This. Asian countries that have ostensibly contained it well has wearing masks in common (except Singapore but it's still at 20%). Their other responses vary in scope and strictness. That said, most of them are islands or small countries.
But then you have Vietnam, also pervasive mask usage. Shares landborder with China which is leaky at best. They were also very proactive like the other countries but have a fraction of the resources. I don't think it's an answer for containment, many that cracked down early are seeing record case levels now, but I wonder if it's enough to reduce spread and severity.
But the rationale that made sense to me is that covid19 spread via respiratory particles, and mask reduce the viral load over time, which reduces risk of infection and severity since your body will have more time to recognize the infection and ramp up antibody production much earlier in the virus’s exponential growth cycle. Reduces R0 when ubiquitous. Maybe it spreads the curve and crushes it at the same time by reducing severe cases.
Seems like a cheap experiment short experiment to run honestly. Give one group of essential workers masks vs control. Test in 7 days and collage symptom severeness etc. Giving everyone surgical or home made masks is cheaper and less damaging than what's happening now. The HK SARS tsar who was also part of the Wuhan investigation team endorse public mask usage.
But then you have Vietnam, also pervasive mask usage. Shares landborder with China which is leaky at best. They were also very proactive like the other countries but have a fraction of the resources. I don't think it's an answer for containment, many that cracked down early are seeing record case levels now, but I wonder if it's enough to reduce spread and severity.
But the rationale that made sense to me is that covid19 spread via respiratory particles, and mask reduce the viral load over time, which reduces risk of infection and severity since your body will have more time to recognize the infection and ramp up antibody production much earlier in the virus’s exponential growth cycle. Reduces R0 when ubiquitous. Maybe it spreads the curve and crushes it at the same time by reducing severe cases.
Seems like a cheap experiment short experiment to run honestly. Give one group of essential workers masks vs control. Test in 7 days and collage symptom severeness etc. Giving everyone surgical or home made masks is cheaper and less damaging than what's happening now. The HK SARS tsar who was also part of the Wuhan investigation team endorse public mask usage.