Personally, based on the data I've seen, I'm sure respirators work, I doubt surgical or cloth masks do anything, and it doesn't matter, because mask mandates are stupid and haven't been shown to be effective as a public health measure, and effectiveness hasn't even been defined.
Honestly, if we're talking mask mandates or full "stay in your home" lockdowns, I almost have to agree with DeSelby on full lockdowns. As many of us here have mentioned, the most ubiquitous example of stupid mandates that are more social than scientific is the restaurant mandate where we have to wear a mask to our table, then everybody gets to sit around maskless in an enclosed space and spread germs. That's not effective masking, but we didn't want restaurants to go out of business (though a great many did) so we decided to create a health mandate with exceptions. Just like on airplanes. We couldn't let airlines go broke, so people have to wear masks, but you take them off while eating or drinking while strangers sit even closer to you than in restaurants. Or like the latest egregious example - Hollywood parties - we have the special people going maskless, even though we know vaccines aren't magic shields, while their vaccinated servants have to wear masks and gloves. Or like at Costco the other day where the cashier politely turned away from me, pulled her mask down and sneezed, then put the mask back on and turned to finish checking me out. She did that two more times before we were done.
Like Dogmush, my preferred social interactions limited the incidents where I had to abide by ineffective mask mandates as there are in restaurants and airplanes. Though like Constitution Cowboy, I got covid after at least a week of either being by myself or going to places where I had to wear a mask and where I followed the guidelines.
The Idaho Health Dept girl, who called me to do contact tracing after my positive test was reported to them, couldn't figure out how I got it. I suspect it might have been as 230RN mentioned, I might have scratched my nose or face while driving home, because I don't wear a mask when I'm by myself, and it was extremely difficult for me to remember to sanitize my hands every freakin' ten minutes.
Otherwise, mask mandates are stupid because of the reasons I mentioned above and creating tribalism where someone wearing a mask below their nose is a better person than someone maskless.
Also, as Andiron mentioned and I have mentioned before, I actually like the idea of masks in certain situations, like when you're sick (non-covid) and sitting next to me in the doctor's waiting room when I'm healthy and just there for a physical. We could have been wearing masks "strategically" and voluntarily long before covid, just like some other countries do, when we're out and about and actually sick. But the same people yelling "mask up comrade!" now would have been making fun of someone with the flu wearing a mask five years ago.
