Photo: Shutterstock When a disease outbreak is ongoing, there are important things that uninfected people need to know and do, like washing hands. There are also things not to do, because they are mostly useless and actually interfere with proper care for people who need them. For most of us, face masks fall into the second category. As we discussed earlier, surgical masks can help you stop spreading your germs to someone else , but they’re of limited usefulness in protecting you from coronavirus in the outside world. Respirator masks are a bit more effective, but unless you’re in a hospital or in a high risk area (like Wuhan) they’re overkill. So what’s the harm? If supplies were unlimited, there wouldn’t be any. But there are only so many face masks manufactured every year, and a lot of them are actually made in China. As Maryn McKenna writes here […]