Obviously there's a need that's not being met, but it's nearly two months since masks became hard to acquire.[0] Can we not change the official recommendation to "make a cotton mask and wear it if you go out for groceries; here's a template. Don't use N95 masks, instead donate them"? It would be great to have numbers on this.
[0] anecdotal, Bay Area.
Looks like mask production has been ramping up since January, at least. But numbers of the big picture would be neat to see. https://www.wired.com/story/surreal-frenzy-inside-us-biggest...
Doing this really seem like a much better way to handle the situation than giving a really really dangerous false advice like this.
Better "trick" the public then.
Seems to me that the biggest problem we have is lay people thinking they know better from reading random isolated papers without context and doing their own thing against advice designed to make everyone safer.
Apparently.
The one thing I learned from this pandemic is to distrust scientists at the WHO and the CDC and to read the primary literature directly. These folks are far too involved in politics.