> Surgical masks are a good compromise for going out in public, and mostly protect others from the mask-wearer.

Under this model, if everyone panics and wears masks to prevent themselves from getting sick, the spread of the disease will be crippled because everyone's wearing masks and people who are sick can't infect anyone else. It's a great idea.

This isn't really different from the herd immunity model of vaccination, where a lot of individuals getting vaccinated return a huge bonus to society in the form of herd immunity. If herd immunity were the only benefit, would we still want people to get vaccinated? Of course, that's why it's supposed to be mandatory.