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I’m sceptical. This study measures aerosols going into a funnel centimeters away. It is also done with 10 people. This is a highly artificial situation. They ev

by zpeti 5y ago

I’m sceptical. This study measures aerosols going into a funnel centimeters away. It is also done with 10 people. This is a highly artificial situation. They even admit that they didn’t measure aerosol escapes at the top and side of masks. What happens when you spend 15 minutes in a small room with a COVID infected person with a mask? When all side escaped aerosols spread in the room? Or in a shopping center with 10 COVID infected people? That’s the real life situation. And in that situation I’ve not seen any studies done. To me this is basic physics. Aerosols float in the air. Any particles escaping the direct surface of the mask will float into the air. Just like dust. Except viruses are even smaller and float more. Any closed environment is likely to be saturated with virus fairly quickly, and if they aren’t filtered by a kn95 mask you will breath them in. Edit: and I think with the new variants we are in a worse and worse situation. The initial variant needed 15 minutes of exposure to infect you apparently. I’m pretty sure delta is much much less. A few minutes or under a minute in a saturated room, mask or no mask, is prob enough

Aeolun 5y ago
I agree with you, and think it’s kind of obvious, which is why nobody is testing for that I think. If you spend long enough in a small room, even with someone wearing a mask the mask is not going to do much to prevent transmission. I think that’s why the first rule of COVID is to not stay together in small rooms. The important part is if you’ll be instantly infected by someone talking with you over the counter for a minute, and for that scenario masks are (apparently) pretty great. The only way would be to wear N95+ masks yourself.
- sleavey 5y ago
  > The only way would be to wear N95+ masks yourself. And properly. Almost no one wears one properly, because it requires training, correct sizing and e.g. to be shaved. Mandating that everyone wears masks without training people is lunacy. When they inevitably don't work people lose faith is science because they were told there was scientific evidence that they will help, when in fact scientific studies were made only in specific, limited conditions.

by zpeti 5y ago

Aeolun 5y ago

I agree with you, and think it’s kind of obvious, which is why nobody is testing for that I think. If you spend long enough in a small room, even with someone wearing a mask the mask is not going to do much to prevent transmission. I think that’s why the first rule of COVID is to not stay together in small rooms. The important part is if you’ll be instantly infected by someone talking with you over the counter for a minute, and for that scenario masks are (apparently) pretty great. The only way would be to wear N95+ masks yourself.

sleavey 5y ago
> The only way would be to wear N95+ masks yourself. And properly. Almost no one wears one properly, because it requires training, correct sizing and e.g. to be shaved. Mandating that everyone wears masks without training people is lunacy. When they inevitably don't work people lose faith is science because they were told there was scientific evidence that they will help, when in fact scientific studies were made only in specific, limited conditions.