This is a shift in the underlying philosophy of wearing a mask - namely for protection of the wearer instead of minimizing infection from the wearer.
As such it's laudable, because appeals to self-interest are always more effective than appeals to common good. Vaccination being a good example. I'm getting my shots as quickly as I can. My motivation is not to to help generate herd immunity via vaccination. My motivation is to protect myself from getting sick and getting a start on returning to a more normal life.
While contributing to herd immunity is nice, it's not a primary motivation for me. I simply can't control what other people do. I can take measures to protect myself.
Same logic applies if there are options for wearing masks that actually protect me. Though once the vaccination protocol is complete, my motivation for masking will be diminish - not disappear, but diminished. If it appears that the mutations of the virus reduce vaccination effectiveness, then my interest in a N95 mask will increase.
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I will also repeat something that I have mentioned previously. If you don't have to labor while breathing with a mask on, that mask is not protecting you. The effort required with each breath should be about the same as the effort involved to suck soda through a straw from a nearly empty Big Gulp container. If you are wearing a N95 mask and you aren't exerting about that much effort with each breath, that mask is not fitting tightly and short-circuiting is occurring. This is Filtration 101 - you can't get 95%+ removal of 2.5-micron particles from an air stream using a fabric filter without the expenditure of that amount of energy.
If you sport a nice growth of facial hair, you will never get a tight unless you slather that growth nicely with something such as petroleum jelly and seat the edges of the mask in the jelly.
www.cnn.com
