On January 27th, when I read an article out of China saying their experts at the level 4 facility right there in Wuhan would soon solve the problem, I went put and bought N95 masks at the home improvement store. I instructed family members to do the same. Some found them at similar stores and others at big box stores.
What’s the point of that story? N95 masks were in all kinds of stores for those paying attention. N95 masks are exactly the ones they want for health care workers. N95 masks made for construction use are now deemed acceptable for health care.
Not all masks were N95 but most I saw were making your statement wrong. The ones that are nearly worthless in protecting you from infection are the thin surgical masks. Those work only if everyone is wearing one and therefore keeping their germs to themselves.
In the future know the topic before making blanket statements.
yes, hardware stores had some n95 masks, but those are not the ones most people would usually buy, most people when they think of masks from the hardware store are thinking of a regular dust mask like this:
that will do NOTHING against a virus.