COVID patients are unvaccinated? (Hint: over 95%)...don't you think there's a connection here?...maybe...just maybe...vaccines have something to do with this?
As for masks...why do medical professionals use them in direct contact with infected patients...and stay uninfected for days...weeks..months...and even years?...if you'd like to become educated on the relative benefits of cloth masks...surgical masks and N95/KN95 masks, read Baron's "MIT Report" that is easily searched for on this forum...it will tell you all you need to know as to how well each one works...(Hint: it's not ZERO for any of them).
There are thousands, if not tens of thousands of peer reviewed studies on each topic, conducted over several decades by intelligent people who have no political purpose to their work, or careers, at all...done for the sole purpose of keeping fellow humans healthy...seems foolish to turn one's back on all that...what's the 'payoff'?