Mask pore diameters are much greater than the diameter of the virus. It is like trying to keep mosquitos on the other side of a chain link fence. The mosquitos are amused.
A mask will stop some of the air born particle droplets from a cough. Oddly, these are the less dangerous. They fall to the ground. The real transmission occurs in the non droplet viruses exhaled in normal breathing. That is the infection vector.
A perfect double blind study happened accidentally in South or North Dakota, I forget which. One school district used strict covid procedures with masks and social distancing etc. Another district did not. Infection rates were almost identical. When the district using strict procedures canceled them the infection rate did not change.
Yes, the government will lie to you!
Masks are vitually useless.
I believe it was SD that didn’t have the mandates. They also had the Sturgis bike rally with no restrictions in 2020 and no motorcyclist dropping dead on the ride back home.
IIRC, their was lots of fear porn about what could happen, etc, but life went on as normal.