If we, here, as a group, and behave sensibly, and I suspect we do, it's a help. I'm actually used to wearing a mask now any time I'm around someone else or entering a store. My Marine FB friends call me a sheep because a virus particle is smaller than any mask weave (including N95s).
I recall back in the day being fitted for a full respirator. We didn't do the gas chamber thing though. We had over 2,000 chemicals in our lab, one manager thought we should have to memorize the MSDS for each of them. Um, no.