As states increasingly promote face masks as a way to control the spread of COVID-19, the top-line message has been: Wear a mask to protect others. While it's true that most face masks are more effective in preventing you from launching droplets into the air than breathing in already dispersed droplets—that doesn't mean masks offer no protection to the wearer. It's likely that face masks, by blocking even some of the virus-carrying droplets you inhale, can reduce your risk of falling seriously ill from COVID-19, according to Monica Gandhi, M.D., an infectious disease specialist at UC San Francisco.

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"The more virus you get into your body, the more sick you are likely to get," she said.

In the latest wave of infections in the U.S., the wider use of masks may be one factor for the lower death rates, along with more testing, younger patients and better treatments, said Gandhi. A greater proportion of these new cases have been mild or asymptomatic, though more data is needed to see if they track geographically with higher rates of mask-wearing.