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Comment by 13415 | Hacker News Reader

If they were practically useless, then health care workers wouldn't use them...

Surgical high-proof mask doctors and nurses use are pretty good against viruses, combined with googles of course.

For normal person? They are mostly useless. Only for people, who are already sick, to stop them from spreading virus further. Wearing mask by healthy person doesn't make sense, because there is not much to stop viruses with coming in contact with your eyes. You are always a scratch away from bringing those viruses into your body, negating any benefit from mask. And most of mask, you can buy currently are not dense enough to capture viruses.

OP is correct, unless you are sick or medical worker, you don't need mask. Don't buy them, hospitals need them much more than you.

Is WHO [1] good enough source for you?

[1] https://www.who.int/emergencies/diseases/novel-coronavirus-2...

The thing with this virus, you typically don't know you are infected until it's too late and you already infected a number of others. The goal with masks is not to protect you, but to protect the general population. Any basic mask will do for that purpose.

Surely that's why it was crazy when ordinary, uninfected people, wanted to wear masks to tell them "well that won't help".

I can't see how reducing transmission "isn't helping".

Because masks don’t reduce transmission. Communication on this has been very clear. Masks don’t help. Frequently washing hands, avoiding contact with others, keeping your surroundings clean, and not touching your face does help. Masks give a false sense of security and reduce supply for those that need them.

I wonder why doctors and nurses use them then. They usw them in most situations. I wonder why they complain about lack of them. Since they are useless.

Sure, they are not as good as respirators. And we as general public should not bulk buy them now.

I wonder why in China and Korea, in counties most experienced in current situation, everyone is required to use them.

Common sense says that any kind of barrier between cough or sneeze droplets and my nose or mouth will reduce the probability of me breathing it in. I could tie a scarf around my mouth. It may not be perfect but even if it reduces transmission by 5%, Why not?

https://smartairfilters.com/en/blog/diy-homemade-mask-protec...

Has more info on studies related to this. I believe their claim is that tying a cloth around your nose/mouth is 50% as effective as a proper mask.

Could you cite me a research paper showing face masks don't reduce transmission?

The source doesn't substantiate anything you wrote in your comment.

They say "If you are healthy, you only need to wear a mask if you are taking care of a person with suspected 2019-nCoV infection."

That assumes you're doing everything else to protect yourself already, like stay away from crowded places.

It also assumes that you know that you're healthy. You could be carrying COVID-19 without knowing it!

One reason health practitioners wear masks is not to infect vulnerable patients with something they might be carrying.

> there is not much to stop viruses with coming in contact with your eyes.

Other than the goggles that you mentioned; yet, nurses in hospitals don't routinely wear goggles, yet do wear masks.

This is probably because your eyes do not suck in air the way your air passages do, and also don't spew viruses into the air.

>They are mostly useless. Only for people, who are already sick, to stop them from spreading virus further. //

Um, this is kinda what ordinary people want!!

If you stop it spreading, then most of us don't get it!

Yes, it doesn't stop you getting it, but if it stops you spreading it then we hinder/stop the epidemic [but we're way past that now].

> Surgical high-proof mask doctors and nurses use are pretty good against viruses, combined with googles of course.

Maybe my country is outlier, but doctors in non surgical situation use mask (not respirator) and no googles. It is not airtight either.

I don't think they do it because it would be useless.

I believe this is primarily a narrative that was invented to prevent a temporary shortage of masks for health care workers. This may be a noble cause, but it's still a lie. Surgical masks reduce the probability of infecting others if you have it (maybe without knowing), and correctly used N95 masks drastically reduce the risk of getting infected.

There is a reason why South Korea officially distributes masks to the public. Everybody in China and Japan wears masks, too.

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