Dr. Osterholm is a good guy. But if he is talking about the need for N95s in the general population, it should tell you something about the folly of wearing no masks at all. Which the anti-vaxxers insist on doing. While “protecting” themselves from an unknown vaccine taken by a billion people.
However there is context for the comment. Dr. Osterholm is seeking a way higher threshold for safety, and not being satisfied with crude substitutes. Apparently, this was a slide from one of his earlier podcasts
This is likely pre-Delta, but you can see that if two people are maskless an infectious dose is expected in 15 minutes. If both people are wearing a cloth mask it extends to 50 minutes. Which covers a bunch of casual encounter type stuff. Which a lot of people interpret as having a benefit over nothing. People know they aren't impenetrable shields, just that they are better than nothing at all. Dr. Osterholm is only really satisfied by the option that provides hours of protection, and generally feels like people get a false sense of security otherwise. He wants people to do *more* to be more confident that the protection is solid, not try to get by with less. He is certainly not an advocate of not masking at all, which is why at other times he says to wear masks when in public. He does get the "better than nothing." He just would prefer we all were wearing N95s, especially with Delta.
If you believe him, that the cloth masks are useless, you should be wearing an N95. Not choosing to go maskless. What are most people doing who are using his comments to promote the futility of masks? Going maskless. They aren't practicing what Dr. Osterholm is preaching. Just cherry-picking, so they can do nothing at all. I also doubt these people have listened to anything else Dr. Osterholm has said regarding the seriousness of the moment and what people should be doing about it.