Prominent public health officials have increasingly highlighted the limitations of cloth face masks, pushing for more effective respirator masks such as N95s as omicron engulfs the United States, a shift in messaging from earlier in the pandemic.

Officials encouraged the use of cloth masks in the spring of 2020 as a desperate measure to slow the spread of COVID-19 after previously recommending against masks and continued to boost them in the months after. Now, though, more experts are saying that the masks are not helpful.