"The biggest mistake in the U.S. and Europe ... is that people aren't wearing masks."
Do homemade face masks work as well as surgical masks or N95s?
No
So shouldn't I wear hospital-grade masks instead?
No, not while there's a shortage. If hospitals don't have enough, our nurses and doctors will get sick. A shortage of health care professionals right now would make things much much worse. (you get sicker and lose more money)
So why wear them at all?
To dramatically slow the spread of viruses like the flu and COVID19. It's about shifting our perspective from personal protection to community protection.
But what if people touch their faces while adjusting?
It's okay if you accidentally touch your cheek a few times. The point is to keep peoples' spit out of the air. Also, universal masks remind everyone to take this seriously, stay home, and not eat with their fingers.
But we don't have enough, right?
Everyone has an old tshirt or bandana they can use. We need face mask mandates TODAY. When the Czech Republic mandated masks, there was a huge collaborative public effort to make homemade masks. Homes and businesses including theaters and bars.
But my community has fever checkpoints
A third of infections might be asymptomatic. Even if you feel healthy, you need to assume you're contagious and stop breathing directly into air in public spaces without some sort of mask.
Are there any risks to mandating public mask usage?