Mask or not

According to articles in Bloomberg News and the LA Times, the country was left short of PPE after the H1N1 flu of 2009. USA Today investigated and found US never spent enough on emergency stockpile. “After the swine flu epidemic in 2009, a safety-equipment industry association and a federally sponsored task force both recommended that depleted supplies of N95 respirator masks, which filter out airborne particles, be replenished by the stockpile During the Swine flu problem of 2009 the government distributed 85 million N95 mask and did not replace them. This forced Dr. Fouci to say masked were not needed by the general public so they could be used by the health care workers. Later when supplies were available he said everyone should wear a mask. This lead to confusion on the part of many as the wearing of mask was not something people had done during past flu problems.