Rational use of face masks in the COVID-19 pandemic

[memory man]

* I went to 5 pharmacies last Friday to buy some surgical masks. All sold out and said "no idea" when new stocks will come in.

So, I thought I would find out if they were effective.


Since the outbreak of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), the virus that caused coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), the use of face masks has become ubiquitous in China and other Asian countries such as South Korea and Japan. Some provinces and municipalities in China have enforced compulsory face mask policies in public areas; however, China's national guideline has adopted a risk-based approach in offering recommendations for using face masks among health-care workers and the general public. We compared face mask use recommendations by different health authorities (panel). Despite the consistency in the recommendation that symptomatic individuals and those in health-care settings should use face masks, discrepancies were observed in the general public and community settings.1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 For example, the US Surgeon General advised against buying masks for use by healthy people. One important reason to discourage widespread use of face masks is to preserve limited supplies for professional use in health-care settings. Universal face mask use in the community has also been discouraged with the argument that face masks provide no effective protection against coronavirus infection.

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[Dominic]

You might want to fix your link MM.

[memory man]

You might want to fix your link MM.

Thanks...................fixed now ( I think )

[Dominic]

First time I clicked it I got an error on the Lancet site, but the second time it worked. Probably means it is a popular article and the server is busy, so if anybody does get an error trying to view the link it does work, you just need to try again.