Remember the concept of nerd-sniping? https://xkcd.com/356/ https://xkcd.com/356/ 99% of people, including the sharp and educated people at HN, zealously debate

Remember the concept of nerd-sniping? https://xkcd.com/356/ https://xkcd.com/356/ 99% of people, including the sharp and educated people at HN, zealously debate the merits of masks, or the proper priority of individual rights, etc. But take a step above all of this for a second. Let's say your mask reduces the speed of the spread. Say you wear an N95, and you reduce your chances of getting it in any one day, to near 0. Well that will work...until you take it off. One day, you will have to take it off. And the virus will be right there waiting for you. Masks may "work" in terms of slowing things, but they don't work in terms of increasing your lifespan more than a few minutes on average, or ending the pandemic. Vaccines do that, or lots of people surviving an infection. Remember that for all that time in Nov-Jan last winter in the West, everybody and his dog was wearing a mask. Yet more people than ever got it anyway.