Face masks for the public during the covid-19 crisis

@article{Greenhalgh2020FaceMF,
  title={Face masks for the public during the covid-19 crisis},
  author={Trisha Greenhalgh and Manuel B Schmid and Thomas Czypionka and Dirk Bassler and Laurence Gruer},
  journal={BMJ},
  year={2020},
  volume={369}
}
Trisha Greenhalgh and colleagues argue that it is time to apply the precautionary principle 
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506 Citations
Highly Influential Citations
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Background Citations
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Results Citations
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506 Citations

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As the covid-19 crisis deepens, Greenhalgh and colleagues say that policy makers should encourage the public to wear face masks, but think that the potential negative unintended consequences of a policy shift deserve more consideration.
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TLDR
“The authors should advise the public to wear face masks”—Greenhalgh and colleagues detail the absence of an evidence base to support this advice and argue that population benefits are plausible and harms unlikely.
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In the eight weeks since it was published, our article in The BMJ on the public wearing face masks during the covid-19 pandemic has been cited 60 times and has an Altmetric score of over 3000.1 Our…
Ethics of digital contact tracing and COVID-19: who is (not) free to go?
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Several factors that pose a risk for fair group composition are identified along with an analysis of general lessons for a philosophy of technology to benchmark proposal technologies, curb the pandemic, and keep public trust.
Variable uptake of face masks could reinforce health inequalities
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A pragmatic argument for face mask use by the public in response to covid-19 is presented, and although trialling parachutes seems redundant, considerations such as quality control, “user” training, and ultimately reach remain relevant.
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References

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Estimating generation and serial interval distributions from outbreak data requires careful investigation of the underlying transmission network, which is essential for correctly estimating these quantities.
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