Perhaps the BEST B1G Forum anywhere, here at College Football Fan Site, CFB51!!!

Not anymore but he definitely held onto the pandemic-related practices longer than many.

At last night's boy scout meeting for my son's troop, we had the entire Webelo den from our associated cub scout pack in attendance.  They'll be moving up from cub scouts to boy scouts next month so this was kind of an introductory meeting, or even more accurately, a recruiting meeting.

So the parents and their boys were all in attendance, and one of the boys had a mask on, and so did both of his parents.  I realized just how unusual that is now, in my part of the country.  I occasionally see someone masked up at the grocery store or the Home Depot and whatnot, but to see an entire family all masked up was unusual.

Our town is very carefree so nobody considered it a big deal or even worth mentioning, but it was unusual for the current climate, and that's what struck me.

to see an entire family all masked up was unusual.

would be interesting to know why?

Did someone in the family come down with symptoms recently, did someone test positive?
Trying to protect the group

or trying to protect themselves
anti-vaxers or just maskers

Be Prepared?
Do a Good Turn Daily?

would be interesting to know why?

Did someone in the family come down with symptoms recently, did someone test positive?
Trying to protect the group

or trying to protect themselves
anti-vaxers or just maskers

Be Prepared?
Do a Good Turn Daily?

I only spoke to them a little bit, but if I had to guess, I'd say they were probably being cautious, maybe have an older relative living with them?

Or maybe they all have really ugly mouths and masks have been the perfect way to hide that, over the past 3 years?

it's obviously not zero and not 100%

it would be nice to have good data as how effective at 6 feet for less than 30 seconds or some other real world situations

but, obviously there's no money to be made with that info

There are various studies on masking out there using different exposure types, generally they involve a lot of folks in presumably "normal" exposure situations or in hospitals, and the fidelity of masks being worn in that group can be suspect.  I've looked at a number of them and I THINK masks are very modestly effective at preventing transmission, e.g., given a thousand people in a situation, if ten are infected and wearing a mask, maybe they infect 25 people over a set time period, and unmasked folks infect 50.  Of course, the situations will vary a lot, so you need a large population to ferret out a smallish benefit.

As far as preventing a healthy person from contrating COVID, the figures are much closer to zero.  (I made up the 25 and 50 merely for illustration).

My understanding is within the 6ish foot distance rule, time is the most relevant factor.  The longer an infected person talks in the direction of someone, the more viral load the other person is breathing in.  

Contracting the virus is not a all-or-nothing event, viral load is very important.  i.e., someone may have breathed their covid cooties on you, but only for a few seconds, so you actually "get" it, but your immune system kicks it back before you ever even knew you had it.  Otoh, if they talk in your face for 10 minutes or 30 minutes, you've taken in a much greater viral load and may get sick.

This extends to how severely people get sick (and how they handle it depends on other health risks and factors, obviously).  Your body may handle covid the same each time, but if you contracted a small viral load, maybe you don't get too bad while you're sick.  Or if you take in a huge viral load, you may get very sick.  

Masks are intended to reduce the viral load spread, and have some effectiveness in that regard.  Whether or not it actually makes a difference depends on a ton of other variables.