>What’s so strange to me is how much trust is being placed in these test results
This is meme by this point but: it's possible that uncertainty has already been priced in by the markets. I don't think any trader actually thinks the infection rate is exactly what the official numbers are.
Universal mask wearing is part of the approach they have taken in South Korea, Taiwan, and Singapore and it seems to have largely worked in those places.
The whole "masks don't work" line being pushed by the US government and the media seems to be about keeping people from buying masks that are needed in the hospitals. In the process they are sort of lying to people about the effectiveness of mask wearing as a piece of overall strategy.
No! Mask wearing is definitely not a thing in singapore. Only on 3rd april did the singapore government stop discouraging mask wearing. Less than half the people still out and about now wear masks.
> The whole "masks don't work" line being pushed by the US government and the media seems to be about keeping people from buying masks that are needed in the hospitals
I actually don’t think this is correct, it’s a reasonable assumption but actually the “masks don’t work” has been accepted Western medical dogma for decades. They were giving the same advice years ago even in times of no mask shortage - to only wear a mask when you know you are sick or if you are a care provider. See, for instance, a roundup of research and previous advice here. https://slatestarcodex.com/2020/03/23/face-masks-much-more-t...
I think the main thing that made CDC turn around now was that the number of asymptomatic or very-mild symptomatic patients with COVID-19 who are spreading the disease during the initial infection when they don’t know they are symptomatic really makes the advice to not wear a mask unless you are sick not make sense since you don’t know when you are sick until it’s too late...
Confusion between the different mask standards and their effectiveness is also a point where I think people are talking past each other.
NIH has a study on their website that says basic surgical masks are roughly equivalent in protection or N95's in practical real word settings when respiratory illness is involved. [0]
There is also supposedly a huge supply of the Chinese N95 standard equivalent "KN95" masks available. They are said to be made in the same way but the factories that make them haven't gotten regulatory approval from the US Government.
Why not import KN95's and give them out to the public since healthcare can't / won't use them.
Only with other controls. It's ridiculous and will certainly lead to more deaths to suggest that only wearing certain types of masks is in any way a valid solution of any type.
This sort of misdirected conversation will kill people. Please stop it. It is highly irresponsible.
If you disagree please cite a credible source.
Please do not include anything relating to any of Trump's briefing as those are all discredited and fake news.
You are arguing against a straw man, literally no one is suggesting that masks by themselves are a magic cure all. If masks don't have efficacy then why do hospital staff wear them? The CDC's own guidance for air travel says that people in close proximity with sick passengers should wear masks. In an environment when anyone you encounter is likely to be sick wearing a mask makes sense as part of the overall strategy.
Taiwan has similar population as Australia, is higher density than Sydney AUS, and has a fraction of the cases and deaths. They didn't close everything down they did targeted tracking/testing and isolation of individuals, mandatory masks on transit, fever checks in public etc.
