protection which was my point. Wearing a mask or not wearing a mask has become a much bigger deal than it should be. People are protesting over a mask and people are social shaming over a mask, it's not that important. Maintaining distance and washing your hands is much much more important than a mask.

I think a 'defense in depth' strategy is what masks are part of, and since wearing them is fine for 99% of healthy adults... why not?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defense_in_depth_(computing)

They're a bit uncomfortable, but so are ventilators...

Unless you believe we should wait for a vaccine, we don't need "the end all be all of protection", we only need adequate protocols to stop the spread of the virus from overwhelming healthcare systems. If we can find low impact ways (washing hands, wearing masks) that are effective enough to allow us to curtail physical distancing, that is hugely advantageous.