Wearing a mask was in many respects an act of civic virtue, a way to protect your friends and neighbors if you were one of those individuals who was unknowingly infected and at risk of becoming a superspreader. Many cloth masks weren’t intended to protect you from getting infected, although a high-quality cloth mask would provide a person with some protection. To secure more robust protection, a person would need a higher quality N95 mask. The idea of cloth masks, simply put, was to protect others from you, not you from others, a distinction I made often.
