Compare their COVID spread rates to areas not wearing masks during the spike. Imagine how bad COVID would be without wearing masks during a spike (as science has proven). The idiocy you keep pushing that "they had a spike so masks don't work is absurd nonsense" -- there are plenty other reasons that drive spikes; new variants, seasonal indoor time, other re-openings (e.g. re-opening restaurants, schools, etc.) and vaccination levels.
Once again the proper way to study the actual impact of mask mandates is in the 3 to 40 days time period after they are imposed. Preferably with an equivalent area without mask mandates or lower usage that can be used as a control group. Other variables must also be accounted for which impact the study such as re-openings of restaurants, etc. This is how proper scientific research and methods operate.
So you want us to just accept your hypothesis that areas that had a spike would be worse if they hadn't had mask mandates?
Does that mean that areas that have almost no or very low infection rates and don't have mask mandates would be negative case rates or something if they had mask mandates?
Yet another failure of critical thinking.
The issue isn't whether the spike would be worse, it is that there was a spike at all. If mask mandates work so well there shouldn't be a spike. And those spikes shouldn't be worse than places without mandates when equalized for population. And they frequently are.
This doesn't mean masks don't work. It means mandates don't work. The equation (if we can call it that) of what defines an effective response to a virus contagion is an extensive one. Simply implying that if X (lockdown) = YES and Y (mask mandate) = YES then Virus Spread = NO is just plain stupidity and simple minded thinking.
Pre-COVID, this was universally accepted as WRONG by institutions like the CDC and the WHO. And then it was politicized and everything changed.