If you go to HomeDepot and your lucky enough to buy a contractor N95 Mask....
then what you say is true.
These are dust mask. They are only meant to protect the user.
They have a plastic/rubber one way value that allow the contractor to breath in filtered air (through the N95 mask) and expel (through the valve) your exhausted air.
This is great for a contractor working in a dusty environment. Just you and the dust.
In is... filtered
Out is... though the one way value.
They are NOT CoViD rated N95 masks. These are just 3M expanding their (pre-CoViD) market
CoViD rated N95 masks have NO value and are (supposed to) fit very, very tight to your face
(very uncomfortable)
You also touched on Surgical Masks.
They were designed to keep the Surgeon's Spit (what ever) from the patient.
I agree....
If you are coughing.... not too bad.
If you are just breathing.... useless
If worn on your chin (only).... annoying to everyone else
As with most things in the world there are variations, and people tend to find what they want to use, and keep repeating it even if it's not the whole picture. Thank you for expanding on such points and making them more complete and realistic.
Masks with a valve are not recommended. Surgical masks are much better than most. Properly fitted N95 tpye masks, without the value are also excellent but, most people don't even know how they should be fitted and because of the cost they also tend to reuse and use for longer than recommended. Even triple layer cloth masks with or without additional filters are better than much of what most wear.
The bottom line is masks, the right ones, which are now easily available, fitted properly and changed often are with social and physical distancing the cornerstones of keeping the infected to a minimum and manageable level.
Vaccines, with boosters, (and almost all of the vaccines) are virtually equally useful in minimizing the spread and severity of Covid. The accepted outcome and hope of all of this is to make the maximum number of people more likely to survive Covid and the added bonus of keeping the hospitals from getting overloaded again. Hundreds of thousands of "elective" surgeries have been postponed and cancelled just in NA which should give an indication of how overtaxed the hospitals are and have been.
To deny this is to deny science.