They said wearing masks does not help decrease infectious spread. They actually claimed that wearing masks can increase infectious spread because of improperly wearing it.
See my other response for ways in which that differs from medical staff doing it. It's psychology and sociology as well as pure "can a mask stop the virus", which are important factors when looking at disease transmission in a population.
It is simply irresponsible to claim that wearing masks offers only marginal benefit. This is a respiratory virus, it is transmitted by droplets.
The downvoting of this plain truth ought to scare anyone who values science over politics.
You can't just claim the same benefits for an old piece of t-shirt stretched across your face. An old piece of t-shirt which may give you a false sense of security and lead you to take risks and get closer to other people, and which may make you touch your face more, and which you may not clean or replace etc etc...
Can you please point to the studies claiming that masks significantly lower transmission rates? The only think I ever read was it lowers a bit the transmission FROM infected people by blocking some of the droplets sneezed/coughed, but just wearing them doesn't protect healthy people anyhow. Unless you have N95 + good glasses and perfect hygiene.
The behavior of 'I have a basic mask therefore I am protected' - I've seen it quite a few times personally. It really can lead to false feeling of security and lowering one's guard. I've seen folks wearing them incorrectly too, especially in the beginning - ie not over nose, huge gaps around it, putting it down in store for a call etc.
I think your statements are taken out of context of what was claimed. Not claiming WHO is perfect (far from it), but trump-ish bashing everybody and everything external instead of admitting one's utter failure and working on fixing things won't change much.
It seems that this was said because there's a huge shortage of masks. People starting hoarding them, plus stealing them from hospitals and so on.
So yeah, WHO did mention masks aren't super useful for the general public, but seems like the reason is mostly because to prevent people going crazy for masks.
The bit about people thinking their safe due to a bad mask is also mentioned by the Dutch government btw. And they decide for themselves, they do not just follow whatever WHO says.