3 ms·

What is wrong? That I'd rather have people have proper vitamin D status, a core regulator of the immune system that's basically free to manufacture? Or wear a p

What is wrong? That I'd rather have people have proper vitamin D status, a core regulator of the immune system that's basically free to manufacture? Or wear a piece of cloth that does.. What? What does blocking 99% of particles mean for risk of infection?

bryanlarsen 2y ago
Why is this an either or question? If you don't want to get sick, take Vitamin D AND wear a mask.
- lambdaba 2y ago
  I thought masks protect others not the wearer. Guess I'm just not up-to-date with the science.
  - tehjoker 2y ago
    They mostly protect others, but they also reduce the number of infectious particles entering (pretty obviously). They're very leaky, so if you wear a non-respirator you will only delay infection not prevent one. However, if many people wear masks, there is filtration going on in both directions (at the source and sink), so they become more effective. COVID is remarkable among human pathogens because it is so damn transmissible. High percentage mask wearing completely stomps out weaker viruses (we eliminated a flu strain in 2020). COVID is almost as transmissible as measles (R0 for Omicron is commonly estimated above 8 and as high as 24), so it takes an array of countermeasures or high quality countermeasures to arrest it. Still, mask wearing will reduce the number of people infected per a unit time, making environments much safer. Now that we are in a regime where R0 is less applicable since people have some immunity to COVID, the transmission rate is closer to 1-3. This is something masks can manage to stomp so long as there is partial immunity.
    - lambdaba 2y ago
      So we're back to needing everyone to mask up given your leading paragraph. Again, I hope the general public never accepts this ever again. I don't want to live in a world so obsessed with safety and safety theater that it accepts such a radical transformation of the public space. So what Taiwan does it. I hope the info you shared is valuable to someone, I don't have the inclination to make my case in further detail, so I'll just stay at this level of argumentation: the tradeoff is unacceptable to me, and, I hope, to the majority. If it ever comes down to this again, I'll make a serious effort to relocate to somewhere still sane.
      - bryanlarsen 2y ago
        Masks are a radical transformation? Please. It's a minor inconvenience. Keeping kids home from school was a radical transformation.
  - TylerE 2y ago
    The traditional surgical with ear loops is mostly for other pills. A properly fitting N95 seals all the way around the mask, and offers substantial protection for the wearer. The ones I wear have been found >99.9% efficient at filtering aerosolized COVID sized particles, which are quite a bit bigger than the 0.3um worst case test particle. Worse case because they actual filter with two mechanisms, one physical that works for large particles (think stuff getting caught in a fishing net) and another that’s electrostatic that works better for ultra fine stuff. 0.3 is the crossover where the combination is minimally effective.
toss1 2y ago
Yes having good vitamin D levels is good, as low levels are associated with more severe CV-19 disease. Seems to be related to the fact that CV-19 is a blood and organ disease (that happens to have airborne transmission), micro-clotting is a big effect, and Vit-D has some anticoagulant effects. But it will NOT prevent infection. A properly fitted N95/N99 mask will. It takes about 700 viral particles (early strains) entering the airways to start an infection (obviously variance involved). Cutting out 95-99% of the particles you breath in an exposure event gives you 20X to 100X margin to prevent infection. When good masks are generally used, those effects are multiplied together, as the contagious person's spreading of viruse particles is reduced by 20-100X, and your mask reduces that attenuated stream by another 20-100X. These effects are why the R0 of all airborne diseases is cut when most people take measures. We can see this because while the spread of the more contagious CV-19 was reduced, entire strains of influenza went EXTINCT. Wiped out forever. They could thrive in an unmasked population, but died out when people even masked badly and inconsistently.

bryanlarsen 2y ago

Why is this an either or question? If you don't want to get sick, take Vitamin D AND wear a mask.

lambdaba 2y ago
I thought masks protect others not the wearer. Guess I'm just not up-to-date with the science.
- tehjoker 2y ago
  They mostly protect others, but they also reduce the number of infectious particles entering (pretty obviously). They're very leaky, so if you wear a non-respirator you will only delay infection not prevent one. However, if many people wear masks, there is filtration going on in both directions (at the source and sink), so they become more effective. COVID is remarkable among human pathogens because it is so damn transmissible. High percentage mask wearing completely stomps out weaker viruses (we eliminated a flu strain in 2020). COVID is almost as transmissible as measles (R0 for Omicron is commonly estimated above 8 and as high as 24), so it takes an array of countermeasures or high quality countermeasures to arrest it. Still, mask wearing will reduce the number of people infected per a unit time, making environments much safer. Now that we are in a regime where R0 is less applicable since people have some immunity to COVID, the transmission rate is closer to 1-3. This is something masks can manage to stomp so long as there is partial immunity.
  - lambdaba 2y ago
    So we're back to needing everyone to mask up given your leading paragraph. Again, I hope the general public never accepts this ever again. I don't want to live in a world so obsessed with safety and safety theater that it accepts such a radical transformation of the public space. So what Taiwan does it. I hope the info you shared is valuable to someone, I don't have the inclination to make my case in further detail, so I'll just stay at this level of argumentation: the tradeoff is unacceptable to me, and, I hope, to the majority. If it ever comes down to this again, I'll make a serious effort to relocate to somewhere still sane.
    - bryanlarsen 2y ago
      Masks are a radical transformation? Please. It's a minor inconvenience. Keeping kids home from school was a radical transformation.
- TylerE 2y ago
  The traditional surgical with ear loops is mostly for other pills. A properly fitting N95 seals all the way around the mask, and offers substantial protection for the wearer. The ones I wear have been found >99.9% efficient at filtering aerosolized COVID sized particles, which are quite a bit bigger than the 0.3um worst case test particle. Worse case because they actual filter with two mechanisms, one physical that works for large particles (think stuff getting caught in a fishing net) and another that’s electrostatic that works better for ultra fine stuff. 0.3 is the crossover where the combination is minimally effective.

toss1 2y ago

Yes having good vitamin D levels is good, as low levels are associated with more severe CV-19 disease. Seems to be related to the fact that CV-19 is a blood and organ disease (that happens to have airborne transmission), micro-clotting is a big effect, and Vit-D has some anticoagulant effects. But it will NOT prevent infection. A properly fitted N95/N99 mask will. It takes about 700 viral particles (early strains) entering the airways to start an infection (obviously variance involved). Cutting out 95-99% of the particles you breath in an exposure event gives you 20X to 100X margin to prevent infection. When good masks are generally used, those effects are multiplied together, as the contagious person's spreading of viruse particles is reduced by 20-100X, and your mask reduces that attenuated stream by another 20-100X. These effects are why the R0 of all airborne diseases is cut when most people take measures. We can see this because while the spread of the more contagious CV-19 was reduced, entire strains of influenza went EXTINCT. Wiped out forever. They could thrive in an unmasked population, but died out when people even masked badly and inconsistently.