"If yes, so would the virus. You’d be smart to wear a mask. If not, it’s unlikely that you’ll get infected. 'When I walk into a space, I always do that,' Dr. Bromage said. 'How high are the ceilings? Is the air moving? Can I create my own little buffer of space?'... Take a big box store with high ceilings. 'Those tend to have good ventilation and because of the high ceilings, there’s a lot of dilution,' said Linsey Marr, an engineering professor at Virginia Tech who studies the airborne transmission of viruses. 'The risks are pretty low, unless you’re in a crowded line waiting to check out. If it’s a smaller space and crowded space, Trader Joe’s, for example, or some New York market with tiny aisles and people are really packed in there, the risk is higher.... You might want to wear a mask.'... At a restaurant, one person’s cigarette smoke at the next table over wouldn’t fill the air above yours. But you would smell someone smoking at your own table, so your direct dining companions pose the highest risk, Dr. Bromage said."
From "Should You Still Wear a Mask? Experts weigh in on where, and when, you can safely take one off" (NYT). Here in Madison, we're 10 days away from the end of our mask mandate.
As a person with an almost nonexistent sense of smell, I appreciated the wording "would the smell and taste of cigarettes quickly fill the air?" Somehow that made me think of the question, if a tree falls in the forest, and only a deaf person is there, does it make a sound?
It's interesting to read that someone smoking at the next table in a restaurant might not matter. I don't remember reading that in the NYT back when the ancient practice of smoking in restaurants was getting snuffed out in the United States.
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62 comments:
And if you can smell the same smoke while wearing a mask, it is not protecting you.
So the analogy is easily expanded.
An Australian study, prompted by a question from an operating room nurse about whether farts would be dangerous to the patient, found that petri dishes remained clear if everybody wears underwear.
The suggestion is really about judging airflow. The suggestion ought to be avoid being in that situation, not put on a mask.
So virus weigh the same as smoke particles and carry an electric charge?
The question whether there's a sound is about one of the criteria for what counts as a sound. If it's a question whether there's a pressure wave, there's no (non Bishop Berkeley) doubt. But lots of pressure waves don't get called sound, say it's too low or too high a frequency to hear. Bats may or may not be characterized as making a sound. Everybody who knows what a sound is knows not only that but that this is a doubtful case as well, even though nothing's vague or concealed about it. Everybody would allow that what bats emit serves as a sound, which is slightly different from being a sound.
Given the number of people in the US who got Covid, even in places with mask mandates, after I got the vaccine, I stopped wearing a mask unless it was mandated and the mandate was enforced.
Anywhere it was optional, I didn’t wear one. Even if basically everyone else did.
We were in Ann Arbor last summer, at a mask optional place, and my wife said people are going to glare at you.
My answer, “like I give a fuck about people glaring at me.”
I don’t glare at someone wearing a mask.
And I can’t believe there are places that still have mask mandates. Here in Ohio, we haven’t lived like that for at least a year.
ancient practice of smoking in restaurants was getting snuffed
as a Karen*,
i can assure you; that whether or not i can smell (or see) your transgressions has NOTHING to do,
with My DEMAND that you Stop IT! You are doing something that *i* disapprove of.. That CANNOT be tolerated!!
Karen* gilbar writes this rhetorically... gilbar is FAR from being a Karen
The more basic question is the relative sizes of smoke particles and viruses versus the size of the holes in a given mask.
Masks that easily capture large chunks of burned tobacco (99%) may well miss 50% or 99% of the viruses in the air. It's akin to thinking a chain link fence or a single tree branch will stop the rain. They don't. Furthermore, even a house roof designed to stop the rain often leaks.
Smoke analogies and room-by-room guesses result in nothing more than superstition.
I myself advocate a return to long-nosed plague masks, as when one carries flowers in front of my nose, the good smells overwhelm the viruses. How do I know? I just know! I'm confident. I am the science.
Plague masks have been updated to meet the fashion requirements of today:
https://tombanwell.com/plague-doctor-masks-etc
That's decent advice up to Delta. The pandemic is over. Another example of always fighting the last war.
From a structure system view, it's not air flow, it's air volume and volume exchange rate.
Also, from a real non dweeb white male get her done perspective, avoiding situations is not an option. Proper kit and fit.
Joy Behar has stated that she will ALWAYS WEAR A MASK...FOREVER
She said (and i Quote), "I'm SO F*CKING UGLY; That The Least i can do for humanity, is cover my face"
So, there's THAT
Masks are so 2020.
When you are wearing a mask, you smell odors, because particles -- for example, tobacco particles -- go through the mask into your nose. Those particles are much larger than viruses.
Face masks are full of bacteria and viruses. People wear those masks into grocery stores, they touch the masks, and then they touch things in the store -- the food, the shelves, the bottles, the freezers' door handles, the cashier area, etc.
In the schools, the teachers and students likewise touch their vile face masks, and then they touch things in the schools -- the doorknobs, desks, chairs, chalkboards, etc.
Nevertheless, wearing facemasks is scientific.
Suppose you are in a grocery store or in a school, and there you see twenty people wearing facemasks.
What is the average time that each of those twenty people has worn his mask.
My guess is three weeks. Some people have worn their masks less than three weeks, and the others have worn their masks more than three weeks.
During those weeks, those masks have accumulated bacteria and viruses. And those people touch their masks all the time, and then they touch things in the stores and schools.
This is the "science" that is being imposed on our society.
This is the "science" that is being imposed on our children as they attend school.
petri dishes remained clear if everybody wears underwear.
I slide an N95 down the back of my Speedos, just to be sure.
I pride myself on the fact that I, for one, haver never clouded a petri dish.
Every medical facility I've been inside of in the past year - hospital, doctor's office or clinic - has signs posted specifically stating "My mask protects you, your mask protects me," which I believe implies my mask might stop or limit the spread of virus due to my sneezes, coughs, etc, by helping to restrict some aerosol droplets from getting into the air but does little or nothing to prevent my ingesting any that are already airborne from another person. If that is the case and I am not sick, my wearing a mask protects no one, neither me nor those around me. Similarly, if I can smell smoke from another table in a restaurant it does not mean I should mask up because my mask does not protect me from virus. The best I can do is avoid situations where I am in close proximity to someone who might have the virus. This takes me back to my time living in Japan, where the Japanese almost always wore a mask in public when they had a cold or the flu, but only when they were actually symptomatic. When I saw a person on a train wearing a mask I had a visual cue telling me that I should avoid getting too close, but that was not a reason for me to mask up myself. Mask mandates actually eliminate this type of visual cue because the sick are unable to self-identify given that everyone is wearing a mask even though only a small fraction of the mask wearers are actually contagious. I believe this long standing custom in Japan, where people are usually crammed much closer together everywhere in public is a principal reason Japan had much better results in containing Wuflu.
Blogger Bob Boyd said...
"I pride myself on the fact that I, for one, haver never clouded a petri dish."
I, on the other hand, consider it a hobby. Clouding petri dishes.
I the virus is 1 micron and the average mask opening id three microns, what's the point.
Not for nothing, but if that were to be the standard, it would apply to virtually every airborne object, including all other viruses, dust mites, various particulates- which we regularly breathe in without question and include animal feces, construction dust, pollen, mold spores and other wonders of nature. We would be fearful of breathing maskless, period. And with a couple exceptions, few of those masks filter small enough to stop a virus.
You cannot live like that. Or rather, you can, but then we'll never see your face again and you'll be breathing your own fowl breath in and out for the remainder of your days. Do you notice what you are smelling after about 2 hours with a mask on? I notice it on long flights across the country. It's nasty. And whatever it is I'm smelling is worse in reality than I think.
Howard, could you define the difference between "air flow" and "air volume exchange rate" as in your statement that "...it's not air flow, it's air volume and volume exchange rate." I must have slept through that fluid dynamics lecture.
I skimmed through the NYT article.
To put the kindest interpretation on it, it's several hundred words of speculation informed by bias. Multiple sources all reading from a single policy document.
I can't prove that the People in Charge are purposefully obscuring the available data so clear lines cannot be drawn.
I can’t prove that the People in Charge are purposefully confusing the public so that we don’t insist that only provably beneficial policies are enforced.
Their behavior thus far in 99% consistent with these suspicions.
People who know stuff aren't talking, and people who are talking don't know anything.
gilbar said...
Joy Behar has stated that she will ALWAYS WEAR A MASK...FOREVER
She said (and i Quote), "I'm SO F*CKING UGLY; That The Least i can do for humanity, is cover my face"
So, there's THAT
2/19/22, 6:24 AM
And right after the show, she went out with friends unmasked...in a restaurant and walked out without a mask. Typical lying do as I say, not as I do Regressive Progressive. She SHOULD wear a mask ALL the time because she is ugly inside and out.
Some looney liberals will wear masks forever.
As a person who analyzes many things in life on a daily basis, I shake my head at the mask mandates, knowing that they (masks that are made of cloth or paper) are almost next to useless in slowing down the transmission of Covid. Mrs. Scott and I caught Covid during the lockdowns of 2020 despite only having contact with people for a very limited time going out in public to buy groceries and we were masked. After that experience, I realized that masks outside of N95’s are useless against Covid. Today, the CDC says that Omicron can be easily caught wearing a mask that is NOT N95 and yet my local health clinic requires masks in its buildings. No one that I see at the clinic, including medical staff, are wearing N95 masks - they are wearing the useless cloth or disposable paper masks. To appease places like this, I wear my reusable cloth mask, which I am only washing occasionally, since I know it is only good for appearances only. Hell, my medical clinic has varying mask standards, sometimes in different parts of the same (large) building! In one part, I can wear my cloth mask, no questions asked. On the other side of the building, I am given a paper mask to use by the medical staff in lieu of my cloth mask. And these are the people who are supposed to be “be following the science”!
Are we all going to wear masks forever now? We managed to get by through all of human history without needing to wear masks, but now things are different and will never be the same? The human experience has been permanently degraded? Is that what you're telling me?
Okay, how did that happen? Who did that to us?
Doctor fucking Fauci and his sneaky gain of function experiments. Am I wrong?
"Science!!!"
What nonsense.
Volume matters for indoor air exposures. Not all air flows are equal.
Re: masks of any kind. Indoors, even with 6' between you and the next person, the nasty little aerosol meanies don't just obediently land on your mask. They land on your clothes, hair, shoes, and any exposed skin, as well as your eyes, if they're open (which I presume is most often). Are the 'masks forever' proponents wearing face shields or goggles while shopping, and are they immediately disrobing on arrival home and thoroughly disinfecting themselves? My guess is no.
"When you are wearing a mask, you smell odors, because particles -- for example, tobacco particles -- go through the mask into your nose. Those particles are much larger than viruses."
But then, we do not wear masks to protect ourselves from being infected by others; we wear masks to bar others from being infected by us.
When I was in the hospital with leukemia 24 years ago, the doctor ordered that all persons coming into my room wear masks, as my immune system was so weakened that I was at risk to my life from what would otherwise have been innocuous germs. However, I was not required to wear a mask, as those coming into my room were not at risk from me.
It's interesting to read that someone smoking at the next table in a restaurant might not matter. I don't remember reading that in the NYT back when the ancient practice of smoking in restaurants was getting snuffed out in the United States.
When I was a young lawyer and we were doing document production in a cigarette litigation, I was like, "how are they going to fight this? Everybody knows cigarettes cause cancer."
And one of the other attorneys told me, "yeah, but there's almost zero evidence that second-hand smoke causes cancer."
I've never smoked, but I've always felt sympathy for smokers, forced to huddle outside, even if it was raining. And you think of the brutal censorship of cigarettes, in movies and TV shows. Unless you were evil or something. ("I hope the Cigarette Man is in this one").
The massive campaign against smokers was kind of a trial run for the massive campaign against people who didn't want to vaccinate. So think about that for a second. You coerce people to vaccinate. Why not coerce them to stop smoking? Coerce them to stop drinking soft drinks?
Imagine if they destroy private health insurance, what the state would do to you via control of healthcare. Socialists make great arguments for "free" health insurance and other free stuff. But then you discover the free public education is actually Racial Indoctrination 101.
Liberal Fascism is a great work of history. But I think the future of Liberal Fascism will come via health mandates. For your own good, of course.
all other viruses, dust mites, various particulates- which we regularly breathe in without question and include animal feces, construction dust, pollen, mold spores and other wonders of nature
All of which a healthy person NEEDS TO BREATHE IN -- as well as some level of COVID -- in order to develop a strong immune system.
Avoidance doesn't lead to safety. Avoidance leads to disaster.
Notice that in addition to "experts" insisting that people need to mask to prevent transmission, they also still say that people who have tested positive need to isolate from others.
If the masks really worked, the mask-Nazis would not mind being around a COVID-positive as long as he was masked.
"Liberal Fascism is a great work of history. But I think the future of Liberal Fascism will come via health mandates. For your own good, of course."
Indeed. The author of Liberal Fascism is now a Liberal Fascist.
“Every medical facility I've been inside of in the past year - hospital, doctor's office or clinic - has signs posted specifically stating "My mask protects you, your mask protects me," which I believe implies my mask might stop or limit the spread of virus due to my sneezes, coughs, etc, by helping to restrict some aerosol droplets from getting into the air but does little or nothing to prevent my ingesting any that are already airborne from another person.””
Two different things: aerosols and droplets. Think of it as individual virons, and virons piggy backing on water droplets. If you cough, you expel water droplets, and if you are symptomatic with COVID-19, some of the droplets probably have virons. But if you are asymptomatic or presymptomatic, you won’t be coughing much (a symptom), and instead will be expelling individual virons in your breath. They are cast off by infected lung cells, into the wind, and flout out as aerosols through your nose and mouth. The key here is that the holes in N95 masks stop a lot of the droplet dispersal, but not the aerosol dispersal, because the individual virons are an order of magnitude smaller than the holes. Of course, surgical masks, fabric masks, neck gaiters, and even scarves, have progressively larger holes, the latter categories providing essentially negligible protection against droplet (symptomatic) dispersal.
“If that is the case and I am not sick, my wearing a mask protects no one, neither me nor those around me. Similarly, if I can smell smoke from another table in a restaurant it does not mean I should mask up because my mask does not protect me from virus. The best I can do is avoid situations where I am in close proximity to someone who might have the virus. This takes me back to my time living in Japan, where the Japanese almost always wore a mask in public when they had a cold or the flu, but only when they were actually symptomatic. When I saw a person on a train wearing a mask I had a visual cue telling me that I should avoid getting too close, but that was not a reason for me to mask up myself. Mask mandates actually eliminate this type of visual cue because the sick are unable to self-identify given that everyone is wearing a mask even though only a small fraction of the mask wearers are actually contagious. I believe this long standing custom in Japan, where people are usually crammed much closer together everywhere in public is a principal reason Japan had much better results in containing Wuflu.”
Good point. The problem though is that presymptomatic and asymptomatic aerosol spread tend to predominate over symptomatic droplet spread with respiratory viruses like the one causing COVID-19. And, of course, masks do little to control aerosol spread. It is apparently because the (symptomatic) cough is a result of your body’s immune system finally recognizing the virus as contagion, and mobilizing it’s defenses against the virons, killing them, and cells containing parts of them, as quickly as possible. When you are presymptomatic and asymptomatic, the virus is still flying under your immune system’s radar, shedding copies of itself unimpeded by your immune system. This is, BTW, part of why viruses, under evolutionary pressure, very typically mutate to being more transmissive, but less dangerous, because the longer the virus’ host can remain non symptomatic, the more copies of itself it can generate and send into the wind.
The smoking analogy demonstrates that 'social distancing' was a fraud more than it shows anything else.
"Bromage" sounds like a brand of cheese that's marketed at dudes.
Bob Boyd said...
Are we all going to wear masks forever now?
==========
CDC and NIH are likely bidding out research on how to induce development of 'nictitating' membrane over nose and mouth and ears
“All of which a healthy person NEEDS TO BREATHE IN -- as well as some level of COVID -- in order to develop a strong immune system.“
“Avoidance doesn't lead to safety. Avoidance leads to disaster.”
Not sure about the second part there. We know that a single viron is probably not going to infect you. You seem to need some level of a viral load. Is it because it’s a numbers game (like sperm fertilizing eggs), and a single viron is unlikely to find a convenient ACE2 receptor to latch onto, but with enough of them floating around one succeeds? Or is it that the body’s immune system can easily fight off small numbers of invaders, but more becomes harder?
One thing that we do know is that different bodily orafices have different defenses to external contagions. Probably the mouth is most effective, connected mostly to the stomach, with its caustic digestive juices, followed by the nose, and it’s mucus, then a woman’s vagina, for similar reasons, then either the anus or urethra. This is, BTW, why AIDS is primarily a gay disease - because the anus has minimal defenses against viral (and bacterial) contagion. Bad stuff is supposed to be leaving there, not arriving.
As for Mary’s suggestion that you minimize sleeping with strangers, I expect that it isn’t the sex, but the actual sleeping in close proximity to a virus generating partner. Gaseous dispersal follows a cube rule - if you double the distance, you cut transmission to 1/8 ((½)³ - I have this slick scientific/mathematical keyboard on my iPads, so might as well use it). But the thing that most everyone forgets is that a lot of viral transmission is by touch. Virons, esp in aerosols, land somewhere, and you can pick them up by touch, and then transfer them to your face, when you adjust your mask, etc. Again a numbers game. Just another reason that the most likely place to catch COVID-19 is apparently around the house.
Have a good friend who works in a Florida hospital lab. He said that he saw zero positive COVID tests the whole shift yesterday.
This is a good example of the risks of analogies. Regardless of the point the author was trying to make, the smoking analogy made me think about how persistently smoke can stick to cloth.
Aside from a couple of cigars a year, I'm a non-smoker. I occasionally will have overnight stays in the home of a relative who probably smokes 5-10 cigarettes a day. She generally goes outside to smoke, though occasionally she'll have a cigarette near her stove's exhaust hood. I'm always impressed by how often I can smell cigarette smoke days later on items that weren't even removed from my overnight bag during my stay.
In other words, the smoking analogy as used by the author actually suggested to me that masks might be a good way to concentrate virus particles near my mouth and nose and to bring them with me wherever I go.
I don't intend to make a point about masks in either direction. My point is that while analogies can be powerful, they can work in unintended ways. Use them carefully.
PS. I visit France occasionally, where smoking at restaurants is not uncommon. I imagine my younger family members being in such places and being CERTAIN that they will DIE FROM CANCER because of a single trip to Paris. Such is the power of propaganda.
Have you seen anyone actually sneeze into their mask? I have seen several instances of people pulling their mask down to sneeze/cough so they don't get their mask yucky. After all, who wants to wear a mask that has been sneezed in? The president pulled his mask down to cough into his hand on tv once.
If people don't PROPERLY wear their masks (and they don't) it all becomes theater.
Imagine if they destroy private health insurance, what the state would do to you via control of healthcare. Socialists make great arguments for "free" health insurance and other free stuff. But then you discover the free public education is actually Racial Indoctrination 101.
This is why support for the truckers is still limited in Canada. People are dependent on the state already.
When I was in the hospital with leukemia 24 years ago, the doctor ordered that all persons coming into my room wear masks, as my immune system was so weakened that I was at risk to my life from what would otherwise have been innocuous germs. However, I was not required to wear a mask, as those coming into my room were not at risk from me.
Masks like those I wore in surgery for 50 years protect against bacteria, not viruses. They were still not perfect as total joint replacement surgery was done in laminar flow rooms by surgeons wearing space suits. The risk was of bacterial infection of the foreign bodies that were the implants. Not viruses.
Smoking in bars and restaurants is still common in Japan.
If the smoke particles get through, so will the virus.
I can't imagine living life in a constant state of paranoia...
At a restaurant, one person’s cigarette smoke at the next table over wouldn’t fill the air above yours.
Wait, really? Then why are there bans on smoking in restaurants — even for outdoor areas? I'm in favor of the bans, especially to protect the servers, who often need to be right in front of the customer. But this New York Times article makes both smoking and masks seem like less important issues than I had thought.
"If people don't PROPERLY wear their masks (and they don't) it all becomes theater."
It's amazing how many holes are in that argument that people seem blind to, but whatever. English is not like a programming language, where it has to mean something precise, a lot of people are limited in the number of factors that they can keep in their head at one time, and omicron has come, and I bet Xi wishes he had left it named "Xi."
Blogger Saint Croix said...
"how are they going to fight this? Everybody knows cigarettes cause cancer."
I see this all the time, did not expect it from you.
Less than 10% of long term smokers get cancer. I believe it is about 9.5% but its been a while since I looked.
How is it possible to say that something that affect 10% "causes" cancer? It makes a mockery of the word. If 90% of smokers got cancer, I could go along with the statement. Even 80 or maybe 70%, OK. But 10%? Really?
A pretty odd definition of "causes". 5% of non-smokers get lung cancer. By this logic we could say that NOT smoking "causes" cancer.
Now I agree that smoking is bad for you. it causes all sorts of health issues and reduces life expectancy. I use "causes" correctly here since there is a high probability that health issues and life expectancy will suffer.
Smoking is also annoying, especially in restaurants where it can make it hard to smell the food. In hotels where the lingering smell of smoke used to tickle my throat. I am happy that restaurants, hotels and other places ban it. I DO NOT think govt should ban it in most cases. Some places like gas stations, airplanes and theaters where there could be a fire hazard, I would make an exception. Otherwise leave it up to the business.
John Henry
Have there been any studies on the toxicity effects of tobacco smoke on the airborne coronavirus?
Why are we still listening to the same 'experts' who've been wrong for the last two years?
With a mask on outdoors on a cold day that breath vapor sure floats a long way. What’s that mask preventing again?
The only time I caught covid19 I was wearing a mask in a room of others also wearing masks and kept 6ft apart.
I never wore a mask after that, and never caught it again.
So do I believe Fauci, or my own lying eyes?
"Dr. Bromage suggests a cigarette analogy: If someone were smoking, would the smell and taste of cigarettes quickly fill the air?
"If yes, so would the virus. You’d be smart to wear a mask
Will your mask keep the smell and taste of nearby burning cigarettes away from you?
No?
Then it's worthless trash, and you're wearing it for religious reasons, not science based ones
Robert Cook said...
When I was in the hospital with leukemia 24 years ago, the doctor ordered that all persons coming into my room wear masks, as my immune system was so weakened that I was at risk to my life from what would otherwise have been innocuous germs. However, I was not required to wear a mask, as those coming into my room were not at risk from me.
And the doctors also ordered that no one who was sick could visit you mask or no mask.
Because the masks just don't do that much good. Not unless we're talking properly fitted N95 masks
And pretty much no one is wearing those in public
In the beginning of Covid everyone saw some Asian countries like Japan and Korea as role models because they seemed to get better rates of infection. They eventually caught up. But Asians were more used to wearing masks so that was copied. In China people wear masks in cities because the air is full of soot from burning coal. The masks turn grey during the day, I wore one too.
But masks are not rated for viruses, even true N95 NIOSH approved ones, as others have said. I can smell the scent of flowers thru my mask, so bigger than virus sized particle easily get thru. The usual argument is that water drops containing virus get soaked up. But the wet virus stays on the mask and dries out, and since they are tiny they get re mobilized in your exhalations, so I don’t see how a large effect is achieved.
gilbar said...
Joy Behar has stated that she will ALWAYS WEAR A MASK...FOREVER
wendybar said...
And right after the show, she went out with friends unmasked...in a restaurant and walked out without a mask.
_________________________
Yeah, she lied. Here’s a picture, if you have any doubts: https://twitter.com/libbyemmons/status/1494749856031776773.
Do they really not understand how much they are destroying their own credibility? Or is this deliberate, a strategy of “I’m lying, you know I’m lying, I know you know I’m lying, etc., but I’ll make you pretend I’m not lying?
Bender said...
Notice that in addition to "experts" insisting that people need to mask to prevent transmission, they also still say that people who have tested positive need to isolate from others.
___________________
That depends. Many hospitals, they’ve been letting vaxxed folk who test positive work, but not letting the unvaxxed work. Which is . . . interesting.
John henry said...
Less than 10% of long term smokers get cancer . . .
How is it possible to say that something that affect 10% "causes" cancer? It makes a mockery of the word. If 90% of smokers got cancer, I could go along with the statement. Even 80 or maybe 70%, OK. But 10%? Really?
______________________
The coal tars in tobacco smoke cause cells to convert to a pre-cancerous state. Subsequent traumas to those cells, or possibly just the passage of time, turn them cancerous. Said traumas do NOT cause normal cells to become cancerous.
Thoughts about masking
On the morning of February 2nd my wife went to two doctor’s offices, once for a fasting blood draw and the other visit for a problem with her shoulder. Per Virginia regulations everyone in both offices — doctors, nurses, office workers, my wife, and the rest of the patients, were masked. There was plenty of hand sanitizer, and used she plenty of it. Nevertheless, by bedtime she was dealing with omicron. Omicron doesn’t care about your masks and it doesn’t care whether or not you are vaccinated. If you’re exposed, you’re at risk. Period.
My second thought is that, looking at the Super Bowl and various galas, the elites were unmasked while the support staff was masked. Since I don’t view myself as part of the serving class, no mask for me!
Robert Cook said...
"When you are wearing a mask, you smell odors, because particles -- for example, tobacco particles -- go through the mask into your nose. Those particles are much larger than viruses."
But then, we do not wear masks to protect ourselves from being infected by others; we wear masks to bar others from being infected by us.
When I was in the hospital with leukemia 24 years ago, the doctor ordered that all persons coming into my room wear masks, as my immune system was so weakened that I was at risk to my life from what would otherwise have been innocuous germs. However, I was not required to wear a mask, as those coming into my room were not at risk from me.
*************
Yeah, right. Wanna explain why some maskless skier in Colorado was handcuffed and arrested
while outdoors in the freezing cold? Other masked skiers actually helped the cops wrestele him to the ground. HYSTERICAL MORONS.
Others have pointed out that your experience of 24 years ago has no application today. I'd bet the people who visited you didn't wear fitted N95 masks.
As for wearing masks to protect others being infected by us: where is the evidence that aymptomatic people infect others? NO controlled studies exist. ZERO. ZIP NADA. Where are all the huge outbreaks and death surges from the maskless football games last fall?
In airplanes, the air is recirculated every two minutes from outside, where it's 50 degrees below zero. What are the freakin chances that any virus survives inside the plane under those conditions?
"As for wearing masks to protect others being infected by us: where is the evidence that aymptomatic people infect others? NO controlled studies exist. ZERO. ZIP NADA."
Any yet, someone (many someones) are infecting many other someones with COVID, to the tune of 80 million infected in the US alone in only two years, with fatalities nearing one million.
In these mere two years, this "harmless" (or "nonexistent") virus has killed more Americans than were killed in the Revolutionary War, WWI, WWII, the Korean War, the Vietnam war, and 20 years of our wars in the Middle East combined. It has killed a third more Americans in half the time as those killed in the Civil War, our deadliest war.
If masking up, combined with social distancing, helps mitigate the infection rate even a little bit, it's better than doing nothing at all. Belligerent refusal to cooperate with even this truly minimal effort because one feels it is a violation of one's "freedom" is simply childish, selfish, and stupid. And, the truth is, a "free" society cannot function without some degree of voluntary acquiescence by the citizens to behavior that will tend to contribute to or mitigate danger to the public welfare. Wearing masks and social distancing is a civic duty as long as it is deemed to be an effective impediment to the spread of a pandemic. To refuse is, uh, to use a term I disparage, unpatriotic.
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