Surgical masks were developed to protect the surgeon as much as the patient. The surgeon's face is exposed to fluids, when the surgery is being performed and the patient has an open wound, which nasal/oral drainage and/or sweat from the lip could drop into. They were not made to stop the spread of a virus and the subject of surgeons wearing masks has been in debate for years. Even the NIH weighed in on this with a study where they found that, "It has never been shown that wearing surgical face masks decreases postoperative wound infections. On the contrary, a 50% decrease has been reported