Stupid question: Why not just order people to wear masks in public?

At the beginning of the crisis I was under the same impression and hoped for the government to provide masks here in Europe. Then, I learned some aspects I can‘t fully verify, but that changed my thinking about everyone using masks:

Masks give a false sense of protection for ordinary people without education about the correct usage. Most of the masks are used wrong and they do not protect eyes (which are touched frequently) nor hands (you‘d need to wear gloves as well, but putting them off without potential cross-infection is even more complicate for untrained people). Masks need to be changed frequently (else they even collect more potential infected material), used masks need to be disposed safely. According to some experts, using a mask in the wrong way and too long even makes it more likely to get infected. As others have pointed out, masks can lead to touching your face more often if the mask feels uncomfortable. And there are simply not enough masks available and the current production is needed for medical staff. And have a look at videos from China and SG: Most people do not use FFP3 / N95 rated masks but simpler ones not really giving full protection for COVID-19.

All that changed my view as masks for everybody. Of course, you should definitely use a mask during every human contact if you have symptoms or are worried you could be infected yourself.

That's not a stupid question at all. From what I've read and understand, the 'standard' masks (the cheap ones - surgical masks) are not a 100% protection, however it's in the >50% range. Probably enough to greatly limit the R0 and change the expontential curve to a linear one (I may be wrong - definitely not an expert).

I'm too amazed by the magnitude of the measures that are being taken as opposed to less invasive and technical solutions.

Adding other stupid questions: - why we can't just decide to test everybody - what's the bottleneck ? - why we can't just produce the n95 respirators in sufficient quantites and distribute free of charge to everybody - not even making it mandatory to wear in public - if enough people wear it, the virus won't spread

I'm not sure of the source for this, I've been reading a lot this week...

Someone with more knowledge could expand on this, but I understand that wearing a mask in south east Asia is a social signal that the wearer is aware that they are contagious and are using the mask not for their own protection, but for those around them. This makes sense with surgical masks that are designed to keep things _in_ not out.

Culturally this is counterintuitive to the west where we typically value the individual over the collective. (Probably an over-broad generalization)

> Wouldn't that prevent most infections

I don't think it would. People would intentionally or unintentionally take off their mask, sneeze on their hands and then touch surfaces, shake hands, prepare food, etc.

There's a limited amount of masks and they should be reserved for medical personnel and the most vulnerable. It's not full protection - people can still touch something tainted and rub their eyes. Or eat food served by someone infected. Gloves? That just puts the germs on the gloves and not the hands.

As far as throwing money at the problem goes, the most cost effective might be to test everyone periodically, and not fight blind. But that's impractical too.

I'm sure there's a couple companies that manufacture masks that are lobbying for this sort of thing right now.

Assuming you're referring to the US federal government, them forcing its entire population to wear an article of clothing or use a medical device (whichever way you choose to view it) would be an unprecedented breach of civil rights - not that breaches of civil rights with precedents are any more legitimate.

Aside from the fact that it doesn't prevent most infections (maybe reduce), manufacturing a billion of them in a short timeframe seems unlikely.

My understanding is that even cheap masks keep more of your own germs in (by catching your exhaled liquids) That seems like a valid reason to wear them even if they don’t keep other germs out.

I agree this seems like something that should be enacted to reduce the spread

Most people you see wearing masks are wearing the wrong kind that don't actually help too much. And there's likely a massive shortage of enough masks. People probably reuse them a terrible amount too.

Don't give them a false shield that emboldens their actions. Keep them indoors.

I'm not sure they could manage that "give masks" step. Most of the supply still seems to be diverted to health and emergency services.

That combined with hyper-aggressive tracing and testing is what has has allowed e.g. SG/TW/SK to win [in the initial response].

It's too late for that in EU/US though. All of our governments screwed up the initial response in January.

SG/TW/SK learned from SARS 17 years ago, we didn't.