I do not like wearing masks, in fact as soon as I get into my office and close the door, off comes the mask. However, I am still planning on wearing a mask when I am in a public indoor space and cannot stay physically distanced from other people. The following is why:
First and foremost, since the beginning of the pandemic, I have considered masks as a way to protect other people from me (or, as my graduate student put much better than I “I like to keep my germs for myself”). Unless you have a well-fitting N95 (better termed a respirator than a mask) or equivalent and all of the air that you breathe in goes through the mask, (this is why fitting is critical), then you are not well-protected against possible infection from SARS-CoV-2 (or other respiratory pathogens for that matter). Given that I have a beard and have not cut it off during the pandemic, any mask that I wear will only protect me slightly. On the other hand, if any of the air that I breathe out goes through a mask of any kind, then, if I am spreading any respiratory pathogen, I will be spreading less of it. I have had 3 doses of vaccine, which protects me quite well from acute COVID-19 disease but does not protect me from getting infected by SARS-CoV-2. Being vaccinated probably means that if I am infected then I will produce less virus than I would have if I were not vaccinated. But I could still spread virus and I don’t know if I have been infected.
So, I could be infected and possibly breathing out some respiratory pathogen. When I am outside (which I try to be as often as possible when interacting with other people) any pathogen that I breathe out will be rapidly diluted and not be dangerous to other people. On the other hand, if I am in an enclosed space and particularly close to other people whom I do not know well for long periods of time (>15 minutes), I could, possibly infect someone else. If that other person is vaccinated and the vaccine is working for them as it does for me, the risk to them (and to me) is quite low. However, there is no way for me to know if that person is immune-compromised, is living with someone who is immune compromised, or has some condition that makes them at higher risk for COVID-19 (the disease). Wearing a mask lowers, but does not eliminate, any possible dose that I could be spreading. I also consider wearing a mask as being respectful to other people.
There are a few scientific studies that have looked at the effectiveness of masking at slowing the spread of COVID-19 (a nice recent Twitter thread on two recent publications is here: https://twitter.com/roby_bhatt/status/1502244997764157442 ). I am also concerned that many mask mandates are being lifted without clear communication that mask mandates may need to be reinstated if a new variant arises or vaccine effectiveness decreases. I am particularly concerned that basing masking on hospitalizations instead of random screening of wastewater or asymptomatic persons may miss a rapid increase, since hospitalizations are a “lagging indicator”. When hospitalizations go up, cases will have already been going up for a long time and it may be too late to “flatten the curve” since growth is exponential and the earlier interventions are made the better. Most of the developing world has not been vaccinated yet and I am sure that there will be new variants, I just don’t know if these new variants will cause more disease.
So, until we have a lot less virus around (<10-20 cases/100,000), I will be wearing a mask when I am in enclosed spaces with other people whom I do not know, mostly so that I have less chance of infecting them. I will also wear a mask when I have any respiratory symptoms even after COVID-19 levels get much lower than they are now . I will also always wear a mask when anyone asks me to or says that they would prefer for me to wear one, without asking a reason. This is why, even though I don’t like wearing masks, I will continue to do so.
PS. COVID-19 numbers are increasing in Europe, so it may not be long before numbers are increasing again here as well. There are still over 1000 people per day in the USA who are dying from COVID-19 and over 1000 children have died from COVID in the USA since the beginning of the pandemic (data from the CDC).