It is not the wearer that cloth masks offer protection to but to their environment. That's mostly achieved by slowing and diffusing the exhaled air and making i

It is not the wearer that cloth masks offer protection to but to their environment. That's mostly achieved by slowing and diffusing the exhaled air and making it less likely that the infectious droplets reach others in the first place. I wouldn't want to have to wear one now that it's almost exclusively the Delta variant making the rounds but they were an acceptable measure against the wild variety/Alpha. Look for a study from Jena, a town in Germany, that issued a mask mandate weeks before other regions if you are curious.