I am fond of pointing out that in the early part of the pandemic, we stopped flu in its tracks completely (and even wiped out a whole strain) by wearing crappy masks badly. Well, it turns out those same crappy masks prevented a whole boatload of COVID too! As someone who herself was wearing crappy masks at the time, I say: pretty impressive for crappy masks, worn badly.
https://academic.oup.com/pnasnexus/article/3/2/pgae065/7606553#