I’ve been seeing a lot of social media posts from friends and family who are wearing masks incorrectly or making their own masks. That might not be a huge probl

I’ve been seeing a lot of social media posts from friends and family who are wearing masks incorrectly or making their own masks. That might not be a huge problem on its own, but it seems to give them an excuse to risk compensate. And that’s a huge problem. If you plop on an N95 mask, it’s not going to work as intended. Sure, it might block some stuff and discourage you from touching your face, but it’s certainly not going to make you invincible. Even when fitted correctly, it’s still letting stuff through. If you have to choose between staying home vs. gathering in a group while wearing a mask, one is obviously lower risk than the other. N95 masks are uncomfortable. When used correctly, you feel like you’re breathing hot, humid air that you just exhaled. They clamp down pretty tightly on your nose. People don’t like this, so they adjust the mask until it’s comfortable (or just don’t fit it in the first place)—and in this case, comfort = leak. Or they get a mask with an exhaust vent—which might protect the wearer reasonably well, but now everything they exhale exits the mask unfiltered. Or—and this is my favorite one—they put the mask on over sunglasses to keep it from sitting on the bridge of their nose, then wonder why their glasses fog up. Or perhaps they have facial hair that they don’t want to shave. For the seal to work, the part making contact with your face needs to be clean-shaven. And you can’t make your own N95 mask from scratch. They’re not simple cloth; that’s why they’re expensive and hard to produce. Again, none of this would be terrible if people didn’t risk compensate. Wearing any mask—even incorrectly—is probably better than no mask, as long as you didn’t cut up a fiberglass HEPA filter in the process. Wearing a mask to get some groceries or pick up a prescription? Great! At the very least, it’ll keep you from touching your face. But wearing a mask so you can throw a party is a terrible idea. I’m mostly targeting N95 masks here since they’re not as easy to use as surgical masks, but the same general rule applies to everything: masks are an extra tool in your arsenal; another layer of protection. They don’t make you invincible.