The still unspeakable one is it may turn out that the public’s widespread belief that cloth or surgical masks are protective may, on net, have led many to use t

The still unspeakable one is it may turn out that the public’s widespread belief that cloth or surgical masks are protective may, on net, have led many to use them in situations where they would have otherwise simply have stayed home. Given the increasing evidence that a single, loosely fitting, or non-medical grade mask provided less than perfect protection, it could turn out a message like “stay home unless you had a N95 or kn95” may have been much better. (Along with a federal manhattan project to make and distribute these to as many as possible.) Given the literal lies we were told early on that masks were not effective at all, due to concerns about PPE supply, I worry that those same concerns may have led to messaging on mask that downplayed the difference between good PPE and non n95 masks. The second order consequences of this seem possibly quite bad.