A musing Beam

Let's not bury the lead:  When you can't social distance, yes, you should wear a mask, almost definitely. Some of that is for you, but mainly it's for everyone else. If you struggle breathing while wearing a mask, you definitely will struggle much more with COVID. This is another entry in my series on COVID . How COVID-19 spreads The virus is more likely to infect someone when there is a lot of the virus .  There are 3 general ways that it appears to spread : contact,  aerosol, and  droplets . (There's a 4th that is difficult to study and seems less likely to be a major channel: fecal to oral.) For contact, you should not touch others, wash your hands a lot, and avoid touching your face. For aerosolized virus, you should avoid situations where a significant amount of virus might gather together, like an un-ventilated room or a large gathering of people. For droplets, the easiest population measure is masks.  Droplets from singing, coughing, sneezing, yelling, yodeling,