hmm, in general, I agree about the getting concessions thing. Accommodating the public in this way when there isn't any real evidence of a great deal of concern for public health does create some confusion.
Although, when it comes to what you are seeing with the numbers in your area, if there is not a significant percentage of mask-wearing compliance, there isn't a real way to know whether they are effective or not. So the conclusions remain as an unknown rather than leading to the conclusion that it doesn't really matter what you do.
I would imagine that it would take an area 3 weeks of at least 70% mask compliance to see whether or not they changed the way the numbers appear to be trending. I would say most areas seem to be around 30% to 70% compliant right now and so this should be somewhat useful in speculating whether this makes a difference.
However, this is not the same thing as determining how far something travels by air or other more specific measurements that would swing a final decision in one direction or the other. So it is frustrating. Restrictions shouldn't be guesswork at this point.