What we first learned about masks is that cloth-type don't work well except for large expulsions such as a sneeze and even then the small stuff escapes.
We included 12 trials (10 cluster‐RCTs) comparing medical/surgical masks versus no masks to prevent the spread of viral respiratory illness (two trials with healthcare workers and 10 in the community). Wearing masks in the community probably makes little or no difference to the outcome of influenza‐like illness (ILI)/COVID‐19 like illness compared to not wearing masks (risk ratio (RR) 0.95, 95% confidence interval (CI) 0.84 to 1.09; 9 trials, 276,917 participants; moderate‐certainty evidence. Wearing masks in the community probably makes little or no difference to the outcome of laboratory‐confirmed influenza/SARS‐CoV‐2 compared to not wearing masks (RR 1.01, 95% CI 0.72 to 1.42; 6 trials, 13,919 participants; moderate‐certainty evidence). Harms were rarely measured and poorly reported (very low‐certainty evidence).
"Wearing (surgical) masks in the community probably makes little or no difference to the outcome of laboratory confirmed influenza/SARS-Cov-2 compared to not wearing masks." If those made little to no difference, I guarantee the cloth that most people used made even less.
The Branch Covidians that shut down the country, harassed, censored, cancelled, etc. their fellow citizens while proclaiming the good news of The Science, were wrong. Wrong. Wrong. Wrong. On just about everything. We should have a healthy skepticism of anyone proclaiming "The Science" as a discussion ender from this point forward. What they pulled in 2020 and 2021 was the most un-Sciency shit on the planet.
Most current off the shelf paper masks are better but still insufficient.
N95s work and should be the standard going forward until we find something better.