The COVID-19 pandemic

[plam]

Fair point, I think I misspoke a little bit, or perhaps I should say, I was wrong in my thinking.

I shouldn't say that masking isn't effective, we have more data now than ever showing it's effective for COVID, and clearly would be (and is) also effective for the flu. But given the way I see masking working in even in optimistic contexts, I still don't think it would be more effective than the vaccine.

All right, so allow me to agree that an improved vaccine could be more effective than masking. I'm not convinced that the current vaccines are more effective. CDC says 40-60% efficacy in a season when the viruses are a good match for the current vaccine.
https://www.cdc.gov/flu/vaccines-work/vaccineeffect.htm

Now, a combination of a high degree of vaccination and masking (at the minimum, sick people masking up, plus anyone vulnerable) would be quite helpful in reducing the incidence of flu, and, in particular, hospitalization and deaths.

There's the whole droplets vs aerosols thing which is fascinating in terms of paradigm shifts that we will hopefully see. The establishment killed the miasma theory of infection but really it is actually miasmas, er, aerosols sometimes.

Flu is bad and selective measures, including better vaccines and occasional use of masks, really could decrease the incidence of flu. We really don't know about how often flu is transmitted via fomites either. It would have been too hard to study for not enough payback.