Early in this pandemic, experts — including CDC officials — told us that if you aren’t a medical worker dealing with infected patients, wearing a mask is ineffective in protecting yourself and others.
Many reversed themselves, though without honestly explaining why they had ever downplayed the value of masks to begin with. Masks are even now mandatory some places.
But we still hear naysayers who declare masks to be pointless.
One blithely declares: “The main transmission path is long-residence-time aerosol particles (< 2.5 μm), which are too fine to be blocked.” That’s less than 2.5 micrometers. A micrometer is one millionth of a meter. Yes, small.
But “too fine to be blocked”?
A properly worn mask need not be 100% effective to block tiny particles. Viruses do not fly unerringly through holes and gaps in the mask. They have no guidance system and no little legs enabling them to scamper to a hole if it hits fabric.
Nor is the virus invariably unattached to larger particles.
Obviously, the better the filtering, the more effective the mask.
Suppose you go to a supermarket and
- wear a mask,
- try to keep your distance from others,
- go when fewer people tend to be shopping, and
- leave fast.
All pointless?
Short of wearing a hazmat suit or never leaving a one-resident home, no protective measure will be 100 percent effective all the time, infallibly. This doesn’t mean that partly effective measures should be dismissed as entirely ineffective.
A part of something is, well, not zero.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
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5 replies on “Masks Work”
Not ALL pointless, but the last three items in the list are more than sufficient. Why aren’t they enough? The mask is nothing but a feel-good measure. It can give you a false sense of security.
You have some very good columns but I don’t think this is one of them. I suspect that a better way of thinking about masks, especially cloth masks is more like how well a sieve with a large mesh size blocks water. Whether a mask, worn by asymptomatic persons, especially a homemade cloth mask is helpful in stopping the spread of covid-19 is controversial at best, and it is relatively well-documented that mask use, especially improper mask use can be harmful.
Here’s a quote from a study on efficacy of masks in blocking covid-19 published on 6 Apr 2020 in the Annals of Internal Medicine. https://www.acpjournals.org/doi/10.7326/M20-1342
“In conclusion, both surgical and cotton masks seem to be ineffective in preventing the dissemination of SARS–CoV-2 from the coughs of patients with COVID-19 to the environment and external mask surface.”
Nothing in the column disputes the notion that “improper use of masks can be harmful.”
“A part of something is, well, not zero.” … And it isn’t a known quantity either. In many places. The use of a mask and social distancing guidelines are still being used to preserve the original panic created by the Media and official misrepresentations that later lost all scientific credibility when they exempted rioters in the streets. Much of this information is unfortunately still being used for Left wing objectives to suppress economic recovery before the election.
You are confusing the question of the efficacy of masks with questions of hypocrisy and abuse of power. What particular masks of particular material do or don’t do is a fact regardless of what is happening culturally and politically.