The CDC can't even get its story straight.  They miighht help, maybe but more research needs to be done, of course. I don't know how many times I have seen that in government reports, and written it myself when working for an FFRDC. Typical Government gobbledeygook that can be twisted to whatever the reader wants. Oye Gevalt!

https://wwwnc.cdc.gov/eid/article/26/5/19-0994_article

Quote

Although mechanistic studies support the potential effect of hand hygiene or face masks, evidence from 14 randomized controlled trials of these measures did not support a substantial effect on transmission of laboratory-confirmed influenza. We similarly found limited evidence on the effectiveness of improved hygiene and environmental cleaning.

Yep.  No concrete scientific evidence.  Doctor X says wear them, Doctor Y says don't, Doctor Z says "don't wear them, um wait now you should wear them".  Then you have all the people wearing masks the wrong way or wearing the wrong kind of mask.  All of the restaurants and stores in a frenzy wiping everything down.  Politicians and MSM doing their best to strike fear into the heart of every American.  False sense of security ... and we're trashing our rights, our freedoms, and our economy because of it.

All it really says is some dudes tried to do a meta analysis and the data they could mooch off of was crap.

Lets say a mask just reduces how far and how much cooties you spew when you sneeze. If I live with you and you sneeze 36 times a day you are probably still leaving enough of your cooties around that I'm going to come in contact with your cooties in sufficient quantity to get ill. If your cooties are long lived on a surface, then that goes from probably to definitely. 

The results from a study about that situation would not likely translate well to random transient contact with strangers.