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by GeekyBear 1108 days ago
> It's fact that masks help prevent the transmission of diseases that spread from the nose and mouth

It's true for diseases with a droplet based spread, like the flu.

Disposable masks are good enough to catch the droplets people spray out when they sneeze or cough preventing them from falling onto surfaces that people will later touch and then touch a mucous membrane, infecting themselves.

All the early Covid advice was based on the false theory that Covid had a droplet based spread.

With a fully airborne disease, like Covid, you need something capable of filtering the virus out of the air you breathe. At a bare minimum, that would ba a n95 mask fitted so tightly to your face that unfiltered air cannot come in through the sides.

Perhaps you remember all the pictures online of medical professionals with with pressure sores from where the masks pushed into their face from 2020?

A disposable mask held on with two rubber bands over your ears simply isn't capable of preventing you from being infected by a virus floating in the air you are breathing.

>Two years after the pandemic began, we finally have a good understanding of how COVID-19 is transmitted: some infected people exhale virus in small, invisible particles (aerosols). These do not fall quickly to the ground, but move in the air like cigarette smoke. Other people can get infected when breathing in those aerosols, either in close proximity, in shared room air, or less frequently, at a distance. But the journey to accepting the overwhelming scientific evidence of how COVID-19 spread was far too slow and contentious. Even today, the updated guidance and policies of how to protect ourselves remain haphazardly applied

https://time.com/6162065/covid-19-airborne-transmission-conf...

1 comments

Wasn’t the goal not to prevent infection, but instead to reduce the spread of the disease? If I remember correctly hospitals were overburdened at the time.

Also no I (personally) have not seen anyone have any sores or issues with wearing a mask, medical professionals, students, or otherwise.

If the goal was to reduce the spread of the disease, then the mitigations in place need to be based on what will be effective against an airborne disease, not what will be effective against a disease with a droplet based spread.

> no I (personally) have not seen anyone have any sores or issues with wearing a mask, medical professionals, students, or otherwise

We aren't talking about wearing a cloth mask, as those are ineffective. We're talking about wearing an n95 mask (or better), fitted tightly enough to your face to prevent unfiltered air from leaking in through the sides, and wearing it day after day. You end up with bruising and pressure sores.

For instance, here's the CDC guidence on how to know if your n95 mask is fitted properly.

> To conduct a negative pressure user seal check, cover the filter surface with your hands as much as possible and then inhale. The facepiece should collapse on your face and you should not feel air passing between your face and the facepiece

https://www.cdc.gov/niosh/docs/2018-130/pdfs/2018-130.pdf

As far as Doctors and Nurses posting pictures of the results of properly wearing PPE day after day, they were all over the internet.

> Exhausted doctors and nurses post images of their bruised faces after long shifts wearing protective gear

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/coronavirus-health-care-bruised...

> Healthcare professionals around the world are sharing photos of their exhausted faces, sometimes bruised from masks, after harrowing shifts treating coronavirus patients

https://www.businessinsider.com/photos-of-doctors-and-nurses...