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While wearing a mask is never a bad idea, it is absolutely not necessary to not get sick. I am also immunocompromised and I have stopped wearing a mask. I wash my hands very often and never eat handheld food without washing first. Zero issues since getting covid back when I was wearing a mask religiously.
We’d rather not take risks. Plus, we’d like to not accidentally contribute to the spread of disease ourselves if we can help it.
I thought masks wouldn’t protect against a virus (being tiny) but might help slow the spread to others by stopping spittle/moisture filled with virus from covering real world objects.
How do they help you if no one else is wearing them?
Masks and respirators for prevention of respiratory infections: a state of the science review
I recommend giving this a read when you have the time, it should hopefully answer any questions you have and better than I can.
This is why I specified N95 respirators in my first comment. If you are unfamiliar, N95 is a NIOSH air filtration rating, which is used to describe the ability of a respirator to protect the wearer from airborne solid and liquid particulates. The review I linked goes into more details on this as well. I recommended N95 or better specifically because Covid is the illness I’m most concerned with avoiding, and the evidence suggests that they provide meaningful protection over lower grade respirators or surgical masks. Another quote from the link above that stood out to me:
As for one-way masking, well, it is unfortunately significantly less effective (from what I understand), and is a big part of why I’m so concerned by others not masking. I simply cannot avoid being around others all the time, and their lack of effort is directly endangering me and my wife. If it really all came down to personal choice, I wouldn’t care if people wanted to risk their health. Still, while I don’t have any studies or anything to link you at the moment specifically on the effectiveness of one-way masking, all I know is that I mask and don’t get sick, and they don’t mask and do get sick. It’s anecdotal, sure, and I’m certain the mask is not the only thing affecting this, but as far as I can see it’s the largest difference in our behavior. I’ve heard as well that wearing a respirator will reduce viral load should you be infected despite the filter, and so your sickness will be less severe, but I don’t have any evidence on hand for this.
Because the virus is transmitted via spittle/moisture from other people not wearing masks. The virus doesn’t just hang out in the air on its own; it’s suspended in aerosol particles.
This is somewhat misleading. Here’s a section from near the beginning of a scientific review I linked in my reply to @ChuckEffingNorris@lemmy.ml:
The sentence after the one you emphasized seems to be saying what I was: the virus is in aerosol particles or potentially droplets, which are what your mask protects you from.
Oh, okay, I think I misinterpreted what you said before, but rereading it now I understand.