I appreciate your comment, because I've been wondering exactly what the deal was with all of this, and of course there are reasons that people believe seemingly-incredible things. They didn't get it from thin air.

I got downvoted to hell last year for acknowledging that, while saying that masks don't help prevent the spread of airborne particles is untrue, mask advocates should be very careful to avoid untruths as well. Specifically that masks 'filtered' the air for the wearer, which opens up the super-easy counter-argument that virus particles are much too small to be filtered by basic textiles. Of course that was never the point of wearing masks, but it completely undermines the pro-mask argument to casually make that claim.

The truth does not always fall along convenient ideological lines, and we can't fight ignorance with more ignorance.