The whole “just be 6 feet away and it can’t get to you” is not reality, despite what the CDC or WHO says. Sure, keeping 6 feet apart helps reduce exposure compared to being 2 feet apart, but droplets containing the virus don’t all just magically hit the ground within that radius. Ventilation of fresh air is critical because of the buildup of aerosols that occurs indoors: https://english.elpais.com/society/2020-10-28/a-room-a-bar-a... I’ll be blunt. Restaurants are not a good idea right now; when people are eating and talking they are filling the air with spit, and you can’t wear a mask while eating. And even with masks, prolonged exposure indoors without any fresh air will expose many if one person in the room is contagious.

Masks are one additional piece—and truly one of the easiest measures—to reduce overall exposure. It’s been well established that even basic masks significantly reduce the amount of aerosols emitted as we talk, so when I’m in a grocery store surrounded by others, I do feel unsafe if people aren’t wearing masks, because it means far more of their airborne spit emitted when they breathe, talk, cough, or sneeze is reaching my eyes and lungs than if they would just wear a simple, cheap surgical mask. Medical personnel don’t wear masks for the hell of it; they wear them because it substantially reduces the amount of transmission, and does provide some small amount of protection to the wearer versus wearing nothing.

I don’t even blame people for coming to the conclusion that masks don’t need to be worn. The science has gotten much clearer over the past year and yet our governmental leaders have not only failed to accurately convey what we’ve learned, but have actually lost the trust they may have had. It’s no wonder people are confused about what works to reduce risk and what doesn’t, and how significant the risks are, when our leaders fist told us masks only protect doctors, then told us we could stop the spread with short, poorly enforced lockdowns that maximized economic harm without sufficiently quarantining the population, and now are telling everyone to wear a mask without properly acknowledging that aerosols are a major mechanism for superspreader events.