Wear a freaking mask already

Gish gallop. Google it.

 

I went in our local post office a couple days ago which is one room about ten by ten with a counter on one side the postal worker stands behind. Sign on door says where a mask. Some broad with no mask was standing there ************ with the postal worker. I walked in wearing a mask. I’m 70 so at risk. I told the fat bitch to get out of the small room. She looked at me and said one of those huh and made a sheep bleat noise. I said **** *********. She said I’m getting my husband. I waited outside for her husband that never showed up. This is what it’s come to

 

Well, his loss. He could have learned a thing or two from me. Obviously not my loss, given that he doesn't really understand the issues so I wasn't getting anything out of the discussion. I mean, I tried, I put the effort in... I did say that he wasn't "equipped" to understand and maybe that upset him, but it was just a fact. He obviously doesn't know anything about Cardiology (I mean, he thought that people in Sweden not dropping dead today of heart failure was a way of countering what I was saying, LOL, ignoring how slowly heart failure evolves after myocarditis) and the meaning and prognosis of the kind of heart lesions that were found in these mild and moderate cases with no pre-existing conditions.

When I said he wasn't equipped to understand, I didn't mean anything nasty about it. *I'm* not equipped to understand a lot of stuff. Just recently I posted to say that I am clueless about the economy. People have different areas of expertise, naturally. I'm not an arrogant person. I know what I know, and I know what the areas are that I don't know anything about, and I don't try to pass judgment on stuff I don't know. I have no problem acknowledging that I'm clueless in certain areas. But there is no need to misrepresent that I don't know what I *do* know. I *am* equipped to understand *this* issue, which is not his case, that's just a fact, I don't see it as a personal attack. But maybe he did.

Anyway, it's not like *he* was not personally attacking me; kept calling me a fear monger (so paradoxical; at the same time, mocking my excessive optimism, LOL). Then, in the name of peace, I decided to further explain my position to see if he would understand my standpoint, and I even apologized, to restore civility... and all that he could do was to say TLDR.

Well, good riddance. Life is too short to waste time with someone who won't appreciate a thoughtful response. There's no point in debating with this kind of person. Did you see how he attacked the German study as "fear mongering bunk"... without having ever read it, which was clear because he questioned the study on items... that the study had perfectly and clearly addressed? That's the ultimate prejudice. A Pre-(in advance)-judice(judgment). You judge something without even reading it. I mean, if you accuse these reputable and learned scientists of something without even bothering reading their paper first, what was I expecting? He did the same thing with my response... didn't read it. Well, he lost me as an interlocutor, and it's definitely his loss.

 

What she means is that 100 years of medical sciences have always established that masks protect the wearer against being contaminated by infectious agents. Coronaviruses are no exception. Do you know how old the family of coronaviruses is? The common ancestor of all coronaviruses is estimated to have popped up at least 10,000 years ago. Some scientists think it's much more ancient than that, putting it at 55 million years of co-evolution with bats and birds. Now, this one, the agent of the disease known as COVID-19, is called a *novel* coronavirus because it is a recent species of this family, which seems to have surfaced at some point in November of 2019, in humans. But it probably already existed in bats, then jumped to pangolins, then to humans.

20% of the common colds are caused by more benign coronaviruses. We've had other aggressive ones before, namely the MERS and the SARS-1.

Studies have been done with masks to see how protective they are against the coronaviruses responsible for MERS and SARS-1, because there was some doubt. The coronaviruses are smaller than, for example, the influenza virus that causes the seasonal flu. That's why they studied masks for MERS and SARS-1, because conceivably, the cororonavirus family being made of viruses as small as 0.1 micron, it might be harder to stop them with masks. Well, no. Almost ALL studies showed that masks did significantly decrease the odds for the wearer of catching the disease, when exposed to the agents of MERS and SARS-1, and by the way, more recent stufies with the SARS-CoV-2, the agent of COVID-19, found the same thing, that masks do work. So whatever you think the CDC is saying, no, they aren't, and if they are, they are wrong. Here, look at this list of 29 studies showing reduction of risk for the mask wearer, of catching these coronavirus-caused diseases (the way to read is, all these points to the left of the vertical line represent a smaller risk than a point sitting on the vertical line; the column that is the second one from the right side is the Relative Risk. Anything lower than 1 means a smaller risk of catching the disease). So this table shows that 17 years ago, in 2003, there was already a study showing a reduction of risk of contracting the first SARS disease, also caused by a coronavirus, for those who wore masks, and this continued to be found the same way, to bigger or smaller degree depending on the type of mask and setting, but almost always with a reduction in risk, up to and including 2020 studies with this novel coronavirus:

 

Get over yourself . LOL

 

It ain't complex. Just put the sewn, shaped, layered rag with attachments on. It's a glorified medieval, primitive rag barrier.

It's better than nothing but it ain't a much. Something is better than nothing.

 

The mask is not a cure all. Its efficacy has never been proved, and there are documented lab tests in this country from 1946 on with influenza virus concluding that they cannot demonstrate any protective qualities of the mask.

As noted in CDC literature, the mask helps the public feel good about itself that they are part of a team effort.

I would say wearing the mask is more like a religion than anything else. It offers a false sense of security, nothing more. In the meantime, it allows people to show that they are submitting to authority.

What we have now in the US is the Masked Lemmings Society, and it's sad. I know lifetime friends who scorn and scold those not wearing masks in outdoor settings. They grew up together, and now reject and scorn former friends for not wearing a mask, a diaper over their mouth.

It's way past crazy in this country, as intended.

 

Mask may or may not be effective but bottom line is you have no right to make that decision for other people's health. Wearing a mask is about other people not you and you should respect their health concerns. It won't hurt you to wear a mask but there is at least a possibility your not wearing one could kill someone else.
It's no different than texting or drinking while driving. You may feel you can do so safely but if you're wrong you could kill someone else and you have no right to put others at possible risk.

 

It does not effect me, but many have COPD and other breathing problems. For them a mask is torture.

You offer a very poor comparison to texting while driving. It might be a possibility and it might not be, depending upon the facts of each case. You offer a hypothetical based upon fear and nothing more.

You do not advocate for masking up every fall and winter for flu, so your concern seems to be quite limited, and highly political.

 

Those with breathing problems should of course be excused.
Fact is many believe mask work and if you don't that's fine but you have no right to make that health decision for others.
When in a crowd mask up.
No shirt no shoes no mask no service.

 

Unless you also are wearing a face shield or goggles, you are a science denier, hate the experts and are deliberately exposing yourself and others to covid-19.

Remember, until April of this year, Fauci, the Surgeon General, every expert and every study ever done on the general public wearing masks were all lying every where in the world when they all said do not wear masks. Everyone knows if someone has always lied to you week after month after year after decade - that is the person whose advice you should follow.

 

Fauci should be fired for lying to the president and America

 

You are right that they lied and it is preposterous. I'm very mad at Fauci, the WHO, and the CDC for lying about masks not being protective to the wearer, which is contradicted by pretty much all studies ever done on this matter. The lie was deliberate. They did it knowingly and willingly, in the vain hope of protecting the stock of masks for the use of healthcare workers, and despite my being a healthcare worker, I'm not grateful for that; I believe that the right way to respond to the shortage of PPE was to dramatically boost the domestic production of these devices, not to lie to the public, which only accomplished the undermining of trust - who can trust them now, after they deliberately lied? That was a great disservice to public health. They finally changed their tune, but too late.

And only now, this week, I read an article talking about American factories finally boosting the production of domestically-made PPE. It was about time, but again, too little too late. I get angry when I think about it, as I've seen colleagues and co-workers getting infected and a few of them dying due to performing their duties with inappropriate and scarce PPE. This is as bad as sending our soldiers to foreign wars with sub-standard protective equipment.

I do wear goggles, medical grade. I do wear an N95 mask or an ASTM level 3 FDA-approved surgical mask with a rubber brace to enhance the seal (depending on what I'm doing). My hospital has found some ways to overcome the shortage and now we do have appropriate PPE but early in the pandemic we were facing shortages like every other hospital. These devices protect me to a degree and decrease the odds that I will get infected, although they do not eliminate these odds, which is why not only wearing these PPE devices but also engaging in social distancing, hand hygiene, and avoidance of crowded indoor spaces are also important.

I do realize that most people if they wear masks, they wear the wrong ones or they wear them improperly. There's never been a widespread educational campaign on this, which is extremely regretful. The population was lied to, and given contradictory guidance that was confusing and inaccurate. I subscribe to some international channels on satellite TV and routinely see educational campaigns on TV in other countries, with very efficient advice and instruction on masks. There is a particular channel from a particular country in which every commercial break during their programming, includes an educational message, with tips and advice on how to manage the risks brought in by the pandemic, in rotating bases and covering a number of topics, very well done, very well produced. It's a pity that it was never done here (or at least not that I know of).

I think that this kind of educational campaign is much more effective than any mask mandates. What we need is for people to be told the truth, never lied to, in clear and coherent messages, so that they know what options they have to protect themselves, and they make an informed decision as competent adults who live in a free country.

And yes, masks masks masks are most of what is mentioned... they are very important in my opinion, but so is eye protection and it is never mentioned here. If you walk into an aerosol of viruses expelled by an infected person, duly masked, but with your eyes exposed, that's an entry point too and you can get infected this way. I never go into a grocery store without goggles. Sure, likely the viral load would be smaller if the entry point is a mist hitting your eyes rather than you massively inhaling aerosol and droplets from an infected person deep into your lungs, but I'd rather avoid this virus all together, small or large viral load.

Transmission from contaminated surfaces supposedly account for only 2% of all cases, but why not bring that percentage down too? So, yes, hand hygiene is also needed. It doesn't help if you wear masks and goggles but then touch a contaminated surface and you then remove your goggles or your mask to scratch or eyes or nose with your dirty hands.

Am I a germophobe? Not at all. I wouldn't be a healthcare worker if I were one. But I've seen first hand what this virus can do, therefore I'm very careful, until we hopefully get effective and safe vaccines (I'm fairly optimistic about this part).

 

Better than none?

 

Face shields are an effective alternative for those people

 

Good for you, blessed with a healthy, balanced immune system. But my immune system has been wonky all my life and I used to get the flu almost every year, which one time led to a hospital stay due to pneumonia, until I started getting a vaccine every year.

 

They had NO WAY of doing that and knew it.

They were protecting YOU. You should than k them for that white lie...not denigrating them.

The people who use this as an excuse to fight wearing a mask are not honest. If Fauci had not said this they would use a different excuse

 

Effective is subjective. It helps. Some. Bandanas, worthless. And a study on them said they actually create more particles as the particle break up going through the fabric.
And sure they could save lives. I've never said differently.

But effective depends on material. How well it fits, etc.

 

You can test it yourself using a paper towel and a spray bottle.

Spray mist right into the air. See what happens.
Spray mist into a paper towel. See what happens.

If there is a reduction in tiny water droplets flying through the air, then you are seeing "yes it helps," in action.

 

I'm not so sure of that. It's been said that we lack the blown melt fabric that goes inside N95s and ASTM masks because we've also outsourced this to China (which is stupid; PPE is a national security item and we should never have relinquished means of production to unfriendly countries in the pursuit of cheap labor). But we do have some capacity. Only in May something started being done about this:

https://www.defense.gov/Newsroom/Re...act-to-3m-increasing-production-of-n95-masks/

https://www.assemblymag.com/articles/95705-m-to-triple-monthly-us-production-of-n95-masks

And it's to kick in in October 2020. Why exactly couldn't this be done earlier? The second article mentions equipment being operational in June, following the May contracts. Why not in February, following January contracts???

I can't really believe that we couldn't have engaged in a war-time effort, using the Defense Production Act if need be, since January when this virus started spreading and we realized our stocks were low.

About your last phrase, I can relate to it.

Still, lying to the population is never a good policy. In the middle of a pandemic you'll need your credibility in much more than just one occasion. If you start lying, later you may need the people to believe in you for something else, but then, they don't.

 

True. There's a video available on Youtube showing the effectiveness of various types of masks. I have some of the blue hospital disposable type, which work well, and several double layer cloth ones that fit well and have been deemed to be most effective next to the N95s. I wash them by hand in hot soapy water after each use. I'm as safe as I can get as long as I avoid proximity to people who are not wearing masks.

Better than nothing. Plus I get a kick out of the fact that countries all over the world have spent boatloads of money on public camera placements and facial recognition software. Heh heh heh ...

 

Where does Fauci weigh into any of that other than knowing what the admin is doing?

 

Ah, OK, now I understand what you are saying, that Fauci himself had no power to change it. Possible. I don't know exactly what his power is, inside the White House. Sometimes Trump listened to him, some other times he didn't. Anyway, I feel that as a country, whoever was in charge, we could and should have engaged in more effort and earlier effort to domestically produce N95s and other high quality masks.

 

Yea...no kidding.

We still don't have enough PPE...6 months into this thing

 

ONLY PEOPLE WHO ARE FOR MASK USE SHOULD BOTHER READING THIS POST - others, disregard, skip, please:

Here is a very important study done at the excellent Duke University. 14 masks compared. Unsurprisingly, the two best performers were N95s and medical-grade surgical masks (no specification of ASTM level). Then it goes downhill from there, but with some good performers in-between. It's interesting to see that vented N95s protect less, obviously, but see that the test was from the wearer to the recipient, so presumably they do protect the wearer well, but obviously aren't the greatest for public health because the air goes from the wearer to the community unfiltered. Still given that the vents are smaller than the full diameter of the masks, I suppose they still stopped some stuff. I was surprised with some good results in this test for some of the non-N95, non-surgical mask options.

https://advances.sciencemag.org/con...&utm_campaign=sudbury.com&utm_medium=referral

Another interesting test, this one not done by a major university but rather by the engineers responsible for the fixthemask.com initiative which I very much praise (I've been using their neoprene rubber braces for more than 3 months now with great results). They claim to have used the same NIOSH standards although they make no claim that this is equivalent to a NIOSH certification. They just used the same equipment and standards and applied them to the masks they tested - but hey, only ONE mask for each category, so take it or leave it. These tests are very surprising as the cloth masks performed even worse than I expected and much worse than at Duke. I only have a picture of the results, so here it is:



So, it's disappointing that this time they only tested ASTM level 1 masks. Previously they had an ASTM level 3 test that achieved 98%, outperforming even the N95s (but do know that the test was WITH their rubber brace so it's not like people will achieve this result without the brace). Now, what is really interesting I think in this test, is that a consumer product that is readily available on Amazon seems to have outperformed the ASTM level 1 masks, these Zubrex masks with nanofiber instead of the usual meltblown of the ASTM masks and the N95s. I won't be buying these since I do have enough ASTM level 3 masks and they have achieved 1% more... (98% versus 97%) but the ASTM level 3s are three times more expensive and much harder to find. I know how to find them, and I won't be deviating from them (not only because, well, even if a tiny advantage, they do rate a bit higher, but also because they are very soft, comfortable, and sturdy, and I never handled one of these Zubrexes to compare), but I thought I'd post this here so that others who don't want to go through the hassle and the expense of going for real medical-grade ASTM level 3 masks, have an alternative. ASTMs are much harder to get for non-healthcare workers given that many of the certified makers require of the buyer proof of healthcare worker status such as an NPI number and a copy of a hospital badge, although some don't, so even for the lay public they actually are available. Interested people should go to the FDA website and get the list of certified vendors, and click on their links one by one, to explore availability, price, and requirements. If you're persistent, you'll get them. But hey, if for the lay people these Zubrex ones are more available, they seem like a decent idea.

Now, what I find a bit hard to believe is that this Safe Warrior from Walgreens is as good as an ASTM level 1 mask. This is stuff made in China that at least is intended for infection control rather than being one of those that say they are just for pollutants and dust and not for medical use so I guess it's possible... but me, at a comparable filtration, I'd rather use the FDA-certified ASTM level 1s. I did buy a box of ASTM level 1s right at beginning of the pandemic when I couldn't find level 3s but once I started finding level 3s I donated my level 1 box to a local charity.

Every time I post something like this I get a bit worried that a moderator might think I'm posting spam... but I have no vested interest in any of these companies whatsoever. I wish I had bought some stock, haha, but I haven't. I only post this in order to try and be helpful to whoever out there is in the prowl for effective masks. And I should add I do not know if this information from fixthemask.com can be fully trusted. I do fully trust the information from Duke University though, and the fact that it isn't very compatible with the one from fixthemask.com did give me pause. Who knows if *they* have an interest in this Zubrex company... but I want to think not, because they are non-profit, open source, and they make their work available out there for free. They seem to be genuinely interested in helping the healthcare industry and in keeping people safe. And now that they are doing their 3.0 brace, they are sending them to healthcare workers and school teachers with priority, which is nice (I liked it that they included teachers). So they do seem to be nice people who just bought different options and put them to test.

The cloth mask at fixthemask.com was dismal... 7.25% filtration! Ugh. That's horrible. And to think that this is what the vast majority of mask-wearing Americans are using... sad.

And like many know already, the Duke test showed that gaiter type neck fleece actually increased transmission! And bandanas are no good, either. One wonders what's the point for businesses of requiring "face covering." Costco for example requires customers to wear a face covering but they tolerate bandanas and gainters so it's just like these people are not masked.

------------

Well, me, I have a good stock of N95s, legitimate, non-counterfeit, NIOSH certified (I've seen the certificates), and a good stock of ASTM level 3s, FDA-certified (ditto), so the above information doesn't really change anything for me, but as a sort of "public health announcement" I thought I'd post this study and this table.

Of course the folks here who strongly believe that masks are crap and make an ideological point of not wearing them, should pass. But for those who do believe in research, for what it's worth, do look at these sources.