Surgical masks are pretty good at protecting the wearer from droplets too. It's the fine aerosols where they're much worse than a surgical mask stopping maybe

Surgical masks are pretty good at protecting the wearer from droplets too. It's the fine aerosols where they're much worse than a surgical mask stopping maybe 80% of virus-sized particles where N95 masks tend to stop 99%+. EDIT: Remember, though, that you can still be infected through exposed eyes, having virus on your hands and touching your face when taking off the mask, etc. Also, there was some evidence for rare cases of what looked like aerosol spread with the original SARS. In his recent interview on This Week in Virology Ian Lipkin mentioned a study in Beijing in the SARS outbreak where people with consistent mask use saw infections Ian Lipkin by 70% compared to no mask use. That's good but it isn't immunity.