[en-us]

Agreed. The US surgeon general lied to the population about the efficacy of masks to try to preserve them for healthcare workers. It would have been better to ask people to preserve N95 for healthcare workers and instead improvise their own. Any reduction in droplet transmission is going to drop the R0 of this and help flatten the curve.

As an alternative see Hong Kong, where they are encouraging the population to improvise masks: https://www.consumer.org.hk/ws_en/news/specials/2020/mask-di...

[simonh]

Improvised masks commonly provide little protection, but obstruct breathing so people suck in more air with more force, increasing their risk of exposure.

[hn_throwaway_99]

Unless you have a study that backs this up, this is just baseless speculation. I agree with the other posters, I am incredibly frustrated with the CDC for misleading about the efficacy of surgical masks with statements like "the virus particles are smaller than the holes in the mask" - that may be true, but all the studies I could find show that masks reduce flu transmission by 70-80%.

[en-us]

What you say is directly contradicted by the researchers at University of Hong Kong-Shenzhen Hospital, as detailed in my link above.

Can you cite a study that supports your claim?

[ardy42]

>> It would have been better to ask people to preserve N95 for healthcare workers and instead improvise their own. Any reduction in droplet transmission is going to drop the R0 of this and help flatten the curve.

> Improvised masks commonly provide little protection, but obstruct breathing so people suck in more air with more force, increasing their risk of exposure.

The point of an improvised mask should not be to protect the wearer, but to protect the community from the wearer.