I think an arbitrary kind of mask is effective for COVID-19 largely because of the fluid dynamics:
If the air has the particles you want to avoid evenly distributed throughout (as with smoke), then this model predicts you’ll miss out on most of the benefit of a mask which does the appropriate filtering. So it’s probably not worth using surgical masks for smoke.
I think an arbitrary kind of mask is effective for COVID-19 largely because of the fluid dynamics:
If the air has the particles you want to avoid evenly distributed throughout (as with smoke), then this model predicts you’ll miss out on most of the benefit of a mask which does the appropriate filtering. So it’s probably not worth using surgical masks for smoke.