In numerous studies, you will find some alleged positive conclusions for fabric face masks to stop the spread of a virus. When looked at alone, they always give a conditional statement about it's positive effect: "could", "might", and so forth.
Sometimes they will say face masks are effective, but caveat it with stating that only when done with other measures like washing hands, not alone. Yet, the media simply cites how masks are effective. But they aren't effective alone.
Alone masks show no significant effect. Washing hands shows a significant effect. When you combine something that has an effect, with something that doesn't, you're still going to ge tht effectiveness of the former despite the latter. It's like 1 (washing hands) is 1. And 0 (masks) is 0. If you add 1 (washing hands) and 0 (masks), you still get 1 (washing hands).
Sweden's top epidemiologist, Anders Tengell, has lead Sweden to herd immunity with comparative case fatality ratios as other countries who went into severe lockdowns and caused economic troubles for millions. He knows the science, and echoes the same conclusions about masks. They can be "very dangerous":
"It is very dangerous to believe face masks would change the game when it comes to COVID-19."
"Face masks can be a complement to other things when other things are safely in place. But to start with having face masks and then think[ing] you can crowd your buses or your shopping malls — that’s definitely a mistake."
"The findings that have been produced through face masks are astonishingly weak, even though so many people around the world wear them."
It's very odd that few scientifically minded people are ignorant or in denial of the science about face masks. Could it be an ideological attachment, say political, that is keeping people from honestly evaluating what the decades of science have to say about fabric face masks? I think so.
Rather than read the data and see what the overall studies and meta analyses have found, some prefer to believe that masks are doing something that studies have shown they don't do. Some cling on hope, some want to do anything even if it's counter productive, and some have an agenda to control people and make them do things they do want to do while claiming the science validates their dictates.