Surgical masks protect OTHER people, they do not protect the wearer, and are not meant to.
That is not the message going around
Surgical masks give me
some protection from infection through a
reduction of the chance of coming into contact with droplets.
This is why despite the masks we still lock down, social distance and minimize the excuses for ever going out. They are a tool in an arsenal of measures
Wearing the masks designed to near eliminate the risk is not feasible for every day use. I wear one when I go up into my roof and 10 minutes of that on and its far from pleasant. Like, in a lab doing lab things where you aren't moving around much and just wearing them in front a fumehood etc, not really a problem. Or if you're working with a lot of dust its clearly better and you can work for longer because your not coughing and choking on the dust. But if you were to try and drive, go shopping, run errands, exercise etc, you couldn't do it. You can wear a surgical mask all day though no problem. All the Karens and Tuckers in the world (I say Tucker should be the male equivalent of Karen) are just full of shit
So yes, I will get some protection from a surgical mask but to get the maximum benefit of that protection I'd need an infected SOB to be wearing theirs. No way I'd chance going anywhere near a covid SOB if they weren't wearing a mask even If I were wearing a mask and a face shield. God bless those front line health care workers