It will be several months before a vaccine is ready for mass inoculation. In the meantime, we need to get out again and go back to work. And for that to happen, the rate of coronavirus infection has to be slow enough for the healthcare system to manage (= better care = fewer deaths). So the question becomes: how to slow the rate of infection and get the economy back on track. Basically, each of us has a responsibility to minimize the viral spread. Which means, in part: masks. Not to protect ourselves but to protect anyone we come in contact with.
For your consideration:
“The World Health Organisation (WHO) says don’t bother. The British government agrees. America’s Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) initially discouraged it but by the beginning of April had reversed course. In parts of Asia, including China, it is baked into public behaviour and encouraged by health agencies, even when there is no ongoing public-health crisis. The issue? Whether or not members of the public should wear face-masks in a bid to slow the spread of SARS-CoV-2, the virus responsible for the covid-19 pandemic.” - Should the public wear masks to slow the spread of SARS-CoV-2?/The Economist.; April 11th 2020
“In order to meet surging demand as people try to combat the spread of the 2019 novel coronavirus, the central government last Sunday tasked the military with helping to increase the nation's face mask production. According to the Ministry of Economic Affairs, the Cabinet last Friday approved a plan to build 60 production lines to produce an additional 6 million surgical masks a day to meet demand.” - “Taiwan targets 4.6 million masks a day in two weeks”, Focus Taiwan News; February 6, 2020
“After the first case of the coronavirus was reported on 21 January, the Taiwanese government announced a temporary ban on the export of face masks…[In the government’s rationing plan], adults were allowed to buy two masks each visit and children four, with the restriction that a minimum of seven days must elapse since the last purchase.” - 2020 coronavirus pandemic in Taiwan/Wikipedia
“Japan should be in the middle of a massive pandemic right now. And they’re not. So, what’s going on? …Japanese, if they even think they’re about to be sick, generally wear masks when going outside. That helps reduce the rate of infection.” - Why is Japan going about life as usual while other countries are taking drastic measures to slow the spread of COVID-19? Quora
Neither Taiwan nor Japan conducted widespread coronavirus testing. Neither implemented countrywide “stay-at-home” lockdowns. And yet, as of April 13, the coronavirus-related death rate in both Taiwan and Japan is less than one death per million residents, compared to Spain’s mortality rate of over 350 deaths per million residents - and Spain went into total lockdown a month ago. What did Taiwan and Japan do right? The full answer to that question is still being worked out, but the widespread use of facemasks in both countries clearly played a major role in limiting viral spread. Facemasks broke the chain of transmission when infection rates were low, nipping contagion in the bud.
Here’s a Taiwanese scene from earlier this year:
Source: Taiwan targets 4.6 million masks a day in two weeks/Focus Taiwan February 6, 2020
And here’s a street scene in Japan, from last year (as in 2019):
A study recently published in Nature Medicine provides “clear and compelling evidence" in favor of the public wearing masks. In this study, titled "Respiratory virus shedding in exhaled breath and efficacy of face masks", researchers:
“…measured the amount of virus shed, in half an hour of breaths and coughs, by participants infected with a variety of respiratory viruses…In the case of those with coronaviruses, 30% of droplets and 40% of aerosol particles exhaled by participants without a surgical face-mask on contained virus particles. When they wore masks, that dropped to zero.” - Should the public wear masks to slow the spread of SARS-CoV-2?/The Economist.; April 11th 2020
Of course, we’ll have to do a lot more than wear facemasks to get this virus off our backs and bring the economy back to life. Also in the equation: continued social distancing, frequent handwashing, more testing and contact tracing, better treatments, continued quarantine of infected individuals, and a gradual loosening of restrictions on the immune. It will take time but I’m guessing a matter of weeks, not months.
—
Reference:
Leung, N. H. L., D. K. W. Chu, et al. (2020). "Respiratory virus shedding in exhaled breath and efficacy of face masks." Nature Medicine. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41591-020-0843-2