Right on Evo but they are moving the goalposts. We are not talking about wearing masks in surgery, which are worn for other reasons other than an airbone viruses. What I was talking about and what Salmo knew damn well we were talking about before he changed the goalpoats with his boring non sequitur about surgery was the general public wearing cloth and disposable face masks to prevent an airborne virus. That doctors wear masks in surgery for other reasons, they still don't wear them to stop airborne viruses. For example an airborne virus will be small enough to pass through the mask but respiratory droplets will not pass through the mask and these can contain bacteria and non-airborne viruses.

The Cochrane Review (2023) analyzed 11 new studies, including 611,000 participants, and found that wearing masks in the community probably makes little or no difference in preventing the spread of respiratory viruses, including COVID-19. A study published in Scientific American (2024) reviewed randomized controlled trials and found that the best available evidence suggests that masks do little to nothing to prevent the spread of viruses and might even be counterproductive. The Centers for Disease Control recommends wearing masks, but acknowledges that the evidence is limited and that masks may not provide significant protection against airborne viruses. A study published in the New England Journal of Medicine (2020) found that wearing a mask outside of healthcare facilities offers little to no protection against infection. Another study published in the Journal of Pediatrics and Child Health (2020) concluded that there is “no good evidence that face masks protect the public against infection with respiratory viruses.”

So if Salmo thinks masks stop airborne viruses, show some studies.