Like many others, I started off skeptical about masks due to public health messaging and all the general caveats about how hard it is to wear a respirator corre

Like many others, I started off skeptical about masks due to public health messaging and all the general caveats about how hard it is to wear a respirator correctly. That’s no longer the case. Wearing a mask of any sort reduces the risk of infection. That’s why hospitals need PPE and are even resorting to using lower-grade protection (e.g surgical masks instead of n95) due to lack of supplies. CDC is even recommending scarves as a last resort. They’re also reusing masks and wearing them for longer than they should. These are all signs that _any_ mask can provide some benefit. Furthermore, it’s been well cited that wearing masks does more to protect others from the wearer than vice versa. Given that its possible to be an asymptomatic carrier, you should wear a mask to avoid spreading the virus unknowingly. Obviously, full PPE should go to healthcare and other critical needs right now due to shortage. That doesn’t mean the rest of us shouldn’t wear masks, just that we shouldn’t selfishly hoard a bunch of n95s. I’ll bet lots of Californians have leftover masks from the wildfires that they could use. My take is that reserving proper PPE for health workers until the crisis peaks is critical. But westerners don’t have a mask-wearing culture like Asian countries, and are more likely to have an all or nothing approach to wearing one (n95 or bust!). So the safest public health messaging is to discourage all mask wearing. Not sure that’s worked.