[kevingadd]

I think some of the logic behind "masks are useless" is that if people believe masks will prevent it, they'll get too reckless about going out as long as they have a mask. Sadly many people wear masks incorrectly and other people will wear masks that don't actually block viral particulates while out there acting more dangerously than otherwise, spreading disease.

IIRC anything below N95 isn't going to do much, and from experience (yay wildfires) I can say wearing N95s is very uncomfortable. Incidentally even physicians wearing proper PPE (n95 or better, etc) can still catch COVID, so it wouldn't be appropriate to say that those are good enough.

It's certainly better than nothing - I'd prefer it if everyone out and about was wearing masks - but the risk of false security leading to dangerous behavior is strong, and we already have issues with mask supplies, so it makes sense to discourage it.

[himinlomax]

> I think some of the logic behind "masks are useless" is that if people believe masks will prevent it, they'll get too reckless about going out as long as they have a mask.

Lying to people for their own good may be acceptable in some circumstances, but in the long run it's always going to have deleterious effects. It erodes trust, it disincentivizes responsible people, and if the people doing the lying are wrong ... it makes things worse.

[himinlomax]

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/17/opinion/coronavirus-face-...

"Why Telling People They Don’t Need Masks Backfired"

"To help manage the shortage, the authorities sent a message that made them untrustworthy."

[krzat]

That's very convoluted reasoning. I think the main goal of surgical masks for entire population would be to limit amount of virus floating in the air. They are also good at stopping people from touching their faces.

IMO the goverments should make masks mandatory, even if it's DYI mask made from few layers of tshirt. And start teaching people how to use them and why.

[kevingadd]

If the supply was there I'd absolutely agree. At least in the US it's very hard to get adequate masks right now (this is partly due to a failure to maintain supply, there were some news stories recently about how a local manufacturer was begging the government to invest in this so he could maintain production)

[imtringued]

Masks prevent sneezing from reaching other people.