Epistemic status: Pretty confident, seems obviously correct.
Summary: We should promote widespread use of reusable silicone masks to stop the spread of SARS-CoV-2.
Masks and transmission of SARS-CoV-2
SARS-CoV-2 spreads mainly through respiratory droplets. Most of the discussion of mask usage to prevent transmission has so far been centered on surgical masks and disposable filtering facepiece particle (FFP) masks (also called respirators sometimes). Surgical masks do not form an airtight seal to the face and thus can't reliably prevent transmission. Achieving a tight fit with FFP masks is tricky and at least requires some practice. A recent post on LessWrong suggested the use of reusable masks with replaceable filters and body made out of silicone, such as this:
(North 7700 Series Half Mask Air-Purifying Respirator / PD-USGOV-HHS-CDC)
These masks (also sometimes called respirators) are available in different sizes and can be equipped with filters of N99 / P3 standard. Safe usage should be much easier to achieve than with FFP masks due to the mask body having a flexible silicone edge that can form a tight seal with the face. Additionally, they are equipped with one-way valves that prevent the filters from being soaked by the wearers' breath. They are more expensive than the other mask types (~50$), but can be easily mass-produced using injection molding. Thus, widespread use of such masks seems highly desirable and might play a big part in reducing effective transmission rates without requiring severe social-distancing measures. Compared to the economic costs of these measures, the cost of providing these masks to everyone, at least in industrialized countries, seems to be negligible. (Much more detail can be found in the previously mentioned post.)
Call to action
Given the plausibility and potential benefit of the idea described above, it is urgent that we take action to promote it or figure out if it is wrong. I strongly encourage the readers of this post to:
- Share the idea widely and try to convince influential people.
- Buy a mask for yourself, friends, and family; wear them when you're in public (or generally close to people that you don't live with) to protect yourself and others and increase social acceptance.
- Use 3D printers and share potential designs; distribute self-made masks to people in need of protective equipment.
- Reach out to groups which are at high risk of infections and with an interest in protecting themselves (e.g. nurses in nursing homes).
- Suggest further ideas and point out potential problems in the comments.
The suggestion certainly fits broadly in with my current thinking. We simply cannot keep going as we are now. It is simply not sustainable.
I think wide/universal use of masks would allow more economic activities to resume. I think that needs to start being a focus (and can be without competing with a resources for getting treatments, vaccines and general sars-cov-2 research) I think this is an area where we do have slack that can be applied to the current binding constraint on "normal" economic life.
It doesn't need to be a complete solution right out of the box. For instance, the suggested masks could be used within the effort to increase the supply of the masks and improvements to them We might really want to have full face respirator masks that provide the eye protection as well as respiratory protection. If the first slice still includes some exhaust valves the second round can work on solving that -- mask with exhaust is still better than no mask.
With increased supply all those currently at risk but working in essential industries -- food production and distribution, power/utility/communications and some transportation (gas and oil) services.
As long as we have something that can be reasonable expected to produce the same level of spread as is occurring with the existing shutdown and social distancing we have a good zero start point. We can work on improving that and so allowing increased economic activity to follow. That starts getting us to the "good" spot. We can keep the economy going, keep people working, and getting others back to work. Debts get serviced. Perhaps at some point even larger social gathering can be supported (Think sports events without the beer and food maybe).
That happens while we are improving the the spread, keeping hospitals from being over loaded (and perhaps providing the health workers better tools for protecting themselves).
Now we can have a functioning economy and controlled infection spread so time to work on more difficult solutions (vaccines, treatments to cure/assist the body's efforts).
I think the more important point here is that we need to attack multiple problems here and they are not always competing for the same resources so are on the production possibility frontier. The approach we've been under doesn't quite appear to be doing that it's too virus-centric (and that was the critical starting point so not a bad thing, but we need to move forward).
Yep, Check off one of the "might be problematic" aspects of using masks as an alternative to stay at home/social distancing in limiting spread.
Seems to get back to production output constraints and general validation of efficacy.