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Comment by gombosg | Hacker News Reader

I totally agree and it's likely that the public will be much better equipped after this pandemic ends. So all of us will have a box of disposable masks at home, and will be educated about when and how to wear them properly.

Right now, the average person probably only has 1 or at most a few masks, they don't dispose of them after use and probably wear (put on/off) them in a wrong way.

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You know, you could have learned how to put on a mask properly within the time period you spent arguing here. It’s not fucking rocket science.

I was recently on a flight where a person on my row had difficulties taking her seatbelt off. After what seemed like two minutes the flight attendant assisted her. I'll even admit that it sometimes takes me a second to do it correctly when I try to only take it off with one hand. Despite this we still recommend that people use their seatbelts. In addition to this we play videos that instruct people on the usage of seatbelts. Imagine if we argued against recommending seatbelts because of the lack of education on using them despite never having attempted to explain how to use them.

Don't they also teach you how to put on that oxygen mask on the airplane?

> you could have learned how to put on a mask properly within the time period

I'm mostly arguing the other side here, but I should point out that well fitting an N95 mask is actually pretty tricky depending on the shape of your face.

I expect that even a lot of medical professionals don't manage it. You only really can tell that you've done it wrong if exposed to something you can smell or taste very strongly that the mask should stop.

A poorly fitted mask is almost certainly a big improvement over nothing, however.

I’m not talking about N95 masks here. I’m firmly in the camp suggesting the following: leave N95 masks to frontline health workers, and wear surgical masks when you go out. Which is at least consistent with government recommendations in Mainland China and Hong Kong (just checked, see https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22726566). Oh and there are two doctors in my family who recommend the same.

Tell us how to put on a mask.

We'll tell you how many errors you've made.

The Zeno mask: impossible to wear safely.

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