EPIC FACT

My grandpa smoked for 40 years and died unrelated to it. I work in healthcare, I've never seen ICUs full of ***ing dying people with flu, I've seen it with covid.

Saying that in a priest costume is quite ironic.

it does protect to an extent. Of course it's not 100%, but the fact that other viruses - apart from covid - are less frequent is in parts thanks to mask wearing (and of course social distancing etc.).
If you are interested check out pubmed on this topic, it's worth more than spitting non-sense at each other on a meme site.