No, the virus lives on non-live surfaces for up to 3 days. This alone invalidates the rest of your argument.

We still don't know how long it lives on clothing. On doorknobs, plastic, stainless steel it can live for 72 hours, yes.

https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2020/03/14/8116090...

Plastic, like buttons, which are on clothing.

Fair enough, but I wouldn't assume the difference goes from 72 hours to 3 between different inert surfaces.

That's an entirely normal range.

https://www.chemistryviews.org/details/news/10608438/How_Lon...

"The viruses remained detectable for up to 4 hours on copper, up to 24 hours on cardboard, and up to 3 days on plastic and stainless steel."

Different surfaces are, well, different.

The difference in effectiveness is huge, to the point where it's ridiculous to be healthy and wear a mask. Like I said, they don't put masks on surgery patients.

And don't forget the social signal part; if everyone wears a mask all the time, then we don't know who actually considers themselves to be infectious. Whereas if just the infectious people wear masks, then we know who they are and can act appropriately (being grateful that they self-identified as infectious and kept the rest of us safer, for a start).

I think the social signal part has second order effects that make it work out not as you would expect.

If ONLY sick people tend to wear masks then masks will make you a more visible target of fear and hate, which would lead people who are sick to not wear masks.

It's a much better idea to destigmatize the act of mask wearing so we can get larger coverage of sick people with mask s.

in the West, yes. Because we're idiots about this sort of thing.

In Asia, the feeling is gratitude - thank you for wearing a mask and protecting me from your illness

> The difference in effectiveness is huge, to the point where it's ridiculous to be healthy and wear a mask.

I think the point is that you have no idea whether you're healthy.

I get that. But still, if you're going to not wear a mask all the time, then better to wear one when you think you're sick than when you think you're healthy.