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Comment by snicksnak | Hacker News Reader

There is this one from Dr Maria Van Kerkhove from the WHO [0]:

> our recommendations are that in the community we don't recommend the use of masks unless you yourself are sick and as a measure to prevent onward spread from you if you are ill. The masks that we recommend are for people who are at home and who are sick and for those individuals who are caring for those people who are home that are sick.

The general advice the WHO gave on masks was

> If you are healthy, you only need to wear a mask if you are taking care of a person with suspected 2019-nCoV infection. [1]

[0] https://www.who.int/docs/default-source/coronaviruse/transcr...

[1] https://web.archive.org/web/20200329083719/https://www.who.i...

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Possibly a long shot, but I was wondering if you knew of any sources of the CDC also taking this stance?

I have a vague memory that they also made similar statements, but I tried to find evidence of that recently and couldn’t find a source. I’d appreciate anybody that could link me to a source if they have it on hand / find one.

Fauci said in a 60 minutes interview back in March: "Right now, in the United States, people should not be walking around with masks" and "When you're in the middle of an outbreak, wearing a mask might make people feel a little bit better and it might even block a droplet, but it's not providing the perfect protection that people think that it is." [0]

However that was before the CDC issued in early april its recommendation to wear masks [1]

[0] https://www.cbsnews.com/news/preventing-coronavirus-facemask... [1] https://www.npr.org/sections/coronavirus-live-updates/2020/0...

It was the ‘noble lie‘ to prevent a run on PPE.

The noble lie is typically a regrettable idea. Eventually exposed, it undermines trust in institutions by setting them in opposition to the public.

“We had to lie to you because you wouldn’t have done the right thing otherwise. That is to say, you are bad and we are good.”

>Though health officials have warned Americans to prepare for the spread of the novel coronavirus in the U.S., people shouldn’t wear face masks to prevent the spread of the infectious illness, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, ...

https://www.marketwatch.com/story/the-cdc-says-americans-don...

mentions that. Not very well sourced though.

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