Man, stay as safe as you can Bkox!
Our fractured government response just plays into the whole thing. They cut funding and abolished pandemic preparedness and then when they get things wrong people can you can't trust the government!
But science is also evolving. From what I've seen it's 100% clear that any kind of mask is better than not. That doesn't mean one person wearing a non-medical mask who comes into contact with one person with the virus wearing a non-medical mask isn't still at risk. But the risk is still lower than with no masks (and lower than if one person is masked and one is not). And then multiply that by thousands of people (which, if you're a grocery store cashier, you'll actually encounter in the course of a week).
Most of what I read about surface contract explained the difference between the virus being detectable and the virus being transmittable. But it made sense to play it safe. Now we're planning to take a lot more risks as a society regardless, so if we don't have to worry as much about wiping down milk cartons or be freaked out by using a pen, that's good news, not proof that it was a bad idea originally.
And we've always had conspiracy theories but now the nature of media is such that they are amplified (including by one international corporate outlet).
