I like those cotton masks from sasa. Much more comfortable. Don't find that I need to take it off as soon as I get out of the station/mall. 35hkd for a pack of 2.
I do not think that the difference between the huge impact in Italy and the Hong Kong situation is just the mask and not the actual circumstances of each place. And the virus’s origins for that matter.
a five fold protection wearing a mask!!!! That seems a bit high
So if two people are wearing a mask is that a 25x protection? If so 2m social distancing becomes 8cm with both wearing a mask or if someone is 2m from you and you are both wearing masks it becomes more like 50m apart.
I can see why Singapore's stance was right to start with, and it is right to change it now as well.
When you have a limited number of masks, it it worth restricting them to those people who are most likely to be transmitting the disease. So when very few in the community have coronavirus, don't allow the community waste masks. Restrict them to people who are being treated for it or to health care professionals who are likely to be in close contact with those people, so that infected doctors and nurses don't pass it on to others. The last thing you want is for those in healthcare to run out of masks because the general public wasted them.
When the incidence of coronavirus in the general public does increase, or if you are able to source a sustainable supply, then it is worthwhile letting the general public wear them or to ask them to wear them in crowded locations (like the Singapore MRT).
I personally think that at the current levels of transmission in Hong Kong, in purely economic terms universal mask wearing is currently a waste. I don't think that ongoing supplies are that secure.
There are many people in China. Literally dozens. Several more people live in the rest of the world. When global stockpiles falter then they will all competing for the daily supply of fresh masks. We'll run out of masks when we need them, having wasted them when we didn't.
Might have agreed with this had their advice been “not worth wearing a mask given the current level of risk†as opposed to the daily brainwashing “you don’t need masks†AND when the imported cases started picking up towards late Feb they had preemptively advised mask usage to guard against community transmission.
As it is, they were caught flat-footed, and I’m not sure saving a month worth of masks (and I doubt everyone would have used one at that time anyway) was worth the blow to their credibility and the exponential cost in human lives.
Now they need closures for a month. I prefer the Hong Kong approach, and I don’t enjoy wearing masks. Your points that the better equipment should be saved for medical workers and there is probably an optimum point for having mask use (though hard to tell when) I do agree with.
In terms of mask supplies, now that the demand is clearer, people are figuring out alternatives to produce supply. Suppressing things rather than learning and sharing the facts I feel is generally not the best solution, especially in the mid to long term.
Mask threads have a fatal fascination
Wearing a condom is certainly not an iron-clad guarantee that she won't get pregnant.
Wearing a seat-belt is certainly not an iron-clad guarantee that you won't get injured or die in a car accident.
Wearing a helmet is certainly not an iron-clad guarantee that you won't get a head injury if you fall of your bicycle.
Anyway... Here's my bet... it's the 14th today... by the 21st the UK government will recommend that ordinary people wear masks in certain areas; public transport, supermarkets, etc...