I don't disagree I'm saying that getting people to wear masks is going to be hard. a shutdown removes the reason for leaving the house. if there was no shutdown people would still go out, some in masks and many without, this would mean transmission would continue and so would pressure on health care services. you would flatten the curve but A) at a higher point and B) extend the length of the plateau, instead of seeing the descent
Sure, but the argument isn't that we should just tell people to wear masks and return everything else to normal. The argument is that we should be pushing for a more robust response, including mask wearing, that would lower the spread now and hopefully allow us to reopen things earlier than otherwise (not impossible if you look at countries that have successfully handled it). The lockdown buys us time, but we don't seem to be using that time effectively.
