N95/KN95 masks are much more effective against the virus. What’s changed is first the availability of those better masks (early on with supply issues the recommendation was to save them for hospital staff) and the purpose of wearing…remember for just about all of last year the purpose of wearing cloth masks wasn’t about your own protection, but to keep you from spreading droplets to others. At this point in the pandemic with Omicron being so much more transmissible and vaccinated people getting it and unknowingly spreading, it absolutely makes sense to move towards the N95 style masks which actually DO protect you against infection.

I’ll add that to me, at some point during the summer after vaccination was widely available, cloth masks WERE a largely symbolic item. As in when I would go out and about wearing my masks, other people who I saw wearing masks I viewed as more likely to have been taking the pandemic seriously - more likely to have been vaccinated, more likely to have been cautious around crowds and overall managing risk levels, while I personally saw people not wearing masks as more likely to NOT be taking things as seriously. A major reason I started seeing it as largely symbolic was because vaccination was (and is) my primary protection against severe sickness. Once masking mandates went away it became more of a sign to me on how others were responding to the pandemic. Somewhat ironic, since most public places at first would have signs still requiring masks for unvaccinated people, so in theory unmasked folks should have been the “safer” group more likely to have been vaccinated. But we all know what the reality was.