It'd be disconnected if you had samples that are comparable (ideally random, representative of the population), but that's not the case in most countries. When you start with very limited testing capacity, you prioritize "important" groups of people that are often at higher risk of infection (healthcare workers, older people, ...) so you can expect higher percentage of people to test positive. But as you increase the capacity / number of tests, the sample structure will change - people with lower risk of infection will get tested, so it's natural to expect the percentage positive to decrease.
I agree there's a lot of misconceptions and myths about masks. It clearly is not a panacea, it's really difficult (or even impossible) to quantify the impact, especially when combined with other precautions. Plus there's very little research about how masks affect this particular virus, because it's always somewhat specific.
IMO the best thing we can do is look at experience from countries that managed to get the infection under control, like SK. I highly recommend these interviews with one of their leading experts, what he says makes a lot of sense:
When he says face masks are one of the effective measures, I'd probably trust him ... The question is what exactly should be the rules.
Our country is in a lockdown for ~2 months now, and most of the time face masks were required when leaving the house. We're probably going to relax the rules a bit soon, only requiring them when closed spaced, etc. Which probably makes sense, it's pointless to wear a mask when jogging alone in the woods, or something like that (and people were not following that perfectly anyway).
My personal opinion is that face masks do help, partly because they limit how far your droplets reach, partly because it limits how frequently you touch your face. Even a simple home-made mask or scarf will help with that.
I think a lot of the "do not wear masks" recommendations in many countries is due to concerns that a recommendation to wear a face mask would make the shortage even worse.
That's not what the article says, though. It merely says that lockdowns do have consequences too, particularly prolonged ones, and we should consider those too. But such discussion is largely impossible because the whole issue got framed as good vs. evil, and even just questioning some aspects of the lockdown (say, school closures) gets you labeled as someone who essentially wants to murder vulnerable people.
FWIW I do live in a country which is in lockdown for ~2m now, and I do think it was the right thing to do. But it's not really feasible to stay in indefinite lockdown - not just because of economy, but because of impact on public health etc.
It'd be disconnected if you had samples that are comparable (ideally random, representative of the population), but that's not the case in most countries. When you start with very limited testing capacity, you prioritize "important" groups of people that are often at higher risk of infection (healthcare workers, older people, ...) so you can expect higher percentage of people to test positive. But as you increase the capacity / number of tests, the sample structure will change - people with lower risk of infection will get tested, so it's natural to expect the percentage positive to decrease.