Remember, just a few short months ago the CDC and other medical professional were saying masks were useless for the general population. Now their recommendation is 180 degrees opposite. It's not like masks are something new. They've been around forever, and should have been studied to death already. The majority of the studies I have seen that promote mask use for the general population have all been done very very recently. I find that odd.
Many people believe the CDC was concerned that there wouldn't be enough PPE for healthcare workers, and so de-emphasized mask use for the general population. When mask production caught up with need, there was no longer need to discourage the population from snapping up masks.
If you look at the Asian countries that have long experiences of dealing with flu epidemics from China, mask use has generally been a part of their government's public health policy. *Their* medical communities & equivalent of CDC do not have ambiguous messaging about mask use. For them, COVID-19 is not the first such pandemic they've countered. For us, it is our maiden voyage, and we're discovering the lessons they learned years ago.
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