Surgeon general urges public to stop buying face masks amid coronavirus outbreak

seattletimes.com

27 points·spking··6 comments

> “Seriously people — STOP BUYING MASKS!” the surgeon general, Jerome M. Adams, said in a tweet on Saturday morning. “They are NOT effective in preventing general public from catching #Coronavirus, but if health care providers can’t get them to care for sick patients, it puts them and our communities at risk!”

So do they help prevent catching coronavirus or don't they?

Surgical masks don't. If you are sick, wearing one can help you from giving it to others somewhat.

That's what I understood till now.

Mostly it doesn't matter for normal people - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22456037

I think the main benefit might come from mask that you stop touching your face. But for that you don't need fancy mask..

Surgical masks don't protect health workers from patients. They protect patients from health workers.

The problems of the bureaucracies' (health care providers, in this case) poor planning and decision making are not my problem. If I choose to buy face masks for my family, I am not taking it away from a sick person. I would rather prevent getting the coronavirus myself than worry about hospital or healthcare industry's lack of planning.

If there's a limited supply and new stock isn't being added at the same rate of current stock depletion it becomes a zero-sum game... so you quite literally are.

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