[marcus_holmes]

In Asia, where mask-wearing is common (part of the culture, nothing to do with COVID), sick people wear masks. It's very practical, and also a social signal that "I am ill". As a manager of a business in SE Asia, people coming in sick but wearing masks was awesome. The mask-wearing reduced their infectiousness (because the mask stops saliva-borne virus communication) and made it OK to come in to work if you're feeling well enough to work. It's socially acceptable to not shake a mask-wearer's hand or otherwise touch them. It's as much social signal as anything ("I might be infectious, I'm not going to be offended if you treat me as a walking virus bomb").

Part of the problem for the West is that we wear masks when we don't want to get sick. Masks don't really work for this (the rest of the mask-wearer still gets covered in virus). And if we're diagnosed sick, then we stop wearing masks. Again, that's not how the mask thing works, because this is when masks are most useful. Both as a social signal and practical way of reducing infectiousness.

To use masks effectively, we need to stop wearing them when we're scared, and start wearing them when we're infected. But I think the social change to do this will be difficult.

[pas]

> To use masks effectively, we need to stop wearing them when we're scared, and start wearing them when we're infected. But I think the social change to do this will be difficult.

Not exactly. Just make it mask season and make everybody wear it. You don't know when you are contagious/infectious, and it might not be at the same time when you are feeling sick. So just make sure everyone wears it.

[marcus_holmes]

I don't think it's practical to insist that everyone wears a mask all the time.

[gji]

Practical from a cultural standpoint or in terms of quantity? IIRC, people are required to wear masks when entering businesses in China now.

[nec4b]

Masks do protect you from getting sick.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30229968

[JeremyNT]

The idiotic meme that "masks don't protect you from getting the virus" is incredibly frustrating.

I know H/N loves binary thinking, but the either/or fallacy is harmful and dangerous, especially in this scenario. People fall into it with the age-based impact of the virus too: young people feel completely immune, so why care? The same with masks: they don't protect you 100%, so people just mentally consider them worthless, and then there are dozens of HN posts repeating the misinformation in short order.

[Erlich_Bachman]

> when we don't want to get sick. Masks don't really work for this

They do, they decrease the chance to get infected. They don't guarantee it. The previous poster wrote about exactly this.

[marcus_holmes]

Situation: Infected person coughs near a non-infected person.

If the Infected Person is wearing the mask, all good. Cough contained in mask, no virus spread anywhere, everyone OK.

If the Non-Infected Person is wearing the mask, they're still covered in virus-laden cough mess. All they have to do is touch their face once in the next 3 days to catch the virus. Washing their hands will remove the virus from the hands, but not from their clothes, hair, etc.

Also, they're now covered in virus. Everything they touch will be covered in virus. Virus everywhere, infecting everyone. Everyone not OK.

It's possible that a non-infected person wearing a mask might prevent a tiny bit of infection, but it's MASSIVELY more effective on the infected person.

Surgeons wear masks in case they cough on the patient. They don't put a mask on the patient...

[Erlich_Bachman]

And then the virus just dies on non-live surfaces like clothes in a couple of hours.

Like we said several times, masks provide some protection (decreased risk) for a healthy person, they don't protect from getting infected 100%.

No one ever said that mask is more effective on healthy person than on the infected one, I am not sure who you are arguing against. But it is the popular for some reason notion that a mask does not protect a healthy person at all that is plain false as has to go away.

[simiones]

No, the virus lives on non-live surfaces for up to 3 days. This alone invalidates the rest of your argument.

[pas]

We still don't know how long it lives on clothing. On doorknobs, plastic, stainless steel it can live for 72 hours, yes.

https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2020/03/14/8116090...

[ntsplnkv2]

Plastic, like buttons, which are on clothing.

[simiones]

Fair enough, but I wouldn't assume the difference goes from 72 hours to 3 between different inert surfaces.

[marcus_holmes]

The difference in effectiveness is huge, to the point where it's ridiculous to be healthy and wear a mask. Like I said, they don't put masks on surgery patients.

And don't forget the social signal part; if everyone wears a mask all the time, then we don't know who actually considers themselves to be infectious. Whereas if just the infectious people wear masks, then we know who they are and can act appropriately (being grateful that they self-identified as infectious and kept the rest of us safer, for a start).

[dmwallin]

I think the social signal part has second order effects that make it work out not as you would expect.

If ONLY sick people tend to wear masks then masks will make you a more visible target of fear and hate, which would lead people who are sick to not wear masks.

It's a much better idea to destigmatize the act of mask wearing so we can get larger coverage of sick people with mask s.

[marcus_holmes]

in the West, yes. Because we're idiots about this sort of thing.

In Asia, the feeling is gratitude - thank you for wearing a mask and protecting me from your illness

[tasuki]

> The difference in effectiveness is huge, to the point where it's ridiculous to be healthy and wear a mask.

I think the point is that you have no idea whether you're healthy.

[marcus_holmes]

I get that. But still, if you're going to not wear a mask all the time, then better to wear one when you think you're sick than when you think you're healthy.