I must not have described it properly.
It was very clearly something decorative. Not tightly woven. The kind of think you might wear on New Year’s Eve.
Okay, that would not seem based on your description, to offer an effective barrier.
An aside - please note that there were *several* on these COVID-19 threads (including current regular posters) who claimed that masks were of limited value. They kept bringing up the "the virus is so small it will pass right through the mask!" garbage.
I'm glad that these posters and the CDC see the value of masks.