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It doesn't matter. Putting literally anything in front of your virus spewing face hole is going to help to some degree. It's not as if the crook of our arms are

It doesn't matter. Putting literally anything in front of your virus spewing face hole is going to help to some degree. It's not as if the crook of our arms are rated to filter viruses, but that hasn't stopped health organizations all over the world from recommending the vampire cough for years. It's true that a mask alone isn't enough to guarantee anyone's safety and while community spread is high sending kids into schools is pretty much asking for them to get infected, but wearing masks is still far better than doing nothing, it's just that sadly "nothing" is all some people are willing to do to prevent the spread of the virus.

vikingerik 5y ago
Your face hole is not virus spewing if you aren't sick.
- autoexec 5y ago
  Too bad you can't know if you're sick or not until it's too late. It's one of the reasons this virus spreads so quickly. Even if you're not sick wearing masks also helps to protect you from getting sick. It's win/win for extremely minimal effort/inconvenience.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - vikingerik 5y ago
    Too bad that condemning everyone as sick with zero evidence isn't how a free society works. Let's imprison everyone who "might" commit a crime. Masks have gigantic effort/inconvenience and mental health costs. I can't think of anything but counting down the seconds until ripping that f*cking thing off my face while being strangled by that shit. Yet nobody cares about anyone else's mental health over their own perceived safety.
    - rmah 5y ago
      Lol, if you think "Masks have gigantic effort/inconvenience and mental health costs", your life must be a continuous living hellscape.
      - vikingerik 5y ago
        It has been for the past two years, yes. Thank you so much for your concern.
        autoexec 5y ago
        wait until you find out about the mental health costs of not being able to get healthcare when you need it because of staff shortages or constant interruptions in education, or the effects of long covid or the loss of a loved one. I'll take masks over more of those kinds of problems anytime.
    - michaelmrose 5y ago
      If you experience a great deal of anxiety or feel like you are being strangled while wearing a mask you are either wearing it wrong or have a medical issue this isn't how most people experience wearing a mask. This is what I wear. https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/511sZBCeHES._AC_.jpg https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/511sZBCeHES._AC_.jpg I have bad asthma. My lungs are basically shit. I can't jog a 1/4 mile without having breathing problems. I have no problems wearing this mask save for doing sustained physical activity.
      - thehappypm 5y ago
        I agree with them, I hate every second I am forced to wear a mask.
        michaelmrose 5y ago
        Since this is psychological not a physical limitation what are we to do about it?
  - vanviegen 5y ago
    Extremely minimal? Masks make it a lot harder to communicate effectively. People are harder to understand, emotions are harder to read, speaking takes more effort. If communicating is the main thing you do all day, because you're a teacher for instance, that is a significant inconvenience.
    - michaelmrose 5y ago
      Personally I found that a good n95 mask aside from being more effective is far less muffling than a shitty cloth mask.
      - AnthonBerg 5y ago
        Much, much more comfortable too.
    - ccn0p 5y ago
      not to mention facial expressions transmit an incredible amount of non-verbal information that transcends language itself (which the article touches upon). not taking this, and all the other variables that we now have a better understanding of, into account is highly negligent.
    - autoexec 5y ago
      > Extremely minimal? compared to hospitals being overrun, people getting seriously ill and dying (2,200+ US deaths every day) continuing economic harm and disruptions in education yeah it's pretty small thing that it's a little harder to communicate because your voice is muffled and you cant watch people's lips form words.
      - thehappypm 5y ago
        The benefit is always vastly overstated with masks, and the cost always downplayed. You’re implying masks lead to happy hospitals, and masks are just a minor inconvenience. Reality? Masks don’t seem that effective, they may reduce spread in some circumstances, but there’s so little evidence that mask mandates (the way we do them in America) have done much good. Obviously there’s a risk reduction on an individual level when an infected person wears a well-fitted, effective mask like an N95, but at a population level it hasn’t seemed to really help much. Every study seems to have huge error bars and a lot of confounding variables.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
adolph 5y ago
> not as if the crook of our arms are rated to filter viruses People don't shake elbows (unless they have a really intimate elbow bump).
- autoexec 5y ago
  Masks also keep our hands cleaner and we don't usually lick each other's masks either. Masks aren't perfect, but they work.
elzbardico 5y ago
humm... no. Things don't work like that. On the contrary, exhaling through what is essentially is a sieve is only going to promote aerosolization.
- autoexec 5y ago
  Exhaling through a sieve still blocks the largest wettest particles, and limits the distance virus is forcefully expelled through the air. Again, it's not perfect, but infection is purely a numbers game. The more virus you can deposit on a mask, or a sleeve, or even a sieve, the less virus is in the air and the longer it takes for a virus to go from a mouth on one side of a room to a receptor on the other side of a room the better.
  - beerandt 5y ago
    It catches the largest wettest particles and then launches them into the air as smaller particles upon the next cough. Which is why some of the new omicron studies show cloth masks to be worse than no masks at all. And partially explains why omicron seems more capable of defeating real world mask use.
  - elzbardico 5y ago
    Do you know how aerosols work?
champagnois 5y ago
Interventions work differently for different diseases. Influenza is significantly hampered by social distancing, surgical masks, and elbow coughs. Covid 19 is a different virus and the interventions of a flu pandemic are not going to yield the same results. Infection is a binary status. You are either infected or not. There is no such thing as half infected or slightly infected. The probability of infection goes up when the air is more and more saturated with airborne virus... When air in a poorly ventilated space is fully saturated with virus, it simply does not matter if you wear a surgical mask or not as these interventions are doing nothing of significance for you in that situation.
- autoexec 5y ago
  > Covid 19 is a different virus and the interventions of a flu pandemic are not going to yield the same results. The results don't have to be identical. As long as a benefit exists and it can help reduce the major problems we're facing right now it's worth it. > Infection is a binary status. You are either infected or not. The amount of virus matters in if you get infected or not. The more you do to reduce the amount of virus that is in the air the better. You are correct that you can't expect perfect protection from a mask while standing in a fog of virus, but that's rarely the scenario people experience. Masks have been shown again and again to he effective at helping prevent the spread of covid. I wouldn't feel comfortable sitting in a classroom with 40-60 other kids while there were thousands of new infections every day in my community, but if I were forced to, I'd make damn sure I had a mask on. What's the alternative?

vikingerik 5y ago

Your face hole is not virus spewing if you aren't sick.

autoexec 5y ago
Too bad you can't know if you're sick or not until it's too late. It's one of the reasons this virus spreads so quickly. Even if you're not sick wearing masks also helps to protect you from getting sick. It's win/win for extremely minimal effort/inconvenience.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- vikingerik 5y ago
  Too bad that condemning everyone as sick with zero evidence isn't how a free society works. Let's imprison everyone who "might" commit a crime. Masks have gigantic effort/inconvenience and mental health costs. I can't think of anything but counting down the seconds until ripping that f*cking thing off my face while being strangled by that shit. Yet nobody cares about anyone else's mental health over their own perceived safety.
  - rmah 5y ago
    Lol, if you think "Masks have gigantic effort/inconvenience and mental health costs", your life must be a continuous living hellscape.
    - vikingerik 5y ago
      It has been for the past two years, yes. Thank you so much for your concern.
      - autoexec 5y ago
        wait until you find out about the mental health costs of not being able to get healthcare when you need it because of staff shortages or constant interruptions in education, or the effects of long covid or the loss of a loved one. I'll take masks over more of those kinds of problems anytime.
  - michaelmrose 5y ago
    If you experience a great deal of anxiety or feel like you are being strangled while wearing a mask you are either wearing it wrong or have a medical issue this isn't how most people experience wearing a mask. This is what I wear. https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/511sZBCeHES._AC_.jpg https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/511sZBCeHES._AC_.jpg I have bad asthma. My lungs are basically shit. I can't jog a 1/4 mile without having breathing problems. I have no problems wearing this mask save for doing sustained physical activity.
    - thehappypm 5y ago
      I agree with them, I hate every second I am forced to wear a mask.
      - michaelmrose 5y ago
        Since this is psychological not a physical limitation what are we to do about it?
- vanviegen 5y ago
  Extremely minimal? Masks make it a lot harder to communicate effectively. People are harder to understand, emotions are harder to read, speaking takes more effort. If communicating is the main thing you do all day, because you're a teacher for instance, that is a significant inconvenience.
  - michaelmrose 5y ago
    Personally I found that a good n95 mask aside from being more effective is far less muffling than a shitty cloth mask.
    - AnthonBerg 5y ago
      Much, much more comfortable too.
  - ccn0p 5y ago
    not to mention facial expressions transmit an incredible amount of non-verbal information that transcends language itself (which the article touches upon). not taking this, and all the other variables that we now have a better understanding of, into account is highly negligent.
  - autoexec 5y ago
    > Extremely minimal? compared to hospitals being overrun, people getting seriously ill and dying (2,200+ US deaths every day) continuing economic harm and disruptions in education yeah it's pretty small thing that it's a little harder to communicate because your voice is muffled and you cant watch people's lips form words.
    - thehappypm 5y ago
      The benefit is always vastly overstated with masks, and the cost always downplayed. You’re implying masks lead to happy hospitals, and masks are just a minor inconvenience. Reality? Masks don’t seem that effective, they may reduce spread in some circumstances, but there’s so little evidence that mask mandates (the way we do them in America) have done much good. Obviously there’s a risk reduction on an individual level when an infected person wears a well-fitted, effective mask like an N95, but at a population level it hasn’t seemed to really help much. Every study seems to have huge error bars and a lot of confounding variables.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]

adolph 5y ago

> not as if the crook of our arms are rated to filter viruses People don't shake elbows (unless they have a really intimate elbow bump).

autoexec 5y ago
Masks also keep our hands cleaner and we don't usually lick each other's masks either. Masks aren't perfect, but they work.

elzbardico 5y ago

humm... no. Things don't work like that. On the contrary, exhaling through what is essentially is a sieve is only going to promote aerosolization.

autoexec 5y ago
Exhaling through a sieve still blocks the largest wettest particles, and limits the distance virus is forcefully expelled through the air. Again, it's not perfect, but infection is purely a numbers game. The more virus you can deposit on a mask, or a sleeve, or even a sieve, the less virus is in the air and the longer it takes for a virus to go from a mouth on one side of a room to a receptor on the other side of a room the better.
- beerandt 5y ago
  It catches the largest wettest particles and then launches them into the air as smaller particles upon the next cough. Which is why some of the new omicron studies show cloth masks to be worse than no masks at all. And partially explains why omicron seems more capable of defeating real world mask use.
- elzbardico 5y ago
  Do you know how aerosols work?

champagnois 5y ago

Interventions work differently for different diseases. Influenza is significantly hampered by social distancing, surgical masks, and elbow coughs. Covid 19 is a different virus and the interventions of a flu pandemic are not going to yield the same results. Infection is a binary status. You are either infected or not. There is no such thing as half infected or slightly infected. The probability of infection goes up when the air is more and more saturated with airborne virus... When air in a poorly ventilated space is fully saturated with virus, it simply does not matter if you wear a surgical mask or not as these interventions are doing nothing of significance for you in that situation.

autoexec 5y ago
> Covid 19 is a different virus and the interventions of a flu pandemic are not going to yield the same results. The results don't have to be identical. As long as a benefit exists and it can help reduce the major problems we're facing right now it's worth it. > Infection is a binary status. You are either infected or not. The amount of virus matters in if you get infected or not. The more you do to reduce the amount of virus that is in the air the better. You are correct that you can't expect perfect protection from a mask while standing in a fog of virus, but that's rarely the scenario people experience. Masks have been shown again and again to he effective at helping prevent the spread of covid. I wouldn't feel comfortable sitting in a classroom with 40-60 other kids while there were thousands of new infections every day in my community, but if I were forced to, I'd make damn sure I had a mask on. What's the alternative?