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N95/FFP2 seem to be very effective. I wish the media and government would have spent more time in educating people in things like how N95 masks work and that i

N95/FFP2 seem to be very effective. I wish the media and government would have spent more time in educating people in things like how N95 masks work and that it isn't like a coffee filter. Even thought the pores are larger than a virus the masks are statically charged causes smaller things to get trapped. Many people don't know this but probably had an interaction with static electricity sometime in school and would understand it if someone explained it. Instead people get put in a bucket and no dialog is possible. Education is key to understanding. You can't reach everyone most.

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
bitcurious 5y ago
I’m not sure there was any popular doubt over the efficacy of N95 masks. The problem was rather getting one - marketplaces like Amazon restricted access to masks if you weren’t affiliated with a hospital. So you were left with sketchy deals and weird vendor sites. I suspect Amazon killed quite a few people over the last year by restricting access - supply scaled pretty quickly.
- kickopotomus 5y ago
  Unfortunately, a few of my friends fell victim to the Qanon conspiracy bandwagon and the fact that mask pore size is wider than the virus was heavily circulated as a reason for mask ineffectiveness.
  - petertodd 5y ago
    That wasn't a Quanon conspiracy: that was misunderstanding that I saw plenty of mainstream doctors and other health professionals promote. What it showed is that either they were intentionally lying - which I kinda doubt - or that they were so confident in what they had heard that they never bothered to do any research for themselves. Just reading the relevant wikipedia pages carefully would have corrected that misunderstanding.
    - XorNot 5y ago
      This is your not frequent enough reminder that "doctor" is not a synonym for "scientist", or more specifically epidemiologist. Medical doctor's are basically mechanic's for the human body. The human body is complex, so this is a high bar to clear and an important function, but it doesn't magically grant them knowledge about concepts outside that field.
  - blumomo 5y ago
    Everyone is having assumptions about these observations. The conclusions might not be always right, but at least the observation is real. And when you observe that mask mandating states don’t do significantly better than mask-free states, then a curious mind rightfully starts pondering. No need to unterstand conspiracy theories (a difficult topic) to understand that science isn’t getting it right yet.
    - cforrester 5y ago
      > And when you observe that mask mandating states don’t do significantly better than mask-free states, then a curious mind rightfully starts pondering. If this is true, which I haven't confirmed, wouldn't that say more about the effectiveness of political policy rather than about masks themselves? When we have seen throughout the pandemic that healthcare workers have a dramatically lower rate of infection compared to the general population, despite having more direct contact with infected populations, it is clear to the that proper precautions including protective equipment (principally masks, for a respiratory disease) can impede COVID transmission heavily. With that being the case, the question becomes: has mask policy been effective in getting enough people to wear masks properly and consistently, in states where it is mandated?
  - Louis_Sarwal 5y ago
    Q is a symbol used by pedophiles to say that they are pedos ;). Just look at "Q", and you will see what I mean. Nothing complex about it.
- viraptor 5y ago
  You could get halfway with other solutions. The 3-layer design with the synthetic layer in the middle tries to achieve the same idea. It's not going to be as effective as a certified N95, but it's better than a simple cloth. Not sure how common the idea was globally, but it was quite common to make them in Australia.
- kadoban 5y ago
  Unfortunately there is _absolutely_ popular doubt about this, and every other thing you likely think is obvious about covid and the world. I don't think educating people about masks is really the answer though. I don't know what the answer is, or if there even is one. Feel like our society is coming apart at the seams.
- tgsovlerkhgsel 5y ago
  The US seems to have relied heavily on cloth masks, even long after the shortages were over. From my understanding, surgical masks are much more effective (while often being more comfortable) than community/cloth masks. (I don't have a source for this on hand, but the German government did ban cloth masks/require at least surgical masks in many areas for this reason.) I suspect a lot of that was out of a desire to not appear as backtracking on a previous position.
- Laforet 5y ago
  According to the data presented, surgical masks are still highly effective even after converting the scales to linear. Add social distancing on top, it is almost as good as N95. And I very much doubt that N95 masks are effectively utilized by the general public considering how many poorly fitted masks I have seen over the past year. Before the pandemic there had been several studies looking at the efficacy of N95 vs. surgical masks at preventing the transmission of influenza in hospitals. Most of them never got anywhere because it was soon realized that even doctors and nurses cannot be trusted to wear and change masks properly during the daily routine. Let's hope things have improved by now.
  - bsder 5y ago
    > And I very much doubt that N95 masks are effectively utilized by the general public considering how many poorly fitted masks I have seen over the past year. I agree. When people can't even wear surgical masks properly, there's no hope with an N95. > Most of them never got anywhere because it was soon realized that even doctors and nurses cannot be trusted to wear and change masks properly during the daily routine. Let's hope things have improved by now. At the very least, everybody is washing their hands. Before Covid, you couldn't even get all the doctors to do something even that simple.
- adrr 5y ago
  This was an education issue. There were KN95 and KF94 masks available for purchase. I bought KN95 masks off Amazon sold by Amazon proper and later switched to KF94 when they became widely available. Both masks have similar performance to N95. Someone of the KF94 masks i bought showed 99% filtering effectiveness in government testing.
matz1 5y ago
The problem is wearing mask is annoying and uncomfortable. If I have to choose, I'll choose the increased risk of covid all the time rather than wearing mask.
- petertodd 5y ago
  A big part of why they are annoying and uncomfortable is the lack of one-way valves to make it easier to breath in them. In industry, when you actually need to wear a mask/respirator, they almost always have valves. Unfortunately, we got stuck on the "wear masks to protect others" narrative, and people who actually were at risk were prevented from wearing much more effective, much more comfortable, masks that would actually work well at protecting them. Eg here in Canada, it's illegal to wear a mask/respirator with a valve on a plane.
  - matz1 5y ago
    Not only that, there is one more thing to carry when you go out and impairment of social interaction because of lack of facial expression.
  - slashdot2008 5y ago
    I don't think it is an unfortunate narrative. two people wearing masks without valves is twice the reduction in likelihood that either one gives the other covid. If someone does have covid the mask without the valve will greatly reduce the concentration of virus particles in the air around them. I think that is working as intended!
    - petertodd 5y ago
      Masks that aren't worn correctly tend to have very low efficiencies, because the air just bypasses the mask at the edges. Depends on many factors like the type, how hard you are breathing, etc. But filtering just 20% of the air breathed in is quite possible. And let's face it, people intentionally wear them incorrectly all the time because they suck to wear. If you and I both have 50% filtration, that's the equivalent of 75% filtration. For the person who is vulnerable, that is much less effective than just wearing a 95% minimum filtration valved N95 mask/respirator properly. It's just ridiculous that an elderly man on a flight, sitting next to a healthy 15 year old more likely to be killed by a flu infection(1), will be told to take off his valved N95 respirator here in Canada, to protect that 15 year old. I have friends who have seen this happen first hand. 1) https://www.cdc.gov/flu/symptoms/flu-vs-covid19.htm https://www.cdc.gov/flu/symptoms/flu-vs-covid19.htm
mhb 5y ago
I don't think people need to know how they work. They just need to know that those are what doctors wear and that they are very, very effective. And much better than a mask you make from ad hoc materials. Once N95 masks became readily available and cheap, it was (and is) mysterious why people weren't being told to wear them to protect themselves instead of wearing whatever was at hand to sort of protect themselves and others.
- mulmen 5y ago
  If you tell me how something works and it fits within my mental model of the world then I will trust you. I will add this information to my mental model of the world. If you tell me something works but can't explain how I will consider if the claim is worth evaluating then attempt to understand it myself before accepting it. If you tell me to trust you with no explanation I will immediately distrust you.
  - mhb 5y ago
    That's reasonable and also what I would like. But what is the mental model of someone wearing their mask alone in the woods or in their car? So, yes, we should explain why an N95 is better than a handkerchief, but it seems like there are plenty of people who don't care about the details and just need to be told that one is more effective.
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
    - kadoban 5y ago
      The mental model of many wearing masks "alone" is that it's more annoying to take the mask on and off all the time than it is to just leave it on. Also, touching the mask constantly leads to concerns about contaminating your hands and then spreading that.
  - astrange 5y ago
    When Semmelweiss invented handwashing, all the other doctors ignored him because they didn't like his model, even though he had empirical evidence. Similarly, people like to argue against things like the minimum wage because it doesn't fit some economic model, but they don't realize those models are made up post-hoc to fit older real world data that turned out to be biased and incomplete. Oh, and the West had to deal with scurvy for hundreds of years after discovering the cure (lemon juice) because we'd invented the food poisoning and germ theories of diseases and so we refused to believe you could cure one with food. So don't worry too much about modeling things.
goatcode 5y ago
The only time "N95" was uttered was last year, when we were being told: 1. Masks aren't needed; 2. Don't buy masks, healthcare workers need them. It's unfortunate that we didn't go back to talking about proper masks before people started knitting them and making them out of rags and beads. One wonders what difference it might have made.
slver 5y ago
Bless your soul, but what I've learned from the way we handled the pandemic worldwide (and are still handling it) is that information that's readily available and should in theory reach everyone, flows ridiculously slowly, even among specialists and political figures, it's easily corrupted and distorted, and a loud ignorant minority counts as much in the public discourse, as the voices of millions of reasonable people. I'd say we have more evolving to do. Both biologically and socially. Individually (some) of us are relatively smart. Together we're as dumb as a piece of wood.
- bellyfullofbac 5y ago
  Yeah, it's disappointing to see how I still see people wearing their masks incorrectly, e.g. just over the mouth and not covering their noses. Sometimes I think human beings are advanced, but then I walk into a public toilet and I see evidence how many are still no better than animals. It's a simple technology, urinate into the hole where the water can wash it away and we'll remain hygienic, but a lot of people still fail at that.
  - Mediterraneo10 5y ago
    There are a couple of defensible reasons that people don’t put their mask over their nose outdoors. Firstly, if you wear glasses, then on humid days your glasses can fog up to a degree that you can’t even cross the street safely. Secondly, in some countries the public has chafed against laws requiring outdoor mask wearing in places that are not even remotely crowded. (In my own country, the same scientists advising the government on the COVID response have also opposed this law and urged the government to overturn it, arguing that it is clearly unscientific and only undermines the government’s credibility in getting the population to observe the public-health measures that really matter.) At that point, wearing a mask in a half-ass way is a way for the population to signal their discontent. It has happened that such laws were lifted when ruling parties saw mass flaunting of them, because such strictness might cost them the next election.
    - bellyfullofbac 5y ago
LatteLazy 5y ago
I get where you are coming from but something I've learned from this pandemic is that "wear a mask" is too complex and burdensome for a significant proportion of people in the west...
Louis_Sarwal 5y ago
We immediately face this issue: You should not act on information, or even knowledge. You should act on WISDOM. Wisdom is hard to gain, and yet it proves itself time after time to be better than the other forms of truth. Education is not the key; That would be wisdom. I do admit that most of what they teach is falsehood, and it would be better if it were truth.It would be better of there were no education at all than what we have now. In fact, it would be better to have no education system at all than to have a good education system that is liable to deteriorate. This is especially true when that system is a cost and a burden to and on society. Your information, however, is hardly better than the "n95 is coffee filter". There is no good proof on how airborne viruses are transmitted! Wearing a mask may do nothing, or it may do everything(Well, it can't do everything. Masks haven't stopped gov't from the vaccine)! It is likely that much of the transmission is not even caused by the oral and nasal areas, but instead is due to fecal aerosols. Our best solution may be the abolition of apartments and shared housing. SOme sort of filter should be put on the toilets, not on our faces. Cleansing chemicals(like bleach) should be put in the toilets, not in our arms. Let us remember that choices should be made carefully, with consideration, and only once all of the facts are present. Let us not be hasty-We must wait until a length of time has past in which effects which take alonger time to present themselves are presented. This may require the foregoing of many necessary things. But such is the cost of life. Such is necessary to avoid death, or things much worse.
- orf 5y ago
  This comment is a pretty good argument for education reform, but likely not in the way you meant.
- colonelanguz 5y ago
  You rock dude ignore these haters king
tzs 5y ago
> Even thought the pores are larger than a virus the masks are statically charged causes smaller things to get trapped. Even filters that aren't statically charged stop particles that are smaller than the gabs between the fibers. There are actually several mechanisms by which a filter can stop a particle. 1. Big particles don't fit between the fibers of the filter. Think fish in a fish net. This is called sieving. 2. Particles too small for sieving but heavier than the surrounding flow don't make the turns as well as the surrounding flow when the flow goes around the fibers. The particles can get embedded in the fibers. This mechanism is called inertial impaction. 3. The smallest might be too small to actually be affected much by the flow of the surrounding fluid through the filter. The move by diffusion, and many will randomly hit the fibers and get stuck. 4. Particles too big for diffusion but too light for inertial impaction still can run into fibers and get stuck. This is called interception. 5. As you mentioned, some filters have an electrostatic charge which can help trap particles. The effectiveness of sieving, inertial impaction, and interception all follow S shaped curves that start out low for small particles, then at some point start rising, and then level out. The sieving curve's rise is almost vertical. The rise for inertial impaction is steep but not nearly as steep as it is for sieving. The curve for interception's rise is much more relaxed. The effectiveness for diffusion goes the other way. Much more effective for very small particles, then above some size drops down and is low from then one. When you put all these together, you get a curve that is effective at the small end, and at some point as size goes up effectiveness drops, reaching a minimum, and then rises again to reach high effectiveness for particles above some certain size. The reason 0.3 microns is used for many HEPA filter ratings is that is in the middle of the low part of that U shaped curve, so when you get a filter that removes, say, 99.97% of 3 micro particles, it should actually do better for both larger and smaller particles. Here's a document that has some diagrams explaining all this, and has some graphs of the efficiency curves for mechanisms #1-4. http://donaldsonaerospace-defense.com/library/files/documents/pdfs/042665.pdf http://donaldsonaerospace-defense.com/library/files/document...
Consultant32452 5y ago
You are being very generous in assuming the people in charge want you to be educated. It seems to me they wanted you to run around with a (relatively) useless cloth mask so they could horde the most effective masks for themselves.
asabjorn 5y ago
> N95/FFP2 seem to be very effective. Why does then the states with the highest mask use (CA, NYC) have much higher covid positive rates than states with some of the lowest mask use (Florida, NYC)? > Education is key to understanding. You can't reach everyone most. N95 masks improperly used will hold covid for 24hrs and spread them by the incessant touching most people do of their masks before they touch other things. Education only works if the means as deployed are likely to have a positive effect, such as surgeons in a strict hospital settings (where they are still used the wrong way as most people still touch the mask).
- kelnos 5y ago
  > Why does then the states with the highest mask use (CA, NYC) have much higher covid positive rates than states with some of the lowest mask use (Florida, NYC)? They don't. Stop spreading misinformation. (Also I love that in this repeat of your misinformation, you accidentally typed "NYC" where you meant to say "Texas". And it would behoove you to learn the difference between a city and a state.)
  - asabjorn 5y ago
    The confirmed cases to population is 10.3% for NY (not NYC- 2.08m cases to 19.4m population), 9.5% for CA (3.77m cases over 39.5m population), 10.1% for texas (2.93m cases over 29m population), 10.6% for Florida (2.29/21.48). So to be accurate the confirmed covid cases to the population is about the same in states with and without mask mandated as well as other strict social distancing measures.
- chimprich 5y ago
  > Why does then the states with the highest mask use (CA, NYC) have much higher covid positive rates than states with some of the lowest mask use (Florida, NYC)? Even if that was true, places that were hit hardest by the pandemic tended to impose the most severe restrictions. It's like finding that crash barriers are installed on roads with the highest accident rate and asking whether crash barriers are useless.
  - 5y ago

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

bitcurious 5y ago

I’m not sure there was any popular doubt over the efficacy of N95 masks. The problem was rather getting one - marketplaces like Amazon restricted access to masks if you weren’t affiliated with a hospital. So you were left with sketchy deals and weird vendor sites. I suspect Amazon killed quite a few people over the last year by restricting access - supply scaled pretty quickly.

kickopotomus 5y ago
Unfortunately, a few of my friends fell victim to the Qanon conspiracy bandwagon and the fact that mask pore size is wider than the virus was heavily circulated as a reason for mask ineffectiveness.
- petertodd 5y ago
  That wasn't a Quanon conspiracy: that was misunderstanding that I saw plenty of mainstream doctors and other health professionals promote. What it showed is that either they were intentionally lying - which I kinda doubt - or that they were so confident in what they had heard that they never bothered to do any research for themselves. Just reading the relevant wikipedia pages carefully would have corrected that misunderstanding.
  - XorNot 5y ago
    This is your not frequent enough reminder that "doctor" is not a synonym for "scientist", or more specifically epidemiologist. Medical doctor's are basically mechanic's for the human body. The human body is complex, so this is a high bar to clear and an important function, but it doesn't magically grant them knowledge about concepts outside that field.
- blumomo 5y ago
  Everyone is having assumptions about these observations. The conclusions might not be always right, but at least the observation is real. And when you observe that mask mandating states don’t do significantly better than mask-free states, then a curious mind rightfully starts pondering. No need to unterstand conspiracy theories (a difficult topic) to understand that science isn’t getting it right yet.
  - cforrester 5y ago
    > And when you observe that mask mandating states don’t do significantly better than mask-free states, then a curious mind rightfully starts pondering. If this is true, which I haven't confirmed, wouldn't that say more about the effectiveness of political policy rather than about masks themselves? When we have seen throughout the pandemic that healthcare workers have a dramatically lower rate of infection compared to the general population, despite having more direct contact with infected populations, it is clear to the that proper precautions including protective equipment (principally masks, for a respiratory disease) can impede COVID transmission heavily. With that being the case, the question becomes: has mask policy been effective in getting enough people to wear masks properly and consistently, in states where it is mandated?
- Louis_Sarwal 5y ago
  Q is a symbol used by pedophiles to say that they are pedos ;). Just look at "Q", and you will see what I mean. Nothing complex about it.
viraptor 5y ago
You could get halfway with other solutions. The 3-layer design with the synthetic layer in the middle tries to achieve the same idea. It's not going to be as effective as a certified N95, but it's better than a simple cloth. Not sure how common the idea was globally, but it was quite common to make them in Australia.
kadoban 5y ago
Unfortunately there is _absolutely_ popular doubt about this, and every other thing you likely think is obvious about covid and the world. I don't think educating people about masks is really the answer though. I don't know what the answer is, or if there even is one. Feel like our society is coming apart at the seams.
tgsovlerkhgsel 5y ago
The US seems to have relied heavily on cloth masks, even long after the shortages were over. From my understanding, surgical masks are much more effective (while often being more comfortable) than community/cloth masks. (I don't have a source for this on hand, but the German government did ban cloth masks/require at least surgical masks in many areas for this reason.) I suspect a lot of that was out of a desire to not appear as backtracking on a previous position.
Laforet 5y ago
According to the data presented, surgical masks are still highly effective even after converting the scales to linear. Add social distancing on top, it is almost as good as N95. And I very much doubt that N95 masks are effectively utilized by the general public considering how many poorly fitted masks I have seen over the past year. Before the pandemic there had been several studies looking at the efficacy of N95 vs. surgical masks at preventing the transmission of influenza in hospitals. Most of them never got anywhere because it was soon realized that even doctors and nurses cannot be trusted to wear and change masks properly during the daily routine. Let's hope things have improved by now.
- bsder 5y ago
  > And I very much doubt that N95 masks are effectively utilized by the general public considering how many poorly fitted masks I have seen over the past year. I agree. When people can't even wear surgical masks properly, there's no hope with an N95. > Most of them never got anywhere because it was soon realized that even doctors and nurses cannot be trusted to wear and change masks properly during the daily routine. Let's hope things have improved by now. At the very least, everybody is washing their hands. Before Covid, you couldn't even get all the doctors to do something even that simple.
adrr 5y ago
This was an education issue. There were KN95 and KF94 masks available for purchase. I bought KN95 masks off Amazon sold by Amazon proper and later switched to KF94 when they became widely available. Both masks have similar performance to N95. Someone of the KF94 masks i bought showed 99% filtering effectiveness in government testing.

matz1 5y ago

The problem is wearing mask is annoying and uncomfortable. If I have to choose, I'll choose the increased risk of covid all the time rather than wearing mask.

petertodd 5y ago
A big part of why they are annoying and uncomfortable is the lack of one-way valves to make it easier to breath in them. In industry, when you actually need to wear a mask/respirator, they almost always have valves. Unfortunately, we got stuck on the "wear masks to protect others" narrative, and people who actually were at risk were prevented from wearing much more effective, much more comfortable, masks that would actually work well at protecting them. Eg here in Canada, it's illegal to wear a mask/respirator with a valve on a plane.
- matz1 5y ago
  Not only that, there is one more thing to carry when you go out and impairment of social interaction because of lack of facial expression.
- slashdot2008 5y ago
  I don't think it is an unfortunate narrative. two people wearing masks without valves is twice the reduction in likelihood that either one gives the other covid. If someone does have covid the mask without the valve will greatly reduce the concentration of virus particles in the air around them. I think that is working as intended!
  - petertodd 5y ago
    Masks that aren't worn correctly tend to have very low efficiencies, because the air just bypasses the mask at the edges. Depends on many factors like the type, how hard you are breathing, etc. But filtering just 20% of the air breathed in is quite possible. And let's face it, people intentionally wear them incorrectly all the time because they suck to wear. If you and I both have 50% filtration, that's the equivalent of 75% filtration. For the person who is vulnerable, that is much less effective than just wearing a 95% minimum filtration valved N95 mask/respirator properly. It's just ridiculous that an elderly man on a flight, sitting next to a healthy 15 year old more likely to be killed by a flu infection(1), will be told to take off his valved N95 respirator here in Canada, to protect that 15 year old. I have friends who have seen this happen first hand. 1) https://www.cdc.gov/flu/symptoms/flu-vs-covid19.htm https://www.cdc.gov/flu/symptoms/flu-vs-covid19.htm

mhb 5y ago

I don't think people need to know how they work. They just need to know that those are what doctors wear and that they are very, very effective. And much better than a mask you make from ad hoc materials. Once N95 masks became readily available and cheap, it was (and is) mysterious why people weren't being told to wear them to protect themselves instead of wearing whatever was at hand to sort of protect themselves and others.

mulmen 5y ago
If you tell me how something works and it fits within my mental model of the world then I will trust you. I will add this information to my mental model of the world. If you tell me something works but can't explain how I will consider if the claim is worth evaluating then attempt to understand it myself before accepting it. If you tell me to trust you with no explanation I will immediately distrust you.
- mhb 5y ago
  That's reasonable and also what I would like. But what is the mental model of someone wearing their mask alone in the woods or in their car? So, yes, we should explain why an N95 is better than a handkerchief, but it seems like there are plenty of people who don't care about the details and just need to be told that one is more effective.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - kadoban 5y ago
    The mental model of many wearing masks "alone" is that it's more annoying to take the mask on and off all the time than it is to just leave it on. Also, touching the mask constantly leads to concerns about contaminating your hands and then spreading that.
- astrange 5y ago
  When Semmelweiss invented handwashing, all the other doctors ignored him because they didn't like his model, even though he had empirical evidence. Similarly, people like to argue against things like the minimum wage because it doesn't fit some economic model, but they don't realize those models are made up post-hoc to fit older real world data that turned out to be biased and incomplete. Oh, and the West had to deal with scurvy for hundreds of years after discovering the cure (lemon juice) because we'd invented the food poisoning and germ theories of diseases and so we refused to believe you could cure one with food. So don't worry too much about modeling things.

goatcode 5y ago

The only time "N95" was uttered was last year, when we were being told: 1. Masks aren't needed; 2. Don't buy masks, healthcare workers need them. It's unfortunate that we didn't go back to talking about proper masks before people started knitting them and making them out of rags and beads. One wonders what difference it might have made.

slver 5y ago

Bless your soul, but what I've learned from the way we handled the pandemic worldwide (and are still handling it) is that information that's readily available and should in theory reach everyone, flows ridiculously slowly, even among specialists and political figures, it's easily corrupted and distorted, and a loud ignorant minority counts as much in the public discourse, as the voices of millions of reasonable people. I'd say we have more evolving to do. Both biologically and socially. Individually (some) of us are relatively smart. Together we're as dumb as a piece of wood.

bellyfullofbac 5y ago
Yeah, it's disappointing to see how I still see people wearing their masks incorrectly, e.g. just over the mouth and not covering their noses. Sometimes I think human beings are advanced, but then I walk into a public toilet and I see evidence how many are still no better than animals. It's a simple technology, urinate into the hole where the water can wash it away and we'll remain hygienic, but a lot of people still fail at that.
- Mediterraneo10 5y ago
  There are a couple of defensible reasons that people don’t put their mask over their nose outdoors. Firstly, if you wear glasses, then on humid days your glasses can fog up to a degree that you can’t even cross the street safely. Secondly, in some countries the public has chafed against laws requiring outdoor mask wearing in places that are not even remotely crowded. (In my own country, the same scientists advising the government on the COVID response have also opposed this law and urged the government to overturn it, arguing that it is clearly unscientific and only undermines the government’s credibility in getting the population to observe the public-health measures that really matter.) At that point, wearing a mask in a half-ass way is a way for the population to signal their discontent. It has happened that such laws were lifted when ruling parties saw mass flaunting of them, because such strictness might cost them the next election.
  - bellyfullofbac 5y ago

LatteLazy 5y ago

I get where you are coming from but something I've learned from this pandemic is that "wear a mask" is too complex and burdensome for a significant proportion of people in the west...

Louis_Sarwal 5y ago

We immediately face this issue: You should not act on information, or even knowledge. You should act on WISDOM. Wisdom is hard to gain, and yet it proves itself time after time to be better than the other forms of truth. Education is not the key; That would be wisdom. I do admit that most of what they teach is falsehood, and it would be better if it were truth.It would be better of there were no education at all than what we have now. In fact, it would be better to have no education system at all than to have a good education system that is liable to deteriorate. This is especially true when that system is a cost and a burden to and on society. Your information, however, is hardly better than the "n95 is coffee filter". There is no good proof on how airborne viruses are transmitted! Wearing a mask may do nothing, or it may do everything(Well, it can't do everything. Masks haven't stopped gov't from the vaccine)! It is likely that much of the transmission is not even caused by the oral and nasal areas, but instead is due to fecal aerosols. Our best solution may be the abolition of apartments and shared housing. SOme sort of filter should be put on the toilets, not on our faces. Cleansing chemicals(like bleach) should be put in the toilets, not in our arms. Let us remember that choices should be made carefully, with consideration, and only once all of the facts are present. Let us not be hasty-We must wait until a length of time has past in which effects which take alonger time to present themselves are presented. This may require the foregoing of many necessary things. But such is the cost of life. Such is necessary to avoid death, or things much worse.

orf 5y ago
This comment is a pretty good argument for education reform, but likely not in the way you meant.
colonelanguz 5y ago
You rock dude ignore these haters king

tzs 5y ago

> Even thought the pores are larger than a virus the masks are statically charged causes smaller things to get trapped. Even filters that aren't statically charged stop particles that are smaller than the gabs between the fibers. There are actually several mechanisms by which a filter can stop a particle. 1. Big particles don't fit between the fibers of the filter. Think fish in a fish net. This is called sieving. 2. Particles too small for sieving but heavier than the surrounding flow don't make the turns as well as the surrounding flow when the flow goes around the fibers. The particles can get embedded in the fibers. This mechanism is called inertial impaction. 3. The smallest might be too small to actually be affected much by the flow of the surrounding fluid through the filter. The move by diffusion, and many will randomly hit the fibers and get stuck. 4. Particles too big for diffusion but too light for inertial impaction still can run into fibers and get stuck. This is called interception. 5. As you mentioned, some filters have an electrostatic charge which can help trap particles. The effectiveness of sieving, inertial impaction, and interception all follow S shaped curves that start out low for small particles, then at some point start rising, and then level out. The sieving curve's rise is almost vertical. The rise for inertial impaction is steep but not nearly as steep as it is for sieving. The curve for interception's rise is much more relaxed. The effectiveness for diffusion goes the other way. Much more effective for very small particles, then above some size drops down and is low from then one. When you put all these together, you get a curve that is effective at the small end, and at some point as size goes up effectiveness drops, reaching a minimum, and then rises again to reach high effectiveness for particles above some certain size. The reason 0.3 microns is used for many HEPA filter ratings is that is in the middle of the low part of that U shaped curve, so when you get a filter that removes, say, 99.97% of 3 micro particles, it should actually do better for both larger and smaller particles. Here's a document that has some diagrams explaining all this, and has some graphs of the efficiency curves for mechanisms #1-4. http://donaldsonaerospace-defense.com/library/files/documents/pdfs/042665.pdf http://donaldsonaerospace-defense.com/library/files/document...

Consultant32452 5y ago

You are being very generous in assuming the people in charge want you to be educated. It seems to me they wanted you to run around with a (relatively) useless cloth mask so they could horde the most effective masks for themselves.

asabjorn 5y ago

> N95/FFP2 seem to be very effective. Why does then the states with the highest mask use (CA, NYC) have much higher covid positive rates than states with some of the lowest mask use (Florida, NYC)? > Education is key to understanding. You can't reach everyone most. N95 masks improperly used will hold covid for 24hrs and spread them by the incessant touching most people do of their masks before they touch other things. Education only works if the means as deployed are likely to have a positive effect, such as surgeons in a strict hospital settings (where they are still used the wrong way as most people still touch the mask).

kelnos 5y ago
> Why does then the states with the highest mask use (CA, NYC) have much higher covid positive rates than states with some of the lowest mask use (Florida, NYC)? They don't. Stop spreading misinformation. (Also I love that in this repeat of your misinformation, you accidentally typed "NYC" where you meant to say "Texas". And it would behoove you to learn the difference between a city and a state.)
- asabjorn 5y ago
  The confirmed cases to population is 10.3% for NY (not NYC- 2.08m cases to 19.4m population), 9.5% for CA (3.77m cases over 39.5m population), 10.1% for texas (2.93m cases over 29m population), 10.6% for Florida (2.29/21.48). So to be accurate the confirmed covid cases to the population is about the same in states with and without mask mandated as well as other strict social distancing measures.
chimprich 5y ago
> Why does then the states with the highest mask use (CA, NYC) have much higher covid positive rates than states with some of the lowest mask use (Florida, NYC)? Even if that was true, places that were hit hardest by the pandemic tended to impose the most severe restrictions. It's like finding that crash barriers are installed on roads with the highest accident rate and asking whether crash barriers are useless.
- 5y ago