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Re: the masks on planes. Assume a linear rate of virus particle shedding per breath and calculate the total viral load in the air of the plane over time, assumi
by xyzzy123 4y ago
Re: the masks on planes. Assume a linear rate of virus particle shedding per breath and calculate the total viral load in the air of the plane over time, assuming the mask can catch a resonable proportion.
The "pointless ceremony" of "masks while not eating" works out better.
I think because we see ourselves as "sick or not sick" and "infected or not infected", people are not very calibrated to think or care about magnitude of exposure.
Public health prophylactic measures can have real impact on both large and small scales, even when imperfectly followed. It's the statistics of the thing. Terrorism measures are stil theatre IMHO because they have such a lumpy and weird distribution.
- jstrong 4y agoif masks work so well, why didn't they work? how did omicron get around the world in like two weeks flat when everyone was wearing masks on planes? at what point does covid making an utter mockery of our mitigation efforts start to dent your faith in them?
- xyzzy123 4y agoWhy not one week? Masks aren't perfect, and they don't make sense in every context but a plane IMHO is actually reasonable. Not every context is the same. I'm willing to acknowledge that the data is not great, but I think the action is more or less "plausible" and IMHO the suffering is small.
- scarface74 4y agoYes, the suffering is small. But so is the payoff. My contention is that the people who statistically got seriously sick by the time Omicron became a thing in the US were the ones that decided to not get a vaccinated. I feel not an ounce of pity for them. The knock on affects is that the Democrats were not doing themselves any favors in the election. It’s bad politics.