Medicine also isn't in the "we recommend it because there aren't many reasons against it" business. They neither recommended masks nor warned against them, but laid out the facts: "we don't (didn't) know. We're scrambling to get data. We'll let you know"
I'm honestly baffled that the concept of a trial is so alien to people, and that nobody seems to be capable of the tiny transference of recognising that masks are no different than a pill. I could come up with a possible reason Aspirin might work: maybe it's the fever that kills, Aspirin lowers it. The risk is known and rather small. Should medical science recommend everyone to take Aspirin? Does it seem entirely implausible that a significant number of people would say/think "It's not the best time for a wedding, but everyone has taken triple doses of Aspirin so it should be fine"
This is false.
> Seriously people- STOP BUYING MASKS!
> They are NOT effective in preventing general public from catching #Coronavirus, but if healthcare providers can’t get them to care for sick patients, it puts them and our communities at risk! http://bit.ly/37Ay6Cm
--@Surgeon_General
https://mobile.twitter.com/surgeon_general/status/1233725785...
New medicines, requiring trials are novel.
Golden eggs and apples shouldn't be compared.
What new data has finally come in that has shown that masks do not slow the spread or that they do? And new we have guidance?
The problem here is that the medical community, when they have skin in the game wear and recommended masks, from day 1.
Again, the virus is novel, how it spreads is not.
The evidence on masks was thin, and limited to use by professionals in a medical setting
Go find a study showing the effectiveness of masks for prevention of infection in the general population published before 2020.
Also, given your arguments, what is your position on the efficacy of lockdowns vs. their negative effects?
How do you add absence of high-quality, narrow evidence for effectiveness + strong prior for effectiveness + ~zero-cost intervention and land at "don't recommend cloth face covering"?
All the other examples you gave fail one of these criteria: there's no prior suggesting that Crystal healing is valuable, HCQ has side effects and presents costs/supply chain challenges that _cloth_ doesn't, etc.
An example from the other side is vitamin D: there's been enough weak evidence that anyone scientifically literate has been keeping an eye on their vitamin D since the early pandemic, given that: there's moderate evidence it's protective + there's a high chance you're deficient anyway + D toxicity is pretty hard to achieve.