I agree. And it's definitely worth discerning which precautions turn out to be sensible--and not, like many of our prominent officials, just doubling down to defend what they've already said, apparently to protect their reputations.
A state pathologist I heard recently endorses what you said about sunlight. He said the flu can't survive in the late spring and summer, because the ultraviolet light and breezes kill viruses in the air, while the vitamin D that our bodies are suddenly producing--thanks to the sun--is killing viruses inside us. He said everyone in northern latitudes should be taking vitamin D supplements in fall and winter, because the sun isn't strong enough to help us produce the vitamin ourselves until May.
A medical N-95 mask can protect you against bacteria--it will filter 95 percent of them out. But a virus is 1/100 the size of a bacterium, so an N-95 doesn't have a prayer against it. Besides, only doctors and surgery nurses wear N-95s, which are expensive.
The rest of us are in paper masks or bandanas. They will keep us from launching saliva into someone else's face, or getting hit with someone else's. If you're sick with the flu and can't stay a few feet from strangers, that can help.
Beyond that, ordinary masks are worse than useless. Someone repeated to me a formula for testing your mask: "Put on your mask and walk into a seafood store. If you can smell fish, the viruses can get through fine."
But meanwhile, paper or cloth masks do prevent normal breathing, because they cut down the gross volume of air we can take in per breath. (They make me dizzy, if I'm walking around.) Wearing a mask, we're shallow-breathing all day. If your breathing is shallow, you're not fully exhaling the waste-gas of breathing--carbon dioxide--which promotes bacterial growth if it stays in your lungs. And you're missing out on the deep intake of oxygen, which kills bacteria. Bacterial lung infections can develop, and they can be deadly.
The pathologist said our real defense is arming our immune systems with vitamins, sleep, exercise, and ordinary prudence.
Good health and long life to you, body and soul!
I’m not saying that masks aren’t uncomfortable, because for me they were a whisker away from unbearable this winter, but they do prevent spittle from escaping and hitting other people’s faces (because airborne droplets are what the virus rides to infect other people). Covid doesn’t just free-float through the air without the spittle droplets. Any two or three layer mask should be sufficient.
Good health to you too :)