> Even experts who favor masking the masses say their impact on the spread of disease is likely to be modest. Many are also afraid to promote mask buying amid dire shortages at hospitals. But as the pandemic wears on, some public health experts think government messages discouraging mask wearing should shift.
> “It’s really a perfectly good public health intervention that’s not used,” argues KK Cheng, a public health expert at the University of Birmingham. “It’s not to protect yourself. It’s to protect people against the droplets coming out of your respiratory tract.”
So even this pro-mask article makes it sound to me like wearing a mask will not protect you from getting the virus. At best, they're effective at presenting people who don't know they're sick from infecting others. And that only works if you can mask a significant portion of the population without a shortage of masks for people who we know need them. That doesn't seem to be the case in the United States at present.