This was posted on the NYT website a few days ago. Throughout two years of this stupid "masks work"/"masks don't work" screaming fit, some of us have been saying the same thing: It depends on what you mean by "masks" and what you mean by "work". No mask of any kind will absolutely, 100%, in all circumstances, prevent Covid transmission. Masks slow down transmission; crappy cloth masks barely slow it down at all while N95s increase time to infection from minutes to basically a full 24-hour day.
So while a cloth mask will probably keep you from getting Covid at the grocery store (as long as you wash the things frequently), a surgical mask would be better. (And for the love of God, throw the thing away after you use it a couple times instead of carrying it around for weeks in your pocket. Looking in your general direction, Dad!) Assuming you even worry about such things. We don't.
For kids sitting in a classroom in close proximity with 30-40 other kids for long periods of time, anything less than an N95 is Covid theater. So are the plexiglass partitions and the one-person plastic tents and all the rest of it. It does serve one important function; kids learn early to unquestioningly obey authority even when the authority figure is talking complete nonsense.
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