as if i'm dr alexander edwards he's an immunologist from the university of reading in the u.k. a welcome to day double talk at what's what's your position on the dates the use of face masks by the general public during this pandemic. i think it's a really difficult one to judge because we have i absolutely agree with the w.h.o. guidelines that proper. officially. protective equipment is absolutely essential for those people who are working with patients but the question here is about whether you should wear just some kind of face covering a tall and whether that would be helpful in day to day life and unfortunately i think that we don't have enough data to suggest one way or another. so given that we don't have the data then presume presumably. you can wear them or you cannot wear them and there's no sort of we don't know how good or bad they need to be yeah i think that that's the current difficulty i think one thing i would do though is that because there are shortages of personal protective equipment such as face masks for many frontline clinicians i would urge people not to try neces