CDC and WHO are probably not perfect but saying they "utterly failed" because you're angry over not getting a free face mask is a bit disrespectful toward the many people their working their asses off in times like these.
my partner is a health care professional and there aren't enough masks for them (this is central Europe btw). but yeah tell me about how hard they work and how I don't appreciate them.
Having said that, I don't think it's the responsibility of the WHO to distribute masks to health professionals like your partner.
it's the CDC's who acts on advise and recommendations made by the WHO. The WHO has in 2018 warned about a disease X[1], so the CDC and local health ministries would have had 2 years to prioritize and make sure there are enough stocks for PPE in the country. It's not only about the masks for a theoretical pandemic that may or may not play out. There are shortages in other areas as well on a daily basis which are more complex and require structural cahnges. Take Germany as an example that hires Eastern Europeans as health-care workers (mostly for disabled people and elderly facilities) with salaries of ~€600-€800/month where they are placed on contracts from Slovenia and Poland to avoid paying the local insurance. (so some of the people working in healthcare can be put on crazy shifts under what is for EU standards a slave-labor condition). I won't even mention the health-care facilities in Croatia, Romania, Slovenia where elderly facilities buy drugs illegally because they want to pocket the difference, or where somebody who is hired as a nurse has actually never had any training as a nurse.
I know of some elderly care facilities in Croatia which are run by a lovely Albanian couple that branched out into this (their other businesses is bars/cafes). The wife of the entrepreneur/owner drives a fat Mercedes and goes on holidays to Paris, but the residents are lying in their own shit and swallow counterfeit drugs - also their employees are paid cash because they are usually elderly women themselves who have a lot of private debt - so this is the only way for them to survive.
This isn't whataboutism but an example of the places which won't stand a chance when this disease really hits. They aren't rare either, we just don't see them because it's disgusting and easier to look away.
As you said the price of masks has increased (in my experience by a factor of 10x !!) because people see an opportunity.
That there are no facemasks available to the general public is a result of people plundering the stocks of private businesses.
European disease control agencies aren't even recommending that people wear masks. Until they do and they can't provide any I don't see any failures on their part.
Whether they should or not is a different story.
So it looks like perhaps they have stockpiled. Until there's no recommendation to wear masks, any shortages are just private businesses that have run out. No failure of govt or WHO.
They aren't perfect because you still need proper technique when removing them and they "leak" along the sides etc. Still better than nothing, especially in crowded places.
They may help you to minimize the spread if you are already sick, sneezing and coughing. Droplets are big enough to be stopped by mask. This is actually the reason why surgeons are wearing masks in the first place - not to contaminate the patient.
Unless we are talking about something more advanced. Like above mentioned N95.
The key insight, though, is that water droplets carry viruses; viruses can travel through masks, but they can't travel by themselves without hitching a ride on a water droplet.
This is why flu season is during the cold winter, when there isn't enough heat to instantly evaporate the moisture in the air. And this is why even a regular surgical mask can offer some protection for a healthy wearer.
I have asthma, and even a few hours of wearing a procedural mask, let alone an N95 mask are very taxing. Maybe for brief periods in public... But sweat transmitted by hand onto a surface is enough. Sewage in a building is enough to infect residents that don't otherwise encounter each other.
Source: https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/hcp/respirator-use...
Yes, but given the incubation period and so on, how do you know you don't have the virus?
I'm not going to wear a mask in Central Europe (at least not yet) but I probably would in Asia just in order to not be selfish.
While this may not be beautiful and might be slightly less effective than a standard surgical mask, it should be good enough unless one is spending significant time inside with infected, coughing folks. In which case one should be doing more than just wearing a face mask. My 2c.
(Source: Family member who worked in the operating theater for 30+ years.)
That's a pretty bold statement. As someone who grew up in a less-well-off part of the world where medical supplies were not always available I have personally seen makeshift masks made and used by both doctors (rarely) and visiting relatives (more frequently).
The key problem with homemade masks is durability -- they do fail much quicker than a professional surgical mask that lasts many hours. But then, unless you are a medical professional, you do not need to wear them for hours. Wearing one in the open air environment is almost always an overkill.
First link that comes for me (below), when Googling for evidence, seems to indicate that homemade masks in some small trial were worse than professional but still pretty decent (1 hour with homemade ~ 3 hours with professional mask), although I barely skimmed it and might have misunderstood the results.
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/258525804_Testing_t...