One of the most prominent pro-mask mandate studies during the COVID pandemic was a misleading failure

One of the lasting side effects of the COVID-19 pandemic and our catastrophically incompetent response to it is the decrease in trust in public health experts and their advice. The media has repeatedly warned about the dangers of "doing your own research" or not blindly following whatever those experts claimed. Despite the long list of examples of those same scientists either purposefully misleading the public — for instance, Anthony Fauci and his efforts to downplay U.S. government involvement