It's very strange to me. I live in Sweden, we barely shut things down, no masks etc things went about as well as other places that did do masms and we're now looking like we're doing better in some respects (e.g. education)

We fucked up at the start of it all with care home rules not being strict enough but otherwise all good.

Mask lower probability of the wearer to transmit virus by trapping droplets of saliva, as those droplets are the main virus vector.

Multiply this decrease of probability to population - and you will have significant effect.

Hospitals crave that effect, because it gives them a break.