Sadly all those (well-meaning) posts from healthcare experts on how masks won't work for ordinary people because they won't wear them correctly likely encouraged hoarding even more. That was never a message that would work. No wonder I'm constantly seeing online ads for masks!
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Replying to @zeynep
In my community and our local hospitals, the unified message is if your sick enough to think you need to wear a mask, a better practice is to stay at home. If your healthy, also stay at home. And if you’re healthy and need to be out a better practice is hand hygiene, phones, keys
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Replying to @domillima
We're not testing people; there is clear asymptomatic/mild/undetected case transmission. How are people supposed to know when they should mask up? What is "sick enough" given this isn't like SARS—no consistent febrile presentation? Truth is, there aren't enough masks.
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Replying to @zeynep
That’s exactly my point. There aren’t enough masks. In the same way people can perform the flawed mental math that decides “Hey, I’m at some increased risk and I should wear this mask,” they can instead decide to stay home.
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Replying to @domillima
Telling people "there isn't enough masks" is what I propose rather than telling them masks don't work, or that they only need them if they are sick (since they cannot know when). Hong Kong, Taiwan etc. aren't all staying home. They masked up and life goes on, epidemic contained.
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Replying to @zeynep
“There aren’t enough masks” sounds akin to “there aren’t enough lifeboats.” I don’t know how this is any less hysteria inducing. Strictly speaking I believe that masks alone do not work. The virus lives 10-12 hours on contact surfaces.
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Replying to @domillima
It's not all or nothing. If that were the case, health care workers wouldn't be wearing them. There are papers out of Wuhan, comparing mask wearing and non-wearing healthcare workers, by the way. No infections among mask wearers, many among non-wearers. (I'll find paper again).
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Replying to @zeynep @domillima
https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.02.18.20021881v1.full.pdf … Look at what Taiwan did again. They distributed masks, blocked hoarding, ramped up domestic production. Much saner, and health care people have the masks they need, plus lower rate of infection among the public, too.
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Replying to @zeynep
That’s exactly the paper. Methodologically flawed. N95 use in a particular ward generalized to people out in public. Yes if we had unlimited supply everyone could do what they please. These public health recommendations are couched in the context the resources we have.
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Replying to @domillima
Yes! What I'm saying is messages should be couched in the *reality* of those resources we have. "Look, we don't have enough masks so we are going to prioritize health care workers and distribute what we have left while producing more." That may work. "Masks don't work"->hoarding.
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(There are other papers; we know masks aren't perfect but we also know that they help stop those sick from spreading the disease; we know people can't know when they are sick especially as we aren't testing. And yet we don't have enough. So that's reality.)
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