Authors’ reply to Kolstoe and Hanna and colleagues

Kolstoe is right that confusion about face coverings is “an important lesson as to what can happen when health messaging is unclear.”1 Hanna and colleagues are right that policies related to face coverings might have negative consequences for some people.2 Mandating face coverings can therefore only be justified if the threat is serious; the benefits of masking are substantial and outweigh harms; and the same benefits cannot be achieved less intrusively. Most global public health organisations and national policy makers consider that these criteria have been met.3456

We have not discounted the negative consequences of population masking but, …