There is a difference between the best tool for the job and better than nothing. Our civilization has a dangerous habit of mandating the best tool for the job, and then unnecessarily suffering with nothing in an emergency.
Moreover, even if the party line that coarse unsealed masks are completely worthless at protecting the wearer from infection were true, it would still make a big difference in the rate of spread of the virus for everyone to start wearing masks! Who cares what the private benefit is when there is definitely a public benefit? And yes, we could make plenty of masks for everyone if we weren't crippled by regulation, hatred of supply and demand, and the attitude that inaction is better than imperfection.
Any scientific article, published or unpublished, peer reviewed or not...
"There is essential agreement that particles with an aerodynamic diameter of 5 µm or less are aerosols, whereas particles >20 µm would be large droplets. Some authors define aerosols as ≤10 µm or even ≤20 µm (Knight 1973; Treanor 2005); particles between 5 and 15 to 20 µm have also been termed ‘intermediate’ (Couch et al. 1966; all values refer to the aerodynamic diameter; for bioaerosols, they refer to the aerodynamic diameter after evaporation). When reviewing the literature, it is therefore important to verify the size of the particles being studied and the authors' definitions."
https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/full/10.1098/rsif.200...
some diseases cause larger droplets, other smaller droplets...
I still look forward to a paper describing experimental measurement regarding SARS-COV-II
Also if anyone finds a paper that measured the UV doses (fluences) for N-Log reductions, I would be very happy to read it!