The cheap ones are, but some of the high grade ones do a little bit. The thing they really do is contain the snot sick people sneeze out and phlem they cough up. This cuts down on the spread.

Being asthmatic during the worst of it, I got out my old 3M painter's respirator, but my wife (retired RN) told me to throw that old thing away and buy a new one. So I did. I got a 3M, half face, industrial/lab grade respirator mask and have P100 filter packs on it. The P means it is resistant for 8 hours to fumes from solvents and petroleum fumes, and the 100 = more than 99% effective against airborne particles. So it is about equal to the high-end (not the cheap knockoffs) N95s, or maybe a bit better. And in my opinion easier to breath while wearing the half face mask. The fit of the rubber mask is tighter than the disposable masks, yet you have some room around the nose and mouth, my glasses don't fog up since my exhalations are directed forward and down. And no elastic irritating your ears.
On trips back to the medical center after the first time I wore it to an appointment, I saw a few doctors and nurses with their own. They were provided the disposable N95s, but after seeing my mask they got one for themselves. I understand that my health care provider does buy these types of masks for lab workers and a few other uses, and they often get the full face version.
And of course for some uses the people are in the full "bunny suits". My wife was a surgical tech, Lab RN, Surgical RN and finally an OR Charge Nurse and once long ago she worked at a hospital that had one of the fully sealed OR for bone surgery. It was only the second OR of that type in the LA Metro area. It had double airlock style doors and an air filter and low speed fan that took up one whole wall. Bone surgery is considered among the most dangerous for risk of infection because they often expose the marrow, which is a near perfect environment for bacteria and v***s growth. Working in that OR was a bunny suit environment.

Yes, I am in CHATTY mode. I had a low blood sugar episode that kept me awake most of the night, and now I can't fall asleep, but at the same time I am tired and nervous. I need something to keep me busy so the Hog and my online photo sites will just have to put up with me this way for a while.

Yep, I get a local C***d report for my area and the U.S. sent to me weekly for rises in daily c***d admissions, hospitalized patients, and ICU beds occupied. It's going up everywhere and my area is particularly bad with all those stats rising between 12% and 27% and steadily increasing every week since Thanksgiving.

I'm hoping that it is just caused by holiday travel and not another big spike coming. We'll see in the next month or so. I'm masking when I go indoors in crowded places now even though I've had the latest booster plus the RSV and Flu v*****es. At my age and with asthma my feeling is that "you can't be too careful".

Sure, I wear masks when spray painting with lacquer. But, we are not talking about N95 masks, surgical masks or cloth masks like were used against c***d. We are talking about industrial masks made for reducing chemical contact.

They look much more like a gas mask, have a silicon or rubber seal around the sides, have replaceable filters and are not intended for long term wearing as they are hard to breathe through.

You want to wear a mask like that, it might even help you some against v***ses, I don't know. What I do know is the data shows that surgical masks, cloth masks and even N95 masks have at best minimal protection against v***ses, and most likely actually increase the chance of getting a v***s because of how people wear them.

For example, put them on just before entering a store, then take them off immediately after leaving the store after touching who knows what in the store, then putting them back on at the next stop. So, they get contaminated between uses. If you wear a mask once only, and then sanitize your hands before putting the next mask on, perhaps there is some small benefit, but that isn't how people used, or in some cases still use masks. They put them on and off over and over again, meaning that the masks are contaminated, and then you are placing the contamination right in front of your nose and mouth. Yeah, that will really help protect you.

As to your comment about "stories about it" the news media has never been known for accurately representing what scientific studies really say. The only way to understand a scientific study is to read the study. Have you read the Cochrane report? I have, and if you went to the trouble to look at it for yourself, you would see that it is pretty exhaustive and conclusive that masks do not work on v***ses in general and on c***d specifically, at least not as they are actually used. Perhaps there is some benefit if used different. The report does not look at that, only how they worked in actual use.

The local hospital had 26 C***d cases at the beginning of December. Within two weeks, it had 41 cases. A nearby hospital has 80 C***d patients. These are all people who are so sick that they need hospitalization, and it does not include the stay-at-home people who have C***d.

I've always heard that those blue masks were not effective for C***d, and I believe it. Just out of curiosity, I used one for sawing wood and spray painting, and they're worthless even for that.

If you don't believe that C***d is real, you don't have to post that here. Maybe we can keep this out of The Attic.

From our experience, getting C***d for us has been a lot like a bad head cold, very bad one for my wife at the moment. The v*****e may keep one from the hospital, very near thing for my wife right now, but does not for us work as well as the flu v*****es in keeping us from getting it. We've had one case of flu in 20-30 years between us. But we have had all the C***d shots (6?), still got C***d in Australia in April and now again on a trip to Antarctica. This second time it has been much worse than the first, so getting it also does not seem to provide lasting immunity.

For us, this may mean the end of traveling out of the country. Not saying won't get it here, but much easier and less expensive to interrupt a road trip than returning from over seas or spending the trip in your ship room or hotel.

Anyone that says over the counter surgical masks work are literally uneducated and have had no formal training (I had 25 years of it) in the design, use and application of PPE and various respiratory appliances. Surgical masks only minimize droplet spread (sneeze/runny nose). Not inhalation.

To cut to the chase...
If you are wearing a mask and you can smell a fart through it... that mask is not effective against COV19 or any other respiratory borne pathogen. If the mask weave is greater than 3-5 microns (most surgical style OTC masks are junk) you can contract disease including anthrax, pulmonic plague, influenza, smallpox (inhalational), and so many more.

One only need to go to NIOSH or OSHA and start digging in reading. All the information is there.

Well....the v******tions, at least the story we were given during the p******c, were a lie. If you recall, we were told that they would prevent the spread, that they would keep the people at higher risk getting C***D from someone else you had C***D. They didn't do that. P****r and M*****a knew that. The CDC and FDA knew that. F***i knew that. That's not how the v*****es work. Their only purpose/function is to prevent you from getting very ill from C***D. So, yeah...if you are in a at risk population or for your piece of mind, get the v*****e.

Here's what I can say about the v*****es from personal experience. My wife got the first rounds but then refused to get the Omicron specifc v*****e that came out last May which I did get. She went back to work in a restaurant last August after stopping when c***d closed the one she was working for in 2020. She is 53, weighs 100 lbs at 5 ft tall and is in perfect health as per a complete physical a couple of months ago. She never smoked, doesn't drink, eats mostly fruits and vegetables, and exercises every morning. I, on the other hand, am 74 smoked a pack and a half a day for 15 years, have been a daily alcohol drinker for over 50 years, eat anything I want and have asthma and a history of high blood pressure and high cholesterol; so in the high risk group.

Within two weeks of starting back in restaurant work she got c***d as did nearly every other employee there. She brought it home and gave it to me. I had a mild fever and chills for 3 days and then was back to normal feeling fine. She was sick for a month, nearly bedridden for the first week and had lingering symptoms including loss of taste and smell plus headaches and extreme fatigue for the rest of that month.

I attribute the difference in the severity between us to that v*****e last May.