One of the often not talked about problems is that lots of masks were terrible and the quality in general was very variable.

There are some really great ones, and there are plenty that are quite difficult to breathe through. The N95 standard for breathability would pass some pretty bad ones.

Most places sold all sorts of badly quality controlled masks and it was a crapshoot what you got. And less breathable didn’t necessarily mean better protection.

Plenty would also collapse onto your mouth or not etc.

Some people definitely had a nicer time than others with them.