[mac_truck]

So its your contention that the virus travels through the air by itself and not attached to a larger molecule?

[gas_dr]

There are a thousand textbook references that describe the various forms of viral transmission that you are welcome to look up. The question that you asked is a mask prevent viral infection and the answer is no.

Please feel free to educate yourself on modes of viral transmission.

[freeandfreezing]

Here is an article you can read to start to educate yourself on the difficulty of preventing viral infection by using masks. More than 20% of the nurses in the study exposed to influenza, a virus similar in size to the COVID-19 virus for purposes of mask efficacy, were infected regardless of whether they used a surgical mask or an N-95 respirator.

So for a similar virus, when exposed to influenza, the N-95 respirator is less than 1% better than the surgical mask, and both fail more than 20% of the time. They help, since perhaps the unmasked nurse would have been at even higher risk, but the study did not test that hypothesis.