Quote (Goomshill @ Dec 31 2021 03:44pm)

Go fart on a subway and see if people next to you can smell it despite underwear and pants

What matters is fluid dynamics, the motion of particulates in a fluid medium with lots of erratic air currents like a normal indoor space. You don't need to be projecting a straight line of particle missiles at someone, you just need to be flooding the air in the room with your fine droplets and dried particulate that carries covid and soon the air in the room is impregnated with your germs. A shark doesn't rely on its prey spraying a jet of blood directly towards its face, it smells diffuse blood particles as fine as one part per 10 billion. If you're breathing in the same room as that candle with a mask on, your covid viruses are getting onto that candle.



The evidence so far is that harm reduction strategies based on reducing the spread aren't working, at all. If we were 2 years into this pandemic and cities with strict mask guidelines and people actually adhering to them showed much better outcomes than anti-mask counties, I'd think differently. Instead its geographic waves that pass through red and blue states alike. The one area where the results are clear is vaccines preventing death and serious hospitalization, at least.

I can see the arguments for why strong N95 mask protection could work in limited exposure scenarios, but I also see how saturation of virus in the air makes masks pointless in most indoor, heavily exposed environments.

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One recent study looked at the aerosol filtration efficiency of common fabrics used in respiratory cloth masks, finding that efficacy varied widely, from 12 to 99.9%, at flow rates lower than at-rest respiration (89). Many materials had ≥96% filtration efficacy for particles of >0.3 μm, including 600 threads per inch cotton, cotton quilt, and cotton layered with chiffon, silk, or flannel. A combination of materials was more effective than the materials on their own. These findings support studies reported in 1926 by Wu Lien Teh (4), which described that a silk face covering with flannel added over the mouth and nose was highly effective against pneumonic plague.

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Our review of the literature offers evidence in favor of widespread mask use as source control to reduce community transmission: Nonmedical masks use materials that obstruct particles of the necessary size; people are most infectious in the initial period postinfection, where it is common to have few or no symptoms (45, 46, 141); nonmedical masks have been effective in reducing transmission of respiratory viruses; and places and time periods where mask usage is required or widespread have shown substantially lower community transmission.

The available evidence suggests that near-universal adoption of nonmedical masks when out in public, in combination with complementary public health measures, could successfully reduce Re to below 1, thereby reducing community spread if such measures are sustained. Economic analysis suggests that mask wearing mandates could add 1 trillion dollars to the US GDP (32, 34).

Quote (Sioux @ Dec 31 2021 05:49pm)

Aerosols arent gases. You can try to dress your opinion up in all the words you want but you're working off a false assumption.

Quote (Goomshill @ Dec 31 2021 03:53pm)

Aerosols are literally gases, gases carrying solid particles or liquid droplets as a suspension, and the turbulence of the air acts upon them with fluid dynamics just as it would any gas.
That's like, the definition of the word aerosol.

Quote (Sioux @ Dec 31 2021 06:55pm)

Right which is why those particles can be filtered out by a mask.

Quote (Sioux @ Dec 31 2021 05:55pm)

Right which is why those particles can be filtered out by a mask.

Quote (Goomshill @ Dec 31 2021 06:59pm)

Except even when worn perfectly those masks still leave a significant chunk of particles, and are rarely worn with a perfect tight fit and often removed for activities like eating. And after a short time of exposure to an environment saturated in covid particles, the outsides of a mask become coated with those particles which you continue to breathe in at that % permeability.

So when we've got Joe Biden maskless while chatting with people, then putting it on to take a photo, and then taking it right back off again- it does dick all

Quote (Skinned @ Dec 31 2021 06:03pm)

Wearing a rubber sometimes is better than not wearing them ever, we are just going to have to disagree otherwise.

Quote (Sioux @ Dec 31 2021 06:32pm)

My guy, go light a candle, put on a mask, and try to blow it out.

Quote (EndlessSky @ Dec 31 2021 04:09pm)

You need a real degree in order to understand the behavior of aerosol bound viruses. Learn your place.