[otterley]

The question isn't whether N95 masks are/are not effective against transmission of the COVID-19 virus as a boolean yes/no answer.

The question is who should be supplied with the masks in a time of extreme shortage in a way that is most effective for the public at large, in terms of maximum effectiveness and lifesaving. It's all about ranking - what's the priority ordering for distribution?

The CDC and other well-educated organizations believe they should go to hospitals and other health care providers first, infected people second, vulnerable populations third, and others last.

Popular greed combined with ineffective controls are upsetting this logical ordering, and increase the overall risk for the population as a whole.

[PeterisP]

If we're talking about the media claims that the masks are ineffective, then it's completely orthogonal to the issue of who should be supplied with the masks. If CDC and other well-educated organizations believe they should go to hospitals and other health care providers first, infected people second, vulnerable populations third, and others last, that still does not excuse lying to the public, as that erodes trust in these organizations and ensures that all other information (e.g. regarding quarantines) would be distrusted.

[Barrin92]

> then it's completely orthogonal to the issue of who should be supplied with the masks.

it's really not. The general population has already tuned out when you go into a ten paragraph long debate about the masks.

The question is what 140 character message you give to people that induces the correct behaviour and in this case it's telling people bluntly that those masks don't help so people stop hoarding them. And they honestly don't help because most people don't know how to wear them or how often to change them anyway, so it's basically a meaningless discussion.

[s1artibartfast]

it not really a ten paragraph statement:

Masks work, but healthcare workers need them more.

I think a seperate and perfectly valid question is if public consumption of masks has had any impact on the health supply chain.

My understanding is the two are unrelated. Masks are had to come by because manufacturers are selling their entire capacity to hospital and consumer stores are not being restocked. The state and the fed (in the US) have tens of millions of masks, and are releasing some but not all of them to the hospitals.

Hospitals are not competing for the masks at hardware stores or amazon.

If anything, I wish the media would urge people to wear masks with lower ratings than N95.

Perfect is the enemy of the good. Catching even half particulate when an infected person coughs would be huge.

[shalmanese]

Because then they would have to say the unsaid part which is "Masks work but we failed to adequately prepare so we need to ration them severely."

Every country that's managed to bend the R0 curve has had masks as an integral part of their strategy and that's only been possible because masks were made a deliberate part of their public health strategy for over a decade (mostly due to SARS). It's only one leg of the stool as Japan is finding out as one of the few mask-wearing countries that's not getting it under control but a stool with one leg missing is a pretty useless stool!

Western countries are paying the price for a decade of staring on and going "those kooky Asians with their strange mask wearing practices".

[otterley]

Which historically-trusted media companies are claiming that the masks are "ineffective"? At the end of the day, it's a red herring, but I'm still curious.

[PeterisP]

We can start with US Surgeon General (https://twitter.com/Surgeon_General/status/12337257852839321... - "They are NOT effective in preventing general public from catching #Coronavirus")

And off the first page of duckduckgo: https://www.businessinsider.com/wuhan-coronavirus-face-masks...

https://time.com/5794729/coronavirus-face-masks/

https://nationalpost.com/news/world/how-to-avoid-coronavirus...

But yes, many media companies are giving an appropriate message of either why there's little reason to wear a mask right now (little chance of random community spread today) or about the allocation of scarce masks to people who need them more.

[s1artibartfast]

prevention /= harm reduction.

condoms aren't 100% effective, but still worth using.

[exolymph]

> The CDC and other well-educated organizations believe they should go to hospitals and other health care providers first, infected people second, vulnerable populations third, and others last.

> Popular greed combined with ineffective controls are upsetting this logical ordering, and increase the overall risk for the population as a whole.

Look, it's not my fault that gov't didn't prepare for this situation — high demand for masks — and that I did.

[otterley]

It's fine to be prepared, but if your local hospital rings you up and asks you for your stash, are you going to refuse?

[scarejunba]

A reasonable deal to me sounds like they can do one of three things:

* Procure from someone else

* Procure from me at my price

* Sign an irrevocable deal that at any point I will give them any N95 and P100 masks I have they desire and in exchange they will give me any healthcare I desire at any point. My life is no less valuable than theirs so I think this is fair.

[otterley]

The correct formula isn't what your lives are worth in absolute terms, though. It must be risk-adjusted. Specifically, one must calculate what lives are worth, multiplied by the probability of the hypothetical victim's vs. the current possessor's death due to not having a mask.

But again, this isn't so much an economic question as much as it is a moral one.

[scarejunba]

Oh it most certainly is a moral one, which is why I'm asking that you commit to save my life when it needs saving. Unless you somehow imagine that letting me die is morally desirable? At which point, it'll take a lot more to convince me.

If my life needs dollars to save, so does yours. And if you will take your pound of flesh, so will I. But I'm making an offer in good faith in your hour of need. I will not take a pound of flesh. I will take no thing. And in exchange, all I ask is that you do the same for me. Your reluctance to accept this tells me all I need to know about your so-called morality.

[otterley]

Huh? Your implicit assumption seems to be that if you don’t have a mask, you are 100% likely to die. That is just not so, and borders on paranoia.

[waterhouse]

Well, how much will they pay you for it?

Seriously. If they pay something good for it, then that gives a decent incentive for forward-thinking people to do some stockpiling for situations like this. If they don't, and if they go as far as trying to punish "price gouging", then there is no such incentive beyond stockpiling for personal use or for sale on the black market.

[otterley]

Let us assume for the sake of argument, up to the manufacturer's suggested retail price. They're asking because they believe people will probably unnecessarily die if they don't get more right away.

[waterhouse]

Well, if people's lives are at stake, why not pay more? ("Why not accept less?" It's the hospital's job to care for its patients—not to mention its workers.) I suspect the cost of one of the healthcare workers getting badly sick one week earlier is worth many times the cost of one box of masks.

If you offer the retail price, then that effectively covers the case of people who accidentally bought too much and would have otherwise wanted to return the masks (but were too lazy until now?). It doesn't incentivize anyone to make any forward-thinking stockpiles; their net profit would be zero, minus the transaction and storage costs.

[otterley]

Yup, you're right. And yet it doesn't matter because this is a moral issue, not an economic one. Not everything comes down to the cold, hard logic of economics and incentives - nor should it, for the sake of humanity.

[petre]

In France, president Macron signed an presidential order last week requisitioning surgical masks and their production for healthcare use. Why isn't this possible in the US? Japan's prime minister, Abe Shinzo, altered the law to be able to declare formal state of emergency. He came under fire for poorly handling the outbreak.

[otterley]

The Department of Health and Human Services is doing just that:

> Late Wednesday night, HHS announced it would be buying 500 million N95 respirators over the next 18 months for the stockpile, “part of a broader effort to maximize the availability of personal protective equipment for health care workers who are on the front lines” fighting spread of the virus...

https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2020/03/05/washington-...

[s1artibartfast]

The whole topic is a red herring.

The production is going to the hospitals and the government also has a stockpile, which they are partially distributing.

http://www.capradio.org/articles/2020/03/03/california-to-di...

http://www.capradio.org/articles/2020/03/03/california-to-di...

[zachguo]

Yup, it's not about the effectiveness of the masks, it's simply because the US doesn't have enough stockpile and capacity to produce them. All east Asian countries recommend citizens to wear masks.