Live in fear. It’s your choice. But please that millions of your fellow citizens choose not to.
I read a scientific paper a couple weeks back that pretty much settled the issue for me. Masks are pretty much useless for the simple reason that virus particles are so small that only a medical-grade mask, preferably with a face shield, provides real protection, and then only when used correctly.
I would post a link, but I only have the paper in pdf form.
The virus is so small that most masks will be about as effective at stopping it as a picket fence will be at stopping a dust storm.
Masks also pose their own health risks by restricting the inflow of O2 and forcing the wearer to breathe in his own CO2 that he just exhaled. Pleurisy, a horrible disease of the lungs, can result.
But the virus is contained in droplets of spit and mucous. It isn’t free-floating in the air. The masks do stop transmission from person to person.