[14k12j41j211]

Seems about communication gone wrong.

i) Medical masks don't help much for the general population, and don't protect the one wearing them very well. (Masks need to be exchanged, worn properly, …). ii) They create a false sense of safety.

Especially in countries where a mask isn't common, I can absolutely understand. The masks work when everybody wears one. But then, the current scarcity comes into play. Recommending everybody to wear a mask just doesn't work out, then.

Anyway, I agree that it should be possible to supply (shitty) masks to everybody and save the good ones for our health workers. In Germany, many hospitals now sew their own masks…

[new2628]

No, even putting a scarf in front of the face offers _some_ protection from people sneezing, coughing, spitting, etc.

And in any case, there is zero downside to putting it up, there is no way it can actually harm.

Instead of saying this, and trusting people that they understand that some protection is better than no protection, authorities are patronising people with "false sense of safety", and "masks are actually harmful".

[calyth2018]

The article make the claim that inward protection of masks, be it home made, surgical, or N95, provides some level of protection of breathing in the virus. The outward protection of masks from infectious persons, while useful, is relatively less.

[1] https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal... (referenced in the article itself, I'm just reiterating the claim)

[interestica]

I see the reference to the "false sense of safety" a bit. I always thought that seeing a lot of masks in any location would give me the opposite feeling: that extra precautions need to be taken.