There’s a difference between admitting other people know more than you and giving up entirely on the use of your own rational faculties. Blindly trusting that masks work, in the face of (at best) low predictive power and (at worst) outright contradictory evidence, is an example of the latter.
My rational faculties tell me that masks sure as heck work equally well or better than no masks. Also that there is no downside whatever to me from wearing one (ego damage doesn’t count — this is real life, not a game). Put those together and it’s my personal responsibility to wear a mask until the evidence tells us it’s of zero value. (Maybe it’s not clear: masks are to protect other people from you, not vice versa.)
The logic the Netherlands used to counter the "only can help" argument is that wearing cloth masks can lull people into a false sense of security where they are less observant of social distancing because they are overconfident in the protective power of the mask.
I'm not aware of any study that confirms or debunks this but from a neutral point of view I would say it's at least plausible.
> The logic the Netherlands used to counter the "only can help" argument is that wearing cloth masks can lull people into a false sense of security
That line of reasoning makes no sense because it leaves out the fact that the conclusion is drawn from the comparison between a) wearing a mask in public and b) stay locked down indoors while avoiding all social interaction.
The conclusion was never drawn from a comparison between a) wearing a facemask in public, and b) not wearing a facemask in public.
Additionally, during the onset of the covid19 pandemic there were indeed some health officials that argued against mass adoption of facemasks and other personal protection equipment such as latex gloves. However, their rationale was that this would increase demand so radically that it could jeopardize their availability to frontline workers.
> The conclusion was never drawn from a comparison between a) wearing a facemask in public, and b) not wearing a facemask in public.
Well, in fact, that's exactly what the conclusion was drawn from. If you're in public and not wearing a mask during a pandemic then the logical thing to do is to keep a lot of distance between yourself and others. There's a non-trivial amount of people who believe that masks are providing much more protection than they actually are and this misunderstanding could have an impact on people's behavior in public spaces.
It is easy enough to imagine several ways it could do so: making it less likely for people to socially distance, making it more likely that people spread the disease (or for that matter other diseases) by increased touching etc.
