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> our smartest people - both in the actual elite and here on HN - exclaimed that wearing a mask "does nothing".

I'm fairly convinced that the messaging behind the "masks don't do anything" rhetoric is to prevent a shortage to people who need them. Yeah, everyone wearing masks would probably effectively slow the virus but if there's known supply chain issues and everyone stocking up would cause availability issues for doctors & nurses, then we have to take the lesser evil.

Yeah but the effect is a diminished trust in experts. Which is why noble lies are toxic. Like, nobody who said that masks can't help has grounds to complain about accusations of "fake news" ever again.

People's decisions today are so influenced by media that fake news become acceptable (like white lies).

Media has to act as the Catholic Church did in ancient times. It has to make up some stories to control people's behavior.

Toilet paper is an example of this: you talk about a shortage, and people will buy more. They don't believe it's really necessary, but since they know other people are buying and the media is talking about it, even smart people understand demand will increase and stocks will fall, so they buy more.

Same with masks: if you tell people "they work, but don't buy them" it will have the exact opposite effect.

In China and other Eastern countries, this is dealt with by causing fear in people: "if I buy a lot of masks and the state finds out, I'll be in trouble".

We don't have that tool in free Western countries. So media manipulation becomes the only effective tool for behavior control.

When manufacturing consent is broken because the lies are so obvious.

The split of "they don't do anything" and "hospitals need them" made no sense to Americans so they ignored both messages.

Yeah, but if everyone started wearing masks back in early February in New York City there wouldn't be overloaded hospitals in Queens today on March 25th, now would there.

There weren't masks to wear.

In the tweet linked, they explain that in the Czech Republic there's been a social movement around making your own masks, giving them out, etc.

It's here in the US, too, but on a much reduced scale. My wife made some masks to hand out, getting the idea from her cousin who was putting her children who are not in school to work making masks for donation.

True, but that itself is a symptom of bigger problems. The problem isn't which people should or shouldn't have masks. The problem is a lack of supply chain capacity and inventory, and the SNS should have 6 billion masks and 100k ventilators.

Lying to people doesn't help public health or fix the problems of the federal government failing to act. The AARC told HHS to get their act together about the SNS on ventilators, but the govt didn't.

You could easily build your own masks out of stuff at home which would be better than nothing.

Pros: Reduce the droplets in the air

May reduce panic/stress?

Cons

You need to touch your face more often which increases the risk

Mask becomes humid after a while which is great eniviroment for the virus.

False sense of security - people engaging in risky behavoiur

Not enough masks for hospitals

Its very likely they benefits outweigh the costs

Pros: all true

Cons: Every single one of these is false, especially the face touching part.

Folks, this is what I'm talking about so let's do this by the numbers.

>You need to touch your face more often which increases the risk

You touch your face less (read: zero) when in environments in which you're wearing the mask. And if you're wearing it in public places that's enormously important, since that is where you will get the virus.

>Mask becomes humid after a while which is great eniviroment for the virus.

The micro-environment of "your mouth and nose" is not going to breed any more virus than the environment around you that wants to inject the virus into your mouth and nose.

>False sense of security - people engaging in risky behavoiur

[citation needed]

>Not enough masks for hospitals

And if we'd stopped lying about masks being effective back in early February perhaps we'd have enough of them by now. So let's stop lying about it now to make sure we have enough by May.

First off, we are talking about WHOLE society, not a single responsible user.

>You touch your face less (read: zero) when in environments in which you're wearing the mask.

That is factually incorrect. Im in Japan right now where vast majority wear masks. People touch face when they want to smoke - because of the mask. When you talk for a bit you have to adjust the mask. Ive seen people scraching there face through the mask. Take it off to talk on the phone. Not a single person takes it off correctly - they just grab by the centre. Why? Maybe they dont know any better or they think its ok because they have a mask.

>The micro-environment of "your mouth and nose" is not going to breed any more virus than the environment

Thats not the risk model. Virus stays longer in humid enviroment, which meas that masks becomes a more potent vector. Yoxu touch it, leave it on the desk. People reuse their masks, since there is a shortage.

False sense of security - people engaging in risky behavoiur. Highest number of deaths on roads happen when conditions are perfect. People drive faster because the road is dry and visibility is good.

> Im in Japan right now

Japan is doing better than every single country who has had more than 10 deaths this far into Japan’s outbreak.

In fact, when you look at all nations with at least 10 deaths, regardless of when their outbreak started, only Canada has fewer deaths than Japan. And Canada’s death count is on track to surpass Japan’s in just a few days. So frankly whatever the Japanese are doing, they’re doing it better than anyone else with an outbreak, and that includes the GROSS sum of all of the behaviors you have described.

Of course I must list the countries who have had coronavirus in their country for a while now but still have fewer than 10 deaths: Taiwan, Singapore, Hong Kong

One thing these countries have in common with Japan? Face masks.

Yes, the virus affects the whole of society. Not sure what your point is.

I've spent plenty of time in Japan and East Asia. I've seen that behavior, sure, but I'm not going to use the exception of some people not using proper mask protocol 100% of the time to argue that masks are useless or no help (to be clear I don't think you're doing this, but without context it comes across this way to the casual reader which is the problem).

How does wearing masks create more of them?

Signaling social acceptance, meaning more people wear them. Meaning demand number go up. Meaning production number go up.

Being honest about their utility can create the motive to ramp up production and improve distribution. This already happened in Taiwan.

I wear a mask and it doesn't increase my face touching. In fact, it reduces my face touching because it serves as a perpetual reminder of the situation.

It may also signal to other people to keep their distance from me.

My mask makes me less likely to touch face.

> False sense of security - people engaging in risky behavoiur

I dont see people with masks being closer to each other then people without masks.

"It's ok to visit my parents or neighbours, because I had a mask"

"Its ok to sit next to my mate on the train because we had masks"

If anything, my experience is the opposite. If people slip into old habits they are reminded to keep a distance by the presence of a mask.

I think that wearing a mask is good but it is not the silver bullet. Actually any form of physical barrier to stop the transmission will help, including social distancing (God! I hate that phrase but everyone knows what that means).

It is like software development, preventing the cause is much less impacting to our lives than debugging the cause.

Of course Russian government is lying. The Russians President has spent his whole adult life oppressing his own country and just made himself dictator for life.

> I don't really understand why unless they're lying

yep, hospitals are packed completely already.

> our smartest people - both in the actual elite and here on HN

We should be open to the possibility that these are not our smartest people. Plus we should admit that there are smarter people outside of our bubble.

> Russia is too and I don't really understand why unless they're lying

Closed borders with China since January. Same as Mongolia.

>Russia is too and I don't really understand why unless they're lying

There is no coronavirus in Russia, just a bad spell of mass Pneumonia. In other news Putin just announced nationwide full pay week of 'holidays' https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/03/25/putin-refuses-im... nothing to see here folks, definitely no emergency