This mask thing is a strange phenomenon. I suppose it is similar to panic buying toilet paper - people just feel the need to do something and blame someone. In

This mask thing is a strange phenomenon. I suppose it is similar to panic buying toilet paper - people just feel the need to do something and blame someone. In Australia, although there has been panic buying of toilet paper, nobody is talking much about masks, or the lack of strong recommendations to wear them. In the USA, this is apparently a major issue, and a source of suspicion and mistrust of the government and various healthcare bodies. I don't get the obsession with it. As a public health intervention, social distancing is vastly more effective and deserving of emphasis than mask wearing. There aren't enough masks. Public health orgs were worried about running out of masks, which is exactly what has happened, and this is a huge problem for doctors and nurses who whinge about it a lot less than your random person on twitter decrying the apparent conspiracy to stop mask wearing. The surgeon general's tweet (February 29) at the time was reasonable. On Feb 29 there were 66 cases in a country with 327 million people.