Re:Merkel bans meetings of more than two people to slow coro...
by yodsanklai on Sunday March 22, 2020 @07:44PM
(#22659893)
Other example is Taiwan. Everybody wears a mask there since the first cases. We don't know for sure it's the reason why they have so few cases but there are good reasons to believe so. I had friends there and thought I was smart telling them it was useless to wear a mask without symptoms (which was actually WHO recommendations)... Maybe WHO recommendations took into account the fact that masks weren't in sufficient quantities. For this strategy to work, you need enough mask for everybody, otherwise people would start hoarding masks. Maybe this will be the strategy post-confinement.
Re:Merkel bans meetings of more than two people to slow coro...
by robocat on Sunday March 22, 2020 @07:58PM
(#22659976)
Taiwan were preprepared for an outbreak, and started acting on the 31st December: https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2762689
They are using many overlapping layers of solutions to contain the virus.
Everyone using masks is surely a great help in reducing the R0, but it is the breadth of multiple solutions that is protecting Taiwan so far.
1. Heaps of people have the virus without showing symptoms
2. No-one wants to be treated like a leper, so everyone needs to wear masks. If only the sick wear them, then self-deception and avoiding social opprobrium will cause people to avoid wearing masks, and the selfish will not wear masks
3. If home-made masks help even 20%, that would make a massive difference to infection rates over time due to exponential growth (think compounding interest).
4. Everyone in smart Asian countries wears them for a reason.
5. There is a reasonable chance that the reason Japan has low infection rates is due to masks. Everyone should be jumping on whatever actions that have a percentage chance of working (so long as they don’t carry significant risk).