Where I live (TX) I would say less than 30% of the population is wearing masks, and the governor has gone so far as to mandate that mask mandates are illegal (u

Where I live (TX) I would say less than 30% of the population is wearing masks, and the governor has gone so far as to mandate that mask mandates are illegal (using emergency powers, which creates a bit of circular reasoning and are quite likely not a legitimate order, but... that's beside the point for my personal decisions). I was one of the very small percentage actually wearing US made N95 masks, and assuring they were sealing. Probably 1/2 of the mask wearers are using surgical masks and various other pointless masks which leave massive gaps all around the mask, and are likely no more functional than simply coughing/sneezing into ones elbow. The other half recently seems to be using KN95's, which I used myself for a while before N95's became common. But, the vast majority of the amazon/etc KN95's are significantly thinner, and are very hard to seal. Maybe the actual KN95's for the Asian markets are better (definitely some of the early ones I sourced were closer to the N95s) but I'm pretty sure the majority of the ones I see people wearing are nowhere near N95 effectiveness even if people are taping the nose areas to assure they stay sealed, and I can't remember the last time I saw that. So, for the most part "cover your cough" is probably all that is being achieved outside of less than 5% of the population that is assuring quality masks and sealing them properly. I refuse the play the social signaling game, so it leaves the question. Am I going to legitimately continue to spend $ buying good masks, to potentially protect a small subset of the population when ~95% of people are doing basically nothing, or am I legitimately trying to protect myself. In the end, I will probably continue to wear a mask if I'm around my neighbor in his 90's, but like the decision to eat in a full restaurant (which was said to be 100% vaccinated) in an area full of foreign tourists. I think my risk profile is going to be less about stopping spread now, and just living my life. The US government has a party that blocks all attempts at instituting scientific reasoning (and the other is barely better) so I will look towards personally preparing for the next pandemic or the next bad strain, but I'm not going to count on the government managing to do anything but make decisions that are late and ineffective. The ~30-40% of the population that refuses to get vaccinated, and a government that can't manage to control the spread of disease across the border have sealed our fate. I came to the conclusion 6 months ago that it was only a matter of time before I got it because the vaccines were going to be bypassed sooner or later. Sure enough, it took ~2 months from the detection of the new strain until I got it.