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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Replying to @zeynep
Not enough masked probably would’ve also led to panic and haording.
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Replying to @domillima
I think you'd be surprised at people's capacity for altruistic behavior when approched with the stark truth and call for sacrifice. It's the feeling that the message is "massaged" to fit the top-down needs that lead to mistrust/hoarding. (Also good book: https://www.amazon.com/Paradise-Built-Hell-Extraordinary-Communities/dp/0143118072 …)
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Replying to @zeynep
We’ve got two incongruent arguments here, on the one hand people are altruistic in the face of adversity and on the hand they are cold and quick to stigmatize their neighbor. We’ll never truly know.
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It's not incongruent at all. People can act terrible OR wonderful depending on the setting, messaging, context. That's humanity for you. So my argument is setting the conditions for altruism (truth plus response) rather than terrible (masks only when sick:stigma/hoarding).
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Replying to @zeynep @domillima
I mean, this is the species with Auscwhitz-Birkenau and people who rush into burning buildings to save strangers. Masks for only the sick will encourage stigma. Masks don't work as message will encourage hoarding. We should appear to people's better angels with truth + response.
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