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April: http://files.fast.ai/papers/masks_lit_review.pdf
"it was not until April 3 that the Centers for Disease Control formally recommended that Americans wear masks in public, after two months of stating precisely the opposite."
WHO appears to have change their stance in early June, before the pubs opened:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-52945210They're introducing this in late July.
hippy-
I was resonding to this:
If they'd made lockdown and masks 'the rules'
At the point of lockdown in the UK there was little evidence supporting such a move, and a good amount of evidence opposing it.
But even taking onboard the April study, the WHO - as far as I can tell - only changed their recommendations in June.
Of course the UK could - and possibly should - have done it sooner. But it's not as simple as you're making it out to be. The science wasn't clear. Recommendations weren't clear. There were potential negative consequences (as others have mentioned with PPE shortages).
This government's been fucking useless though.
There's more evidence that they are useful (even non medical-grade ones).