Most non-doctors aren't wearing eye protection and are probably worse at things like not touching their faces than medical professionals are. This is coming out of a WHO study from Beijingers during the original SARS outbreak who either surgical or N95 masks regularly. For untrained users it seemed that N95 masks were roughly equally as effective as surgical masks or possibly it is all about the droplet spread.
And also, lots of doctors and nurses are coming down with Covid-19 right now despite being careful about their use of PPE.
EDIT: When people first started talking about surgical masks versus N95 respirators one study that came up was this one[1] from Ontario which showed that a bit over 20% of nurses using either of them got infected with influenza over the course of a flu season. Infections happen unless extreme care is taken as with things like Ebola.
Presumably, these doctors didn't die during last year's flu epidemic. Nor during the previous years or decades of their practice. So something is different this year. Something they normally do to protect themselves, that isn't working this year.
Hm, they use hand washing, gowns, gloves, masks. Which one, do you think?
And also, lots of doctors and nurses are coming down with Covid-19 right now despite being careful about their use of PPE.
EDIT: When people first started talking about surgical masks versus N95 respirators one study that came up was this one[1] from Ontario which showed that a bit over 20% of nurses using either of them got infected with influenza over the course of a flu season. Infections happen unless extreme care is taken as with things like Ebola.
[1] https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/184819