[mcv]

You spread a lot less virus if you wear a mask. Cheap masks don't protect you, but they do protect others from you. Countries where everybody immediately wore masks had far less cases than those where a lot of people didn't. The whole mask issue was the ultimate test in altruism: do you accept slight inconvenience that might save other people's lives? A lot of people failed.

[Markoff]

Masks work only in the lab when worn PROPERLY at ALL ocassions, never meeting strangers without mask, good luck with that. In real life people have to eat without mask and they won't wear it at home or often in work etc. or they don't wear them properly anyway with gaps around.

So yeah, masks work in theory, but reality shown us they are completely useless, especially with newer more infectious variants. If they were such great invention we would not have flu and other respiratory viruses, in the end everyone will get infected anyway.

[mcv]

They are only useless when half the people don't use them and ignore all other measures while they're at it. Obviously there's no need to wear it at home; that's just stupid. But outside, in public space, it catches a lot of those particles that can carry the virus. If everybody wears one, that means less virus particles in the air, and less chance of infection.

And during the pandemic, a lot of countries did indeed not have their usual flu season.