Please see the second photo of the second link where US surgeon general tweeted "Masks are
NOT effective...".
I don't think they stood up to anything. We didn't learn much more.
We know masks work for a century, and these officials lied to prevent mask shortage.
It's very short-sighted and incredibly incompetent.
Did they know we could have worn cloth masks?
This has stood up remarkably well, a year on we know that masks are mostly effective to prevent people spreading the virus and not to prevent contracting it and we know much more about how readily it spreads asymptomatically.