ANALYSIS: Why Aren’t We Wearing Better Masks?

Why Aren’t We Wearing Better Masks? Cloth masks are better than nothing, but they were supposed to be a stopgap measure. Zeynep Tufekci, Jeremy Howard The Atlantic

If you’re like most Americans, there’s a good chance you’re going to wear a cloth mask today. Doing so makes sense. It remains the official recommendation in the United States, and it is something we’ve both advocated since the beginning of the pandemic. Both of us wrote articles as far back as March urging people to wear homemade cloth masks. We’re also the authors (along with 17 other experts) of a paper titled “An Evidence Review of Face Masks Against COVID,” which was just published in peer-reviewed form in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. But it’s past time for better solutions to be available to the public.

We first released the paper as a preprint back in April, and it took nine months to go through peer review. We’re happy that it’s published but, to be honest, we’re also deeply disappointed that it’s still relevant. We’d hoped that by 2021 supply chains would have ramped up enough to ensure that everyone had better masks. Cloth masks, especially homemade ones, were supposed to be a stopgap measure. Why are so many of us still wearing them?

Don’t get us wrong; everything we said about the efficacy of cloth masks stands the test of time. Wearing them is much better than wearing nothing. They definitely help reduce transmission of the coronavirus from the wearer and likely protect the wearer to some degree as well. But we know that not all masks are equal, and early on in the pandemic, there was a dire shortage of higher-grade masks for medical workers. During those emergency conditions, something was much better than nothing. There are better possibilities now, but they require action and guidance by the authorities. ...

Ideally we would have ramped up supply and been able to produce and distribute certified higher-filtration masks to the whole population. At a minimum, we should have created a certification program and a distribution channel that allows people to purchase higher-grade masks with confidence....

We need the CDC and the FDA to step up and provide simple, clear, actionable, and specific information that would allow the public to know which masks are reliable and where they can get them, as well as how to upgrade and better wear their existing options. Initial studies suggest that widely available surgical masks, combined with a mask brace, could increase the effectiveness of the surgical masks. ...