Well maybe a practical example [0] would be more convincing. It's really infuriating that most people still seem to discount even the existence of long covid.

[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vydgkCCXbTA

they will deny its covid related even on their death bed.

Most don't actually help in any meaningful way, so maybe they realize that.

Consumer masks don't work. And N95s are way too problematic to worth their use in general settings. In fact, prolonged use leads to many issues including cognitive impairment especially in children.

3M Aura N95 masks are effective and inexpensive.

N95s are fine for prolonged use. Study after study has shown that wearing a mask has a negligible impact on blood saturation, heart rate or cognitive performance.

(eg https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-021-99100-7)

"Wearing masks in the community probably makes little or no difference to the outcome of laboratory‐confirmed influenza/SARS‐CoV‐2 compared to not wearing masks (RR 1.01, 95% CI 0.72 to 1.42; 6 trials, 13,919 participants; moderate‐certainty evidence)."

https://www.cochranelibrary.com/cdsr/doi/10.1002/14651858.CD...

come on now, be more creative. the cochrane review has been debunked a thousand times. event the authors expressed concerns about how their conclusion was interpreted and themselves pointed out the flaws in the review design

Source?

What is a source for your claims?

What's a "consumer mask"? The Powecom KN95s are tested near top of list in effectiveness (aka "work"), available with ear loops or behind the head loops for a dollar a mask, so $4 - $5 per month:

https://bonafidemasks.com/powecom-kn95/

Add a stick-in nose bridge seal for easier seal without having to be as tight or as carefully adjusted:

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B08HJH2TQM/

dont trust ear loops, only headstrap manage to get a decent fit in most people but really ideally you should perform a fitcheck at least with bittrex

Elastomeric half-face respirators with suitable filters are more comfortable than N95 masks, and if used and maintained correctly are probably more effective:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK540078/

I wear a 3M 6800 or depending on situation (I now consider hospital visits high risk)a Cleanspace PAPR (surprisingly, so far, not all that intimidating to people around me)

Do you not think that's over preparedness in 23? It sounds like something to consider in 20.

Even as someone who is very much “over it all”, I’d argue it depends very much on your individual risk profile.

If I felt I needed to wear a PAPR, I would. Who cares what others think about it?

lets see here you are compating a surgical mask (with a fit factor of 2 or 3 at best) with N95 (headstraps, earloops are fundamentally flawed) with a minimum fit factor of 100...

how about elastomerics? despite looking more intimidating they are less costly over time, more comfortable, and more effective (can expect fit factors in the thousands)

how about PAPRs? quite intimidating depending on the model, less costly over time, usually a lot more comfortable (breathing wise) and insanely more effective (can expect fit factors of 5000 or even sometimes hundreds of thousand)

N95 masks work. We have a handful of studies of sufficient power behind them to show that.

There are a lot of studies that have insufficient power to prove that surgical masks "work". There are a few studies of sufficient power to show genuine improvement from surgical masks--generally in the cohorts with greater risks.

As far as I know, there are zero sufficiently powered studies showing that surgical masks don't work or have a negative effect.

"Cannot prove for all cohorts" does NOT magically mean "does not work". The fact that some studies show that the masks have a provable effect shifts the Bayesian prior significantly towards "likely positive effect but difficult to prove without expensive trial".

After all, surgeons started wearing masks long before Covid-19.