Surgical masks don't need to offer complete protection. For one thing, something is better than nothing. But more importantly, the reason people in Asia wear these masks isn't really to protect themselves from getting sick, it's to protect everyone else from getting sick from them. It's a product of a culture that values acting in the interest of the group instead of only in your own selfish self-interest.

So it's sorta like "herd immunity": if everyone is wearing a mask to keep everyone else from catching whatever they might have, it makes it much harder for diseases to spread around and everyone benefits.

To be clear, surgical masks and N95 masks are different things. Both are in short supply in the US.

Ahh, yes I was a bit confused on the terminology. So surgical masks are just masks with some filtering capability but without a respirator.

And N95 is a respirator, which is different from mask as it protects the wearer better from airborne particles?

This 3M product brochure explains it more clearly than anything else I've seen.

https://multimedia.3m.com/mws/media/1794572O/surgical-n95-vs...

Surgical masks: 1. keep the wearer from infecting the patient 2. keep fluid spray (e.g. bleeding) from getting in the face

N95 respirators are meant to protect the wearer from airborne particles, which surgical masks don't really do at all, since they don't form a seal and air and particles still go around the mask into the mouth. Many N95 masks have an ubobstructed one-way output valve for easier breathing that will not protect the patient from the wearer.

And as it mentions, surgical N95 masks (the blue respirators many medical professionals wear in news photos lately) do both.

* Edit: Another 3M brochure shows that many of their non-N95 masks are also tested for filtration efficiency, even though not certified by NIOSH.

http://multimedia.3m.com/mws/media/312703O/masks-and-respira...

> So surgical masks are just masks with some filtering capability but without a respirator.

Surgical masks mainly prevent droplets from entering your nose and mouth, and your breath/sneezes/coughs from affecting others.

And the trillions of loss in economy could have been much lower if everyone wear a mask ( Surgical or not ) and kept business opening. It will also greatly flatten the curve in public health services, while buying time to find a vaccine or improve health services capacity.

There is no reason why Mask's supply problem could not be solved when you are looking at a comparatively speaking trillion of dollars package not to save the economy, but barely holding it up so it doesn't fall.

I am still baffled at the insistence that mask are useless, surgical or not. When there are ample of evidence to suggest it is the best tool to help and stop virus from spreading.

PPE recommendations are a bit confusing.

WHO currently says that healthcare professionals in non-AGP areas who aren't doing AGP should wear surgical mask, gloves, apron, and do a risk assessment for eye protection. All of that PPE is single use. This is the current practice in English NHS settings. See here: https://twitter.com/OutbreakJake/status/1242020875328684038

If aerosol generating procedures are happening the healthcare professional needs a fit-tested FFP3, gown, gloves, and eye protection. https://twitter.com/OutbreakJake/status/1242233685392396289?...

Surgical masks are fluid resistant, and this is an important part of their protective property. Home made cotton masks tend not to be fluid resistant.

If you are in contact with infections substances all day every day you need 99.99999% (I'm pulling this figure outta my ass, but you get the picture) protection. To bring R0 below 1 you need 75% protection. That's why we saw advice like "just wash your hands" - ultimately inadequate, but it wasn't apriori silly.