When I went out for groceries this week (weekday late evening to avoid crowding) I was the only one in the store wearing a mask. Rationally I knew it was reducing risk for others but I still felt deeply uncomfortable being the odd one out.
Contrast this with places like Taiwan where a mask isn’t considered abnormal, and becomes a matter of course during times like this.
Catching a Corina virus with less than 15 minutes personal contact is very unlikely and it's extraordinary unlikely to be able to acquire a virion and get it to a host cell just walking past an infected perso on the street.
It's not even clear how infectious the surface to face vector is.
Italians and Spaniards running around kissing each other and rubbing cheeks as is their ancient custom likely has more to do with the issues there than anything
Masks are very hard to come by... that might be why it looks like business as usual? I'd love to get some myself, tips appreciated.
Several states fairly recently passed laws requiring food preparers to wear gloves. Then they backtracked when they realized that they actually decreased safety.
It's literally not okay to be wearing gloves in a chemistry/biochemistry building when you push an elevator button.
But I always tossed the gloves before leaving the work area. And usually I'd put on fresh gloves before removing the lead apron.
That wouldn't be workable day to day. You'd probably go through 50-100 gloves per day, doing it right.
My daughter is also sewing cloth mask using a pattern from https://www.craftpassion.com/face-mask-sewing-pattern/
I know these aren't as good, but they probably improve my chances of avoiding SARS-CoV-2 by at least 10% when I have to go outside. I plan on using them once, then leaving them in a bucket in the garage. Once I've used them all up, I'll wash them and by that time (and hopefully the detergent + bleach action), the virus will be dead.
It's no better than avoiding personal contact generally.
https://smartairfilters.com/en/blog/best-materials-make-diy-...
The main risk when getting groceries, unless people are coughing or sneezing in your face, is transfers from your hands, which a surgical or n95/r95/p95 mask does roughly zero to help with. (Now, getting everyone else to wear such a mask would reduce the odds of them contaminating something that would get on your hands, but that's not a benefit of you wearing mask.)
For the average person, a mask likely is an individual benefit. But in a world with insufficient masks and asymmetric risks, social benefit, literally the health of the public, benefits most by limited and targeted use.
Distinguishing between personal and communal risk is critical here. That message has been poorly conveyed, even by ordinarily excellent communicators -- Zynep Tufekci comes to mind.
My comment was in the context of "what can time fix", which would mean supplying healthcare workers and everybody else with masks before letting up. Retail workers wearing masks would go a long way to creating some peer pressure to act differently.
From what I understand the best prevention is to reduce face-to-face contact with other people where possible, but an N95 mask would definitely help prevent contraction in public spaces.
Of course, these measures seem extreme since ~80% of people will barely notice they are infected / have mild symptoms, but it's all about peak-load reduction.
[1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V1xBiBVH7U4 [2]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E3URhJx0NSw&t=7s
It gives you very limited protection. There's no replacement for just avoiding people, 15 feet away from everyone.
They're mainly good for people who are infected to not transmit pathogens.
When doctors operate on infectious people, they wear hazmat suits. Full face mask, air filter and body condom. You can get a virus through your ears, eyes, mouth, nose, or microabrasions on your skin.
You can wear a mask, but I fear that people will start thinking it's anywhere near full protection. False sense of security is probably not worth even encouraging in a situation this dire.