Everywhere's the same on this, back and forth about this need vs population at large.

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...

One way to address mask hoarding in the Czech Republic has been a ban on selling any masks in the categories needed by medical personnel to anyone else than the state, which then bouth the remaining stocks a redistributed them to hospitals, first responders, etc. Similar thing has later been done also for some medicaments that looked promising for treating those seriusly sick with covid-19.

Doing this really seem like a much better way to handle the situation than giving a really really dangerous false advice like this.

> If you're not stupid this is clearly to avoid people hoarding on masks which the hospitals are in dire need of.

Better "trick" the public then.

Non, the CDC already had a policy of advising against masks before this pandemic. https://www.cdc.gov/h1n1flu/masks.htm