> It's fact that masks help prevent the transmission of diseases that spread from the nose and mouth
It's true for diseases with a droplet based spread, like the flu.
Disposable masks are good enough to catch the droplets people spray out when they sneeze or cough preventing them from falling onto surfaces that people will later touch and then touch a mucous membrane, infecting themselves.
All the early Covid advice was based on the false theory that Covid had a droplet based spread.
With a fully airborne disease, like Covid, you need something capable of filtering the virus out of the air you breathe. At a bare minimum, that would ba a n95 mask fitted so tightly to your face that unfiltered air cannot come in through the sides.
Perhaps you remember all the pictures online of medical professionals with with pressure sores from where the masks pushed into their face from 2020?
A disposable mask held on with two rubber bands over your ears simply isn't capable of preventing you from being infected by a virus floating in the air you are breathing.
>Two years after the pandemic began, we finally have a good understanding of how COVID-19 is transmitted: some infected people exhale virus in small, invisible particles (aerosols). These do not fall quickly to the ground, but move in the air like cigarette smoke. Other people can get infected when breathing in those aerosols, either in close proximity, in shared room air, or less frequently, at a distance. But the journey to accepting the overwhelming scientific evidence of how COVID-19 spread was far too slow and contentious. Even today, the updated guidance and policies of how to protect ourselves remain haphazardly applied
https://time.com/6162065/covid-19-airborne-transmission-conf...
