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"mass manufacturing of N95 masks"

How? The shortage in March was one of the reasons why they did not recommend masks. Besides, the point made was tailored toward the negative attitude towards science in emarging crisis scenario - "The “science” [..] rarely resembles the centuries-old process of making informed guesses, testing hypotheses"

Did we have any superior alternatives?

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Any mask recommendation would have been an improvement, while production ramped up. The knowing bait-and-switch of "masks don't work" for the cynical reason of preserving supplies destroyed many people's trust in the integrity of the apparatus.

And now, we're a year in and still we don't have actual N95 filtering masks everywhere. Most people are still wearing cloth.

And I have yet to see anyone in the US government recommend an actual filtering mask, which somewhat boggles my mind. Real FDA-approved KN95 masks have been available fairly cheaply for 6+ months, although ensuring you're not getting counterfeits can be an issue. I switched several months ago and couldn't believe how much better they were. It was obvious that air was actually going through the mask rather than around the sides and I had fewer issues with my glasses fogging and humidity buildup. Add to that the fact that it's actually filtering out 95% of any harmful particles and it's a no-brainer.

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