The main efficacy of masks is when a sick person wears them because it cuts down on how they can disperse a virus and on how far the "exudation" can go if they cough or sneeze.
Medical personnel wear masks during surgeries to protect the person they're operating on. During outbreaks, staff will wear masks more to protect any who get sick from spreading it to patients/each other and they usually wear head covering and other outer covering to keep any bug from closer to their bodies so proper removal procedures can be taken to reduce the risk of virus residing on the body and making it easier to properly wash/decontaminate. (It's why they have the full-blown "spacesuits" with contained breathing for truly toxic environments and where they want as close to zero chance of spreading it to certain folks).
If someone w/o a mask coughs near you, and you have a mask on, this virus, like a number of others, can also enter via contact with the eyes...if one manages to close one's eyes and no virus gets on them before proper cleaning (and even possibly having enough time go by for the virus to lose it's ability to infect just as it does on surfaces other than the skin) the mask may very well have viable virus on it.
If you don't remove a mask properly, you are likely to transfer virus to your hands and anything else you touch, and if it is not decontaminated/disposed of w/o making contact to anything else, it has just created a potential transfer point or even multiple transfer points...proper removal and disposal of protective equipment can keep you safe and improper procedures can make you sick even though you "feel safe".
Most who wear masks in public, also have regular street clothes on with no outer protection - even if a mask were to prevent them from taking on enough load to get sick, and the outside of the mask was properly taken care of to not transfer any virus to an entry point, there is also live virus on one's skin where it wasn't protected and on clothing - one can take a mask and gloves off properly and then ignore that they also likely have virus on a LOT of other surface of their skin and clothing....it only takes one little slip and the protective equipment is not only useless, but also become more hazardous than not wearing it because one is capable of making one little slip.
If there isn't enough meat there, at least it may kick in the thought process for more personal research.
Some folks will opine that mass wearing of masks is a good thing because they know that if everyone wears one, then the population that may be sick will also be protecting others from their sickness...good trade off even if half the folks in masks are getting no benefit because their own mask isn't protecting them from the sick ones and they aren't sick so nobody needs to be protected from them....unless everyone wears a mask, then some sick folks will be spreading th evirus and even those with masks will be in danger of picking it up from them.
Yep, it’s fairly well understood that the mask isn’t to protect the wearer, isn’t it? The main thing is it blocks sneezes and coughs from a potentially infected person, thereby protecting everyone else. I’m no fan of the masks but the “sneeze blocker” logic seems sensible. Even a simple cotton bandana worn bandit style would cut down on droplets in the air.
So, tell me again how a mask makes contracting the disease MORE likely?
Assuming the same behaviors, with and without mask.