The CDC itself at one point proclaimed that masks were ineffective and possibly even counterproductive, so it's not just "some guy." The logic there was that cloth masks do very very little to stop viral aerosols, and on top of that, long durations of wearing them turn them into a warm, moist cover over your face, an environment that viruses love. Plus, unless you regularly clean them, the masks themselves turn into disgusting microbiomes.

Then the idea was that wearing any mask prevents you from spreading droplets, and so it was a good idea.

But covid is, of course, primarily spread through aerosols, which are going to essentially ignore anything below an N95+

There are arguments to be had about the dispersion of aerosols when the wearer is/isn't wearing a mask, but at the end of the day the fact that we don't asphyxiate on our own CO2 means that the air and aerosols are circulating pretty effectively, regardless of wearing masks.

As far as protecting yourself goes, cloth masks aren't going to do anything significant for you.

But, of course, the entire topic is so highly politicized now that you're unlikely to get an unbiased answer from anyone

The thing is, there isn't really a scientific delineation. Atomic is a historical term that generally referred to fission-only devices, but that was mostly a consequence of fusion having not yet been achieved rather than any technical meaning. Hydrogen bombs generate energy from fusion of hydrogen, hence the name. Pretty much all modern weapons except for some janky 3rd world attempt will contain hydrogen, so that's not really a meaningful term anymore either. A nuclear weapon is anything that uses nuclear (rather than chemical) process to generate energy.

Fat Man was nearly the size of a Smart Car and delivered O(10 kt), while modern weapons are much smaller and with higher yield (though that yield is really more driven by military strategy and availability of materials than it is the ability to get more yield. The truly gargantuan bombs of the 60s have gone out of style because for a variety of reasons.) You could comfortably cradle a modern weapon in your arms, if it wasn't absurdly heavy due to the density of materials used.

For Pfizer to make money, and for authoritarians to be able to compell you to do something.

No no, clearly it must supercharge the vaccine. That's the only possible way to interpret the evidence!