Not exactly a robust endorsement of mask wearing:

“Everybody’s learning,” said Gregory Poland, who studies the immunogenetics of vaccine response in adults and children at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn. “We have just a few months experience with this virus. Face masks should be preserved for health-care workers who are at known obvious high risk.” And the DIY masks for everyone else? “They help as a memory aid not to touch your face.”

Others are even more skeptical than that. Paul Glasziou, a professor of medicine at Bond University in Australia, and Chris Del Mar, a professor of public health at Bond, analyzed a dozen studies on face masks. They concluded: “Face masks may not do much without eye protection.” Experts say masks may also remind people of the seriousness of this public-health emergency.

They say it’s best to avoid public settings. “People may also wear masks inappropriately, or touch a contaminated part of the mask when removing it and transfer the virus to their hand, then their eyes and thus to the nose,” they wrote in The Conversation. “Masks may also provide a false sense of security, meaning wearers might do riskier things such as going into crowded spaces and places.”