Educational Question: wifi mesh network half duplex?

I tried researching on the net regarding this but I cannot find any technological article about this. After reading many articles, it is my understanding that in a mesh network each node in the shortest path relays the payload. This sounds awfully like a network of repeaters.

Since wifi are half duplex, does that mean that each time the payload is relayed the speed gets cut down in half? As in if there are 2 relays (1 node in the middle), the speed is only 25% of the original speed, 3 relays( 2 node in the middle), the speed is 12.5%... etc

Thank you all in advance