Something new for Steve (but please sit down first) from https://medicalxpress.com/news/2022-05-hidden-benefit-facemasks-severity-covid-.html quote: "Early in the COVID-19 pandemic, it was suggested that people who were infected while masked might experience mild illness and could be considered "variolated". The new mathematical model allows researchers to estimate the potential impact of this effect on the population as a whole. "If the variolation effect is strong, then the number of severe cases, and consequently pressure on health-care systems, could be substantially reduced if most people wear masks –– even if masks don't prevent them from being infected," says senior author David Earn, Faculty of Science Research Chair in Mathematical Epidemiology and Professor of Mathematics at McMaster and Canada's Global Nexus for Pandemics & Biological Threats."

There is more unbelievable nonsense there in that post, but this here is enough. Nobel knew what he was doing with his decision not to give his precious prizes to mathematicians..