Author Topic: Paper Mask Efficacy  (Read 2516 times)

ConstitutionCowboy

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Paper Mask Efficacy
« on: November 26, 2021, 03:20:24 PM »
This morning while powdering my undies with Goldbond powder - because "old man" - I noticed some of the powder filtered through the fabric. Seeing that, I wondered if the powder would filter through one of those blue paper masks, so I tested it and It will.

Now, those powder granules are very fine but many times larger than a virus. Conclusion: If the powder can filter through one of those filters, one of those filters isn't going to contain very many viruses.

Mask efficacy is zero in my observation.

I will admit it took a little bit of tapping on the filter for the powder to drift out in little puffs, but once it started showing up, it puffed with each tap. (Those masks are double layer so it had to penetrate the inside layer before it got to the outside layer. Breathing will likely create a forceful push through the filter carrying viruses aplenty.)

Again, it is like surrounding your house with a chain link fence to keep out mosquitoes.

Woody
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dogmush

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Re: Paper Mask Efficacy
« Reply #1 on: November 26, 2021, 04:06:37 PM »
So two years in and there are still people that think virus particles travel around on their own?  That to provide antiviral filtration something must stop particles that require a SEM to see?

This is the definition of willfully ignorant.

HankB

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Re: Paper Mask Efficacy
« Reply #2 on: November 26, 2021, 06:46:03 PM »
So two years in and there are still people that think virus particles travel around on their own?  That to provide antiviral filtration something must stop particles that require a SEM to see?

This is the definition of willfully ignorant.
Masks are useful but not perfect.

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33087517/

Important takeaway:
Quote
Airborne simulation experiments showed that cotton masks, surgical masks, and N95 masks provide some protection from the transmission of infective SARS-CoV-2 droplets/aerosols; however, medical masks (surgical masks and even N95 masks) could not completely block the transmission of virus droplets/aerosols even when sealed.

Offering a sarcastic critique without explanation is retarded.
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Nick1911

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Re: Paper Mask Efficacy
« Reply #3 on: November 26, 2021, 07:11:18 PM »
While I probably wouldn't have been as brutal about it as dogmush... he isn't wrong.

dogmush

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Re: Paper Mask Efficacy
« Reply #4 on: November 26, 2021, 07:36:24 PM »
:
Offering a sarcastic critique without explanation is retarded.

The first 10 times someone spouted this basic idea on this site, I was nicer, provided critique,  with sources, and verifiable percentages of efficacy for different types of masks.  That info is all presented, politely, in the various COVID threads on this forum, as well as a 10 minute dive into google.

I wasn't being sarcastic in my response. To be that wrong about airborne viral transmission two years into a global pandemic is willful.  You have to avoid learning.

Ron

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Re: Paper Mask Efficacy
« Reply #5 on: November 26, 2021, 07:47:56 PM »
Masks are great compliance training devices.

It's just like in the military, they make you do pointless tasks frequently just to keep you tuned up to do what your told.

For those of us (now) living where there are no mask mandates it allows us to identify those who are most fearful, prone to believe propaganda or just do what the authorities tell them to do without question.

You're in FL aren't you dogmush? Do you wear a mask anywhere it's not required?

Last time I was in FL it was so incredibly liberating to not wear the stupid mask that I couldn't believe I put up with it in IL as long as I did. Where I'm at in IN seems to be halfway between IL and FL in mask wearing. For all practical purposes I'm still in a Chicago suburb, just one with no mask mandate.
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WLJ

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Re: Paper Mask Efficacy
« Reply #6 on: November 26, 2021, 08:12:15 PM »
"Sometimes I think the surest sign that intelligent life exists elsewhere in the universe is that none of it has tried to contact us".
- Calvin and Hobbes

Pb

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Re: Paper Mask Efficacy
« Reply #7 on: November 26, 2021, 08:13:08 PM »
I don't like being ill.  I wore the mask before I got vaccinated.

Now I don't unless I am forced to.

If the vaccine works, I won't get sick.

If it doesn't work, I'm going to get the disease eventually, so I might as well get it over with.

That is what I figure anyway.

dogmush

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Re: Paper Mask Efficacy
« Reply #8 on: November 26, 2021, 08:21:18 PM »
.

You're in FL aren't you dogmush? Do you wear a mask anywhere it's not required?

Last time I was in FL it was so incredibly liberating to not wear the stupid mask that I couldn't believe I put up with it in IL as long as I did. Where I'm at in IN seems to be halfway between IL and FL in mask wearing. For all practical purposes I'm still in a Chicago suburb, just one with no mask mandate.

I am, and *expletive deleted*ck no, I don't.   I try to make realistic risk decisions based on what's happening  locally, and not be somewhere I need PPE.  Luckily  most of my preferred recreation is outside, and solo, or with my wife.  It hasn't  been that big a deal for me to not go to movies (at all) or restaurants (very much).  I did have to attend a couple large gatherings of people while the cases were surging locally where I would have worn a mask had it not been mandated, but it was. (One of those ended up being a kind of spreader event, where about 20% of the folks that attended got COVID, but they were *expletive deleted*ing off with PPE and distancing rules too, so [shrug])

Being a DOD employee  and Reservist,  I have had to deal with mandates at work and training, and even had to enforce  them.  I provided the stats and papers on effectiveness,  gave the guidelines that I was given to enforce, and went about my day.  We had one guy be a problem and that got kicked above my pay grade very quickly.

I don't  think I ever was a staunch supporter of blanket mask mandates. In some localities at some times? They might make sense, but our various Executives in government have gotten pretty power happy.

The problem is people unable or unwilling to learn the actual usefulness (or not) of any given PPE hampers peoples ability to make realistic risk assessments and carry on with life.  The ideologues either hamstring efficacy where it would be useful by not bothering to have or correctly wear PPE, or waste and unnecessarily impede people by insisting on PPE where it isn't warranted.

FWIW, wife, Pup and I are finishing up an 11 day Thanksgiving road trip this weekend.13 states and I put on a mask like 4 times.  National parks and forests are the bomb.

Ron

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Re: Paper Mask Efficacy
« Reply #9 on: November 26, 2021, 08:55:49 PM »


Pretty sure I saw that horse moving, maybe it was just twitching  :laugh:
For the invisible things of him since the creation of the world are clearly seen, being perceived through the things that are made, even his everlasting power and divinity, that they may be without excuse. Because knowing God, they didn’t glorify him as God, and didn’t give thanks, but became vain in their reasoning, and their senseless heart was darkened. Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools.

BobR

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Re: Paper Mask Efficacy
« Reply #10 on: November 26, 2021, 09:27:39 PM »
Pretty sure I saw that horse moving, maybe it was just twitching  :laugh:

I'm not sure that particular horse will ever be declared dead.

bob

ConstitutionCowboy

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Re: Paper Mask Efficacy
« Reply #11 on: November 26, 2021, 09:45:14 PM »
I wore a mask. I maintained the 6 foot rule. I greeted people with the elbow bump, etc. I take vitamin "C", "D3", CoQ10, and zinc. I caught the covid on my annual checkup at the VA hospital.

I'm fully recovered now and can boast that I now have natural immunity with the trained "B" cells at the ready to spring into action and produce the required antibodies when the next Covid-19 pathogen attempts to invade. 

Nothing I did or wore in the first paragraph prevented me from contracting the Covid - even in the supposedly clean hospital environment.

Woody
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cordex

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Re: Paper Mask Efficacy
« Reply #12 on: November 26, 2021, 10:10:45 PM »
Out of curiosity, how do you know where you caught it?
I got it last year while doing all the things, but I have no idea where.

Andiron

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Re: Paper Mask Efficacy
« Reply #13 on: November 26, 2021, 10:25:25 PM »
The mask thing has some reasonable efficacy.  Then the .gov stepped in with pointless and draconian mandates only the military could love.  And here we are.

I laugh at every moron I see driving down the road, alone, wearing a mask.

Well done.  We've taken a PPE measure that actually had the slightest bit of efficacy and turned it into a covid cult rite.  *expletive deleted*ing morons.

Had we played this right, we could've ended up like the Japs, where wearing a mask while sick is the polite thing to do.  Good *expletive deleted*ing luck now.
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grampster

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Re: Paper Mask Efficacy
« Reply #14 on: November 26, 2021, 10:27:26 PM »
As my wife Swmbo and I say...you are gonna get it or not.  Nothing you do including getting the jab will negate that. 
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MechAg94

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Re: Paper Mask Efficacy
« Reply #15 on: November 26, 2021, 10:33:10 PM »
Masks are useful but not perfect.

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33087517/

Important takeaway:
Offering a sarcastic critique without explanation is retarded.
That second quote is pretty much what I figured.  Larger droplets, etc. can be stopped or caught by the mask, but not everything.  I still think the social distancing is the most effective thing done.  Also, for whatever reason, coughing and sneezing in public seems to happen far far less than before. 

The social distancing is about the only thing I still do for the most part.  Most people I see still do it.  They may not stick to 6 feet, but compared to 2019, it is a big difference.  Very few people wear a mask here unless they are required to for work. 
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Nick1911

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Re: Paper Mask Efficacy
« Reply #16 on: November 26, 2021, 10:45:49 PM »
As my wife Swmbo and I say...you are gonna get it or not.  Nothing you do including getting the jab will negate that.

I mean... it's not a false dichotomy, because those are in fact the two outcomes.  But I think fatalism ignores things we can do to shift odds.  We can influence the probably towards a given outcome with our actions.  And that's really all the mask thing is - reducing the probably of transmission my some amount.

Would you agree that the following statement is a good reason to not wear a seatbelt?
"You are gonna die in a car wreck or not.  Nothing you do including wearing a seat belt will negate that."

RoadKingLarry

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Re: Paper Mask Efficacy
« Reply #17 on: November 26, 2021, 11:10:29 PM »
Seatbelts have actually been proven to save lives and reduce injury. Neither the vax or masks can say the same.
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Bogie

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Re: Paper Mask Efficacy
« Reply #18 on: November 26, 2021, 11:12:08 PM »
We're planning a wake for a friend of mine who "did everything right."
 
I'm sure she wore a mask when she went to get her booster shot.
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Nick1911

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Re: Paper Mask Efficacy
« Reply #19 on: November 26, 2021, 11:42:50 PM »
Seatbelts have actually been proven to save lives and reduce injury. Neither the vax or masks can say the same.

Really?  May I ask how you concluded that?

Bogie

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Re: Paper Mask Efficacy
« Reply #20 on: November 26, 2021, 11:49:47 PM »
I still cannot get adequate supplies of PPE for my body shop customers.
 
Nitrile gloves have doubled in price. And we don't have them where the walk-in customers can see them, and get pissed when we won't sell them to them.
 
A "covid mask" won't stop the stuff  you need a real respirator for. And Karen keeps buying the supply.
 
I wonder how much cancer, etc., we're going to see in a few years because of the bullshit. Because people have kept working, doing the jobs that can't be "done from home."
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zahc

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Re: Paper Mask Efficacy
« Reply #21 on: November 27, 2021, 12:05:49 AM »
Simulations are pointless anyway. What matters is whether mask policies work as a public health measure, and what the costs are, and what the goals are.

Practically every test will show that wearing a bicycle helmet will protect your brain more than not wearing one. However, bicycle helmet laws have proven to be all but worthless, as public health measures, basically everywhere. They don't really save people or reduce injuries in any meaningful capacity, and that's totally ignoring the costs. Even if there were a benefit, it still wouldn't prove anything until the costs and goals were considered.

Personally, based on the data I've seen, I'm sure respirators work, I doubt surgical or cloth masks do anything, and it doesn't matter, because mask mandates are stupid and haven't been shown to be effective as a public health measure, and effectiveness hasn't even been defined.
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tokugawa

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Re: Paper Mask Efficacy
« Reply #22 on: November 27, 2021, 12:41:21 AM »
I don't believe masks work to stop viral transmission- There have been adjacent counties ,similar populations, one with mandate one without, no difference in infection. I can't see any real world success, it would be very hard to prove either a success or a failure with all the variables.

 To open up the discussion from a works-don't work level- lets say I am wrong, and masks do work for this -

everything has a downside, or an opportunity cost- So what are we refusing to see? Other infections from the continuous wearing of a presumably contaminated mask?  Weird social adaptations from children who never get to see a human face?

Everything has an unexpected consequence.

230RN

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Re: Paper Mask Efficacy
« Reply #23 on: November 27, 2021, 02:01:49 AM »
I always figured one of the effects of a mask was to prevent spittle and sputum from ordinary speaking from getting around.  Either to within the mask from without or vice-versa. 

A particle of spittle due from pronouncing a fricative gets out, floats around, the moisture evaporates, and the bugs it contained float around for even longer and for a greater distance.

Sort of like salt air spray from the ocean, where the water evaporates, and the micro-micro particles of salt still float around for quite a distance inland.

Masks also tend to  keep you from rubbing or touching your mouth and nose, which is a known transmission vector for nasties.

In my opinon (no science involved) the slight moisturizing from your breath helps to trap the actual germs, and I suspect if the "underwear experiment" were performed with even a very very slight dampness, the results would be much less than dramatized in the OP.

After all, analogously, they treat regular filters (as on your intake manifold or your furnace) with resins to help trap nasty particles from entering your engine or getting into your house.

Ninety percent isn't as good as 100% but it's still better than 80%.

Honestly, this silly actively looking for negatives about the masks is ridiculous, and if people think it is for control/training purposes, I don't know what to think of y'all.  Bunch of "Typhoid Maries," as far as I can tell.

There.  I said it and I ain't takin' it back.

In fact, I've said it before.

Terry, 230RN
« Last Edit: November 27, 2021, 02:22:46 AM by 230RN »

gunsmith

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Re: Paper Mask Efficacy
« Reply #24 on: November 27, 2021, 02:58:05 AM »
I'm 61 yrs old, and no one told me about no powders
      gosh! I am always the last one in the darned loop!

 anyway, i was so sure my supplement regimen was what kept me alive, it was just luck maybe.

 I take ( except for when I am so sick from covid i cannot even open the vitamin jars ) 1 to 5 grams of C, more than the recommended dose of zinc/d3/b complex...or maybe it was what kept me from dying?........ It is illegal to throw virgins into the volcano, and active volcanoes seem to be far away - how can i avoid the rona's ??? i suspect its impossible and it is endemic......
 I have asked a few of my liberal vaxx mandate friends about this brand new strain/variant called omnicon or omnicron or something
 the vaxx is supposed to be 40% effective, but I am trying to get the friends I have that support a medical police state for a gentlemans bet
that there will be a whole new set of vaxxs by february, because the vaxxs taken last yr are ineffective ... they have yet to get back to me.
 
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