[scarejunba]

I too, have a box N95 and some P100 I bought in preparation for California fire season way before this crisis. On the Internet, everyone is super concerned with insight porn style stuff. So "actually X won't" or "actually Y will". Well, they're welcome to that.

If the masks were useless healthcare workers wouldn't wear them because they do hinder working. So that leaves me, with my stack of masks from before the crisis. Yeah, I'm not going to throw them away.

EDIT: I'm rate-limited but I feel the same as user lvturner below.

Here's a fit test video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kdqcKHSIrrM

The following things are true:

* Masks are fantastic

* If you have them, use them

* The distribution of masks should prioritize healthcare workers for public health reasons

* Healthcare workers will not take a half-opened box of N95s and P100s.

There is precisely one conclusion: If you have masks, use the masks. They are great.

[lvturner]

Around 90% of the population of Hong Kong is wearing a mask right now. Despite the proximity to China, it's use as a transit hub and it's densely packed population - there are only 115 cases there.

While it's far from conclusive, I'd suggest this as valid evidence that the use of masks is helpful in reducing the spread of the virus.

[hef19898]

We simply don't have the data to back that up. And unless you are a domain expert, you wouldn't be able to reliably come to that conclusion even if we had.

[samatman]

We know that the sum total of what Hong Kong is doing is effective: rates of all infectious diseases in Hong Kong have dropped precipitously since emergency measures were put in place.

[lvturner]

I didn't state a conclusion, I stated that it was inconclusive evidence towards a hypothesis. Perhaps I wasn't clear enough.

[maccard]

> If the masks were useless healthcare workers wouldn't wear them

That's not how that works. The masks are less effective when used outside of a clinical setting, must be changed regularly (pretty much every time you take it off), and may prevent the transfer of disease from an infected healthcare worker to an otherwise vulnerable person.

Just because they're not effective for one situation doesn't mean all the advice is moot

[scarejunba]

Well, less effective isn't ineffective. The physical properties of the device don't change, so maybe the cost/benefit doesn't lie in buying them now, but I have my stack so it looks like it's worthwhile to use them.