Why was the option of military grade masks never taken seriously?

Question

At first, the production could not be ramped up fast enough. I get that. But the option of distributing proper, sealing, high filtration efficiency military grade masks and filters to the entire population, as ridiculous as it might sound to some, would have completely halted the spread of the disease and most importantly kept the economy and societal bonds active. It would also have been much, much cheaper than what most governments did in the end.The only reason I can think of that would put this plan out of public dialogue is because it's sounds ridiculous to the average person. Is that the case?

gregjor · Accepted Answer

Remind me again what the government did?
The problem we’ve seen in America isn’t poor-quality masks. It’s half the population not wearing masks at all, and not honoring distancing rules.
I don’t know about “military grade” masks, but the point of masks is to prevent spreading viruses in exhaled breath, coughs, sneezes. I imagine military-grade masks are more for protecting the wearer from inhaling something toxic.

wmf · Answer

Pandemic expert Zeynep Tufekci made a very similar point recently: https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2021/01/why-arent...I doubt, however, that better masks would have "completely halted the spread of the disease" since many people still would have refused to wear them.

smt88 · Answer

This is pretty easy to answer.The more inconvenient a mask is, the fewer people will wear it. In some countries like the US, a minority of people never wear a mask at all.It's better to promote a mask with 10% of the cost/inconvenience and 90% of the benefit, which is what they did.It just doesn't make sense to have a military-grade mask when most of the spread was at nursing homes, churches, weddings, funerals, and bars -- all places no one is going to wear a mask.