3 ms·

You can't have it both ways. Either simple cloth is not good at filtering the virus, and therefore we shouldn't care about retransmit risk from "trapped" virus.

You can't have it both ways. Either simple cloth is not good at filtering the virus, and therefore we shouldn't care about retransmit risk from "trapped" virus. Or it is good at blocking them (like an n95) and you can start thinking/caring about second order effects like retransmission of trapped virus. I don't need a peer review study to tell me to ignore the epsilon squared term when the epsilon term is already being argued to be marginal. If an article comes through claiming the inverse, that is surprising and worth communicating at large.

kcplate 5y ago
No, I am not having it both ways. I don’t think cloth masks are effective at all. I’m responding to the “cloth masks are 5-33% effective” for incidental exposure commentary as a positive aspect of cloth masking. It’s a red herring that creates a false sense of security. My point is that if a cloth mask is only partially effective for an incidental exposure than it must have been somewhat effective at a given moment, but due to virus size and cloth weaving…every moment that the particle didn’t reach your nasal passages due to that momentary chance then that virus still has a 67%-95% of entering you and infecting you every moment it is near you. So any incidental exposure becomes non-incidental.
- Misdicorl 5y ago
  I appreciate you clarifying your reasoning. I think it's straight up crazy/magical reasoning. But to be honest I don't have much more confidence in my own conjectures on this matter.
  - kcplate 5y ago
    I don’t see what’s all that magical about assuming something that is 33% effective at any given moment would not all of a sudden become 100% effective at every other moment. But perhaps when you roll a die the same number appears every time. I just know that when I roll a die I generally have a 1/6 chance that my first number comes up again on every roll I try. Perhaps randomness and chance is magical. I always thought it wasn’t.
    - Misdicorl 5y ago
      Perhaps it's a failure in this communication mode. It seems to be that you've argued yourself down a garden path. From my understanding your statements are A) using incorrect concepts (moment in time? A 15 minute infection window turns into a 20 minute infection window) B) simply irrelevant. Unless you can provide evidence to the contrary, cloth masks aren't trapping any relevant amount of virus
      - kcplate 5y ago
        Then you haven’t understood a thing. Have a good day.

kcplate 5y ago

No, I am not having it both ways. I don’t think cloth masks are effective at all. I’m responding to the “cloth masks are 5-33% effective” for incidental exposure commentary as a positive aspect of cloth masking. It’s a red herring that creates a false sense of security. My point is that if a cloth mask is only partially effective for an incidental exposure than it must have been somewhat effective at a given moment, but due to virus size and cloth weaving…every moment that the particle didn’t reach your nasal passages due to that momentary chance then that virus still has a 67%-95% of entering you and infecting you every moment it is near you. So any incidental exposure becomes non-incidental.

Misdicorl 5y ago
I appreciate you clarifying your reasoning. I think it's straight up crazy/magical reasoning. But to be honest I don't have much more confidence in my own conjectures on this matter.
- kcplate 5y ago
  I don’t see what’s all that magical about assuming something that is 33% effective at any given moment would not all of a sudden become 100% effective at every other moment. But perhaps when you roll a die the same number appears every time. I just know that when I roll a die I generally have a 1/6 chance that my first number comes up again on every roll I try. Perhaps randomness and chance is magical. I always thought it wasn’t.
  - Misdicorl 5y ago
    Perhaps it's a failure in this communication mode. It seems to be that you've argued yourself down a garden path. From my understanding your statements are A) using incorrect concepts (moment in time? A 15 minute infection window turns into a 20 minute infection window) B) simply irrelevant. Unless you can provide evidence to the contrary, cloth masks aren't trapping any relevant amount of virus
    - kcplate 5y ago
      Then you haven’t understood a thing. Have a good day.