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Comment by nokcha | Hacker News Reader

>And why are people so resistant to wearing masks?

In the US, there is a severe shortage of masks. Even hospitals are struggling to get enough masks for health-care workers.

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The US Surgeon General told the public masks don’t work[1]. Doctors and nurses are being told they’ll be disciplined for wearing masks because it would alarm patients and visitors [2].

[1] https://mobile.twitter.com/surgeon_general/status/1233725785...

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/29/health/coronavirus-n95-fa...

[2] https://twitter.com/wendellpotter/status/1241371042020392961...

https://www.nj.com/coronavirus/2020/03/i-have-never-been-so-...

> Doctors and nurses are being told

The passive voice is doing a lot of work here with only one anecdote cited.

> Health care workers on front lines of coronavirus battle discouraged from wearing masks

https://eu.citizen-times.com/story/news/local/2020/03/26/cor...

Everyone could wear a bandanna over nose and mouth.

If it reduces transmission by 20%, that would be a fantastic win due to reduction in exponential growth.

This is pretty much how most people implement the rule in Czech Republic for mandatory masks in public - anything that covers you mount and nose is fine, including self made cloth masks and even scarves. The government even said they are find with that at multiple ocasions.

So "I don't have a mask" is really no argument, as long as you have at least one piece of clothing on you, you can wrap it around your mount & nose. There, you have a mask.

I like the Czech pragmatism. Obviously it is not perfect, but anything that obstructs droplets even a bit is helping to flatten the curve, and that's what you want right now. This is one of the most reasonable and easy and pragmatic rules I have seen so far. It seems clearly superior to telling people, because there is a shortage, that masks are not preventing an infection, implying that they don't help.

Czech people have common sense.

In Australia, lots of households have pretty good masks to cope with the recent bushfire smoke. And they were wearing them then. But now, hardly anyone is wearing them. It is completely irrational. It seems clear the herd isn't going risk looking weird until it is too late, in a week or two when people are obviously symptomatic.

I’m sure way more people would be wearing a mask if they had one. It’s going to be a common household item soon the way it already is in Asia.

The only reason I was able to get one is because I know people who live in China and already had boxes of them before COVID-19.

Yes, that's a perfectly good reason. What I was asking about is people's general attitude toward wearing masks, when shortage of the supply is not in the equation.

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