Don't buy masks, leave them for healthcare workers.

I think it's better to say "Don't buy masks through channels healthcare workers would use". I think it's the time to buy masks from China via Amazon.

There are plenty of Chinese vendors that are using factories that aren't FDA certified.

It's possible that the masks won't arrive or won't be up to the quality standards but I think they are likely better then home-made cloth masks. If the masks won't arrive because customs takes the masks to be used for other purposes Amazon has good policies to get you your money back.

Alright, I'll push back a little.

I think your numbers are off. My understanding (mostly from this NYT piece) is that WIC also renews the first of the month, at least in many areas. Many people were hit extra hard in March (less income, less support available from community orgs, less food from work or supplies from daycare). I would expect that on Apr 1-2, it could easily have been 1 in 25 shoppers who were WIC-eligible, or even much higher. And, making up numbers, I am going to say that for any given WIC-eligible SKU, maybe half of WIC participants and 10% of other shoppers would want that item. So of people who might buy that can of kidney beans, I could easily believe 1 in 5 or even 1 in 3 were WIC. WIC products are often *more expensive* than similar non-WIC options, because they have built-in, non-price-sensitive demand.

Yes, it would probably be better if we could set aside 3 hours on Apr 1 for WIC and EBT shopping only. It would come with tons of its own issues, but it is at least theoretically possible. But, I think individual actions those couple of days, in parts of the country where those were the relevant days, have more impact than you are guessing.

I do think that it can be a problem when the government or grocery stores try to determine who 'deserves' masks, or delivery slots, where there isn't a litmus test like WIC or EBT. The availability of these things have not been able to keep up with demand, and there is no way I can see to allocate them appropriately short of some application process that will take a lot of time to set up and probably still miss-allocate.

Should all masks go to medical workers? As a first priority, probably yes. But what about our friend whose kid came out of the NICU a month ago? Does that family not 'deserve' masks to try to keep their baby alive, too? What about immunocompromised and asthmatics who are performing essential jobs outside of healthcare? Or those that take care of senior citizens? At some point 'think twice, and then a third time, before ordering masks that might save someone else's life' starts to look like about as good as we can do at allocation.

Similarly, I would love it if there were a system where when doctors order a quarantine, they can put that person's name in a database for delivery priority. Same with high-risk individuals. As it is, many folks under medical quarantine are relying on friends and neighbors - often elderly friends and neighbors - to deliver groceries. Or in some cases they aren't eating well because they can't get groceries for weeks.

Until these shortages are over or these systems are set up to address them, I do think there is non-negligible marginal benefit to pushing a 'to each according to need' mentality. Many people are looking for small ways to help those hardest hit, and I think this falls into that category.

When accurate, of course. If someone posts encouraging action based on information that is not locally valid, there is no reason not to gently correct that!