Professional and Home-Made Face Masks Reduce Exposure to Respiratory Infections (2008)

It’s a sort of “sensible contrarianism”, designed to appeal to the vanity of readers who view themselves as being above the fray.

Another trope is making fun of people who are preparing for possible quarantines and supply chain disruptions, or comparing the absolute numbers of people who die from seasonal flu to Covid-19, and pronouncing it overblown (more common on social media).

Now to find a face mask...

When you dig past this with the people telling you not to bother wearing a mask, another line of reasoning bubbles up - that we need to reserve them for healthcare workers.

It may be true that it’s most important to get N-95 masks into the hands of healthcare workers first, but lying to the public isn’t the right way to do it. It turns out that plenty of people are capable of understanding how to wear a mask properly, and a lot of them - myself included - May already have access to N-95 masks, like the handful I bought to wear while doing a home improvement project about six months ago.

I have to agree that more than anything else, this line of commentary that masks won’t work comes off as holier than though finger wagging. It’s at least partially a lie, and it strikes me as an ineffective way to deal with the problem of a shortage of masks for healthcare workers. I also doubt that the masks on the shelf at Home Depot were ever going to find their way into the hands of a healthcare worker if they hadn’t already.

"Dr. Pak-Leung Ho, head of Centre for infection at @hkumed, thinks it was due to the stepped-up vigilance of #HKers that no. of #COVID19 cases in #HK didn't skyrocket like Iran and Italy. He highlighted universal mask-wearing as one of the reasons widespread outbreak didn't occur."

"#HKers started wearing masks, universally and regardless of symptoms, even before the 1st confirmed case emerged in the city. Some say panic, some say unnecessary, some say cultural difference, but it is really down to our collective experience of #SARS."

"17 yrs ago #HKers learnt the impact of a disease outbreak at the cost of 299 lives. We knew if it starts in China, sooner or later it will reach #HK. Afterall, in the 1st week of Feb alone, 100,000 mainlanders entered HK, not to mention returning HK citizens."

> There is some evidence to support the wearing of masks or respirators during illness to protect others, and public health emphasis on mask wearing during illness may help to reduce influenza virus transmission.

> There are fewer data to support the use of masks or respirators to prevent becoming infected.

https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/epidemiology-and-inf...