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Droplets and aerosols aren't completely distinct from one another-they exist in a continuum-from bigger to smaller. We stopped using duoneb and albuterol aerosols in the hospital because of the aerosolization risk and opted to use metered dose inhalers instead. The concern is "hang time"-how long a droplet hangs out in the air currents before hitting the ground.

I imagine a crowded wal mart super center that has people coming and going all day long. They're all contributing to the number of respiratory droplets floating around in a Brownian motion suspension. Some of the smaller droplets are, for all intents and purposes, aerosols and they can hang out in the air current for hours. If you're in the middle of a pandemic, this could be a problem. This is also why social distancing is an equally important component to these mitigation measures. the masks decrease the distance the droplets travel before hitting the ground and the social distancing decreases the likelihood of breathing in an infectious dose.

And, last time I checked, we don't even know what the infectious dose of Covid is yet but there is a likelihood that breathing a larger dose increases the probability of developing severe disease so that's another aspect to all of this. Maybe it doesn't stop you from getting it but it stops you from getting a bunch of it and, thereby, developing the more severe form of the disease.