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This prohibition on masks with valves has been in effect in many places in the bay area for months with the accompanying signage, verbal directions and public a

• newsclues 6y ago
  First it was TSA airport security theatre now it’s masks!
• hartator 6y ago
  It was never about science or the virus. We give way too much power too quickly to bunch of people who have the leaway to be as authoritarian as they want.
  • giantg2 6y ago
    ...to a bunch of stupid people...
  • trhway 6y ago
    It is no surprise that the worse hit countries - US, Brazil, India, Russia - are led by populist governments. Virus is a technical issue and immune to the lip service of prayers and declarations.
    • jbdigriz 6y ago
      Define worst hit. Because this statement is blatantly wrong when factoring in population size, death rate, demographics and a bunch of other factors which exist in the real world and not your FUD bubble
  • lowmagnet 6y ago
    Yeah, "authoritarian-ness" or claiming "draconian measures" is just a rhetorical approach. It's not authoritarian to protect your neighbor from your effluent, especially as it barely costs you anything to do so. Save "authoritarian" for people controlling your entire life, thanks.
    • jbdigriz 6y ago
      This is absurd and disregard for the inalienable right to freedom. Your don't dictate what people must do to protect YOU - that's your responsibility. This narcissistic logic is the same that would dictate you lose weight and ride yourself of other comorbidities to protect society as a whole from viruses at all times... If you're fearful, then get yourself a sophisticated portable air filtration system.
      • dragonwriter 6y ago
        > Your don't dictate what people must do to protect YOU - that's your responsibility. In the real world, it's pretty well established principle that you can't deliberately or recklessly toss harmful items onto other people’s person's or property without being liable for the harms thus incurred, and that restrictions reasonable in proportion to the risk can be adopted to prevent you from doing so as well as you being held responsible if you nevertheless do so. This idea that there is an entitlement to recklessly endager the public health without constraint or penalty is novel and bizarre.
        • jbdigriz 6y ago
          What an irrational stretch of logic to conflate natural respiration with deliberately intending to harm someone. Breathing freely doesn't harm you, get over yourself or maybe get a therapist because this is an unhealthy degree of neuroticism and little science. And none of the solutions proposed come close to achieving the supremely simplistic view of a radical ideologue.
    • hartator 6y ago
      I don't think this will be remembered "thanks god we gave more power to the police" time. Do we remember anytime we were glad to give more power to the police?
• Someone1234 6y ago
  They're solving for the common case, not the exceptional. Namely, people were encouraging others via social media to add holes in their masks to help them "breath easier," "reduce CO2," etc. This results in them "wearing a mask" but that mask had poor/no effectiveness. This is a blanket rule that is easier to enforce. It isn't reasonable to ask minimum wage, sometimes temp, untrained employees manning the entrance to retailers be able to identify different styles, qualities, and risks of masks and manage that. It is reasonable to ask them "If it has a hole, they need a mask without a hole." Unfortunately, "we cannot have nice things," because bad people continue to abuse them.
  • clairity 6y ago
    every mask has holes, otherwise they'd suffocate you, so taken to its logical conclusion, no masks should be allowed. and please don't condescend and generalize: > "It isn't reasonable to ask minimum wage, sometimes temp, untrained employees..." it's impossible for anyone to see or know what size hole is the "right" one, especially when there isn't a right answer. stores just shouldn't sweat these details. masks have only marginal benefit over distance anyway, and such security theater in stressful times is unhelpful at best.
    • shuntress 6y ago
      Masks and distance multiply eachother's effectiveness. Either alone is significantly less effective than both together.
      • clairity 6y ago
        no, that's exactly the misunderstanding that leads to such security theater. distance does nearly all the work. a mask adds marginal benefit when distancing. when not distancing, like on a cramped airplane, a mask is better than nothing and is doing the work. in that scenario, any mask is better than no mask. there is no multiplying going on.
        • bryanlarsen 6y ago
• deleted 6y ago
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• zerocrates 6y ago
  So, I have a construction N95-type mask: its vent/valve/whatever is dead center right on the front. If we're talking about droplets/aerosols mostly, it seems directionality would be a pretty big factor, so it's actually somewhat plausible that the bandana could be relatively effective despite nonexistent fit. It seems like we could/should have had pretty reasonably authoritative information about this kind of thing from public health services by now, though.
  • lowmagnet 6y ago
    They both point down (actually look at the valve on the N95) is the main point, BUT the n95 is 95% filtering everywhere the valve ISN'T. The bandana is certainly not.
    • jbdigriz 6y ago
      Many of the vented masks come with N95 inserts as they are intended to filter inhaled air of particles - originally for mountain biking in dusty climates
  • cameldrv 6y ago
    Just put a piece of tape over the vent, and it will act like an unvented N95.
  • rsync 6y ago
    "So, I have a construction N95-type mask: its vent/valve/whatever is dead center right on the front. If we're talking about droplets/aerosols mostly, it seems directionality would be a pretty big factor ..." This is correct, but look closely - there is a flap valve inside the little valve housing that hinges at the top, and the direction of the exhaust is downward.
• Simulacra 6y ago
  Airlines don’t care about you, they care about lawsuits and liability. They’ve stripped services and planes back to the bare minimum, and the masks do absolutely zero on an enclosed metal tube with recirculated air. They can’t even keep someone from dying from peanut dust.
• Izkata 6y ago
  > A local organic, progressive grocery chain in Marin County will stop you at the door with a vented P100 mask but a flowy, loose fitting bandana, totally open across the bottom goes right in. What people don't seem to be considering here is that the loose bandana is still directing exhalation down at the ground instead of out at other people's faces like the vented masks.
  • DeRock 6y ago
    The vents, at least on my 3M N95 masks, only direct airflow downwards.
  • jbdigriz 6y ago
    Can you provide any evidence of this claim? A bandana can be any textile and certainly doesn't filter exhaled air. Being made largely of cotten and rarely washed, they also become virus spreaders if someone infected yet asymptomatic saturates a mask and proceeds to aerosol it around all day like a chum trail of plague. Bandana is the worst option, especially compared to many vented masks actually use N95 filters preventing the inhalation of covid to begin with - and much more securely than your earloop equivalent
• mindslight 6y ago
  I've been wearing a 3M 7503 that I modded to get rid of the vent (remove all three check valve flaps, cover and seal output port with tape). The modification can't be seen from the outside. I've been visiting a hospital, and have to explain and sometimes insist that it does not have a vent. The worst is the security guard type people, enforcing what they think are the rules without really understanding them. So far I've been lucky and have been able to ignore/put off the security guard and talk to the friendlier person doing the actual gatekeeping. Human judgment is key to these policies and I can only hope that they're implemented with low-level discretion. It would be terrible if well meaning policies ended up pushing people back towards wearing ersatz cloths.
  • simonsarris 6y ago
    I hope you realize how that looks from anyone else's point of view. So many people lie because they think they personally are the exception, or are extremely mistaken about basic facts, that I don't blame any guard that disbelieves your claims about your mask being really modded to not have a vent. I hope most guards would question something like that.
    • mindslight 6y ago
      For sure, that's an integral part of communicating! I'm talking about a hospital, so there are several staff members controlling the entrance. The people who sit behind the desk and actually do the checkin are generally understanding, and the person who questioned me most specifically about the valve now remembers me from day to day - in fact I've since gotten her attention when getting flak from a security guard a few times. The security guards are meanwhile more on alert, presumably because they are primed to be tough with any covidiots (although thankfully I haven't seen any incidents!). They have that cop mindset of seeking trouble with people who stand out, and don't know specifically about the valve requirement. One time after I was approved by the checkin person, I heard them talking among themselves with one saying "those masks are actually better", but it's tough to directly pierce the fog of their authorituh. I haven't had a larger problem here precisely there are people in multiple roles, some empowered to exercise actual judgement. But I can just imagine that when you try to scale this down to a single overworked security guard, the better equipped people are likely to experience unreasonable pushback. Thinking about it, my own next step might be to put a piece of visible tape over where vent would exhaust, so I can at least point to something physical. But the problem hasn't been the security guards not believing me about the valve specifically, but rather just seeing that my mask is not their standard surgical mask.
• mrshadowgoose 6y ago
  Just throw a surgical mask over the P100's exhaust. You'll get to keep wearing a mask that actually protects you, while appeasing people who don't understand that a P100 wearer probably does not have corona... At least that's my plan for when exhaust valve restrictions come to my area.
  • jbdigriz 6y ago
    They literally made me do this when going to a doctor apt recently. Took it off and just used their stupid mask even though mine is safer for me when I don't have covid but am forced to go into an place where it's far more likely to be present.