It baffles me that we can't scrutinize the claims of "highly regarded" people when they run counter to the someone's experience or even intuition. I'm not saying we should base policy or decisions on this scrutiny, but it's not unreasonable to have doubts. Highly regarded virologists were tweeting earlier in 2020 about how stupid masks were because they couldn't be effective in preventing the spread of a disease which was "not airborne"
Of course we can and should scrutinize the claims of highly regarded people. For example, Michael Levitt has a Nobel Prize and I've publicly criticized him when I was convinced he was utterly wrong: https://twitter.com/raphlinus/status/1297182969514270721
The mask issue was a debacle from a scientific communications point of view. In the early days, there was legitimate debate among scientists regarding the value of masks. But I think the main thing that went wrong was a paternalistic attitude, trying to address supply chain issues of N95 mask usage by medical and other frontline workers by convincing people that masks weren't effective. That, I think most agree, was a huge mistake.
Of course, your actual statement that highly regarded virologists tweeting that masks were "stupid" and "couldn't be effective" is false, and you probably know that.
