It seems like the authorities in the US tried to downplay, even discourage, using mask if you're asymptomatic to prevent people from stocking up and depriving medical professionals of them.
Like I said, they should of said don't buy a mask - use a tshirt or scarf. You can't get on plane or go into a store without covering your face. Perfect is the enemy of the good.
I think we underestimate how many of these things are actually floating around. Tons of people have some for painting, sanding, wildfires, construction, etc. They're used extensively in all kinds of jobs. Just 3M, before the crisis, was making 50 million masks a month.
People need to dig around in their garage and get these things out, and then start wearing them. Even the disposable ones can be reused many times, particularly for someone that is just at the grocery store and not intubating COVID patients or something.
I'm sympathetic to the argument that healthcare workers need them, but healthcare workers also need people to wear them so that they don't get sick and show up at the hospital!
And of course, if you discourage mask buying you're discourage mask manufacturing. The Noble Lie from the High Modernist civil servant versus the free market and a world that's far too complicated for him to understand.
There are two exceptions: one, people who can manufacture masks at great expense but not at market prices. Two, people who could stock up on masks for the next pandemic but now won't because they'll expect the government to disparage their product.
Masks are made by manufacturers with the intent to sell them, so if you reduce mask buying and force down mask prices you will reduce the manufacturer's incentive to come up with amazing ways to turn out massive quantities of masks, and you discourage them from preparing in advance for the next pandemic.
