4 ms·
What would the result have been if, in late February, the US government had said "Everyone should use a mask"?
by ethbro 6y ago
What would the result have been if, in late February, the US government had said "Everyone should use a mask"?
- SpicyLemonZest 6y agoEveryone would probably have started making masks, as happened in the countries without pre-existing mask cultures that did recommend them early. The medical supply wouldn't have changed much, since consumer retailers couldn't get them anyway at the height of the shortage.
- davidw 6y agoWhat if they'd invoked the defense production act to actually crank out enough of the things? Or told everyone to make them, like the Czech republic did? https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2020/04/04/czech-government-implemented-face-mask-requirement-help-combat-coronavirus-column/2940393001/ https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2020/04/04/czech-gove...
- glofish 6y agothe number of cases in Czech republic are going up, currently are higher then they have ever been ... so there turns out it makes no difference how many you crank out, what you lock down and when the examples that we should do this or that are pointless, everyone will run the same fate as Sweden, lots of cases, the epidemic runs it course, then it is over
- davidw 6y agoThey apparently had some outbreaks in mines. But they're otherwise doing reasonably well.
- abootstrapper 6y agoThat’s wishful thinking. The US has and had the ability to mitigate covid19, but the Trump administration is incompetent, and our citizens have thrown up their collective hands in frustration, and have settled on the strategy of “what can ya’ do?”
- TomMarius 6y agoThat's because the country loosened the restrictions. It worked, and should've been kept. Sadly the leadership here is populist too, which worked at first (the popular thing in Europe was to restrict) but then didn't (the popular thing became to open up). If they listened to our experts instead of being populists, we wouldn't have opened up and the cases would go to zero, as it nearly did a few months ago. Source: am Czech.
- ethbro 6y agoI see it as a tail wagging the dog scenario. Government concerned about shortages + wasted N95 masks by untrained public -> recommendation against the public wearing masks -> additional evidence for airborne & asymptomatic transmission / opportunity to ramp mask production -> "I heard we recommended against the public wearing masks, so I guess we don't need to do that" To be fair, there are tons of valid reasons not to allocate scarce masks to the general public (economic panic, inability to properly fit test, inability to properly wear, no decon procedures or facilities, likelihood of proximity to Covid-positive patient). But unfortunately, it seems like the actual rationale (and suggestions it would have for subsequent action) got lost in the simplification, even on the government itself.
- eloff 6y agoHow about just tell the truth. Masks work, but we have shortage of PPE for our frontline medical workers, so please do not buy PPE. I think people can handle the truth. When you lie, you might temporarily achieve your objective, but you're sacrificing your ability to achieve any of your objectives in the future. Now I don't trust the WHO because of this, and I'll be less inclined to take them seriously.
- tfehring 6y ago> I think people can handle the truth. I disagree. Look what happened when to toilet paper, which was less scarce and less important than PPE.