Face masks are worth wearing

There was a rumor going around that members of the general public shouldn't ware face masks, implying they didn't help. Often this rumour was deliberately spread to discourage members of the public hoarding face masks because else such hoarding might prevent the people that need it most, like health care workers, from having them.
So do face masks really protect against catching C19?
The answer from the experts is simply is yes, despite them giving only limited protection. The message from the experts is that limited protection is certainly better than nothing because it really does significantly reduce your risk even though they very far from eliminates that risk and the experts warn that you shouldn't allow your face mask give you a false sense of security and think it would allow you to safely socialize with your friends for hours; That is another reason why that rumor was deliberately initially spread that you shouldn't ware them although they have generally stopped trying to do that more recently.
So the message from the experts is that face masks really are worth wearing. But as this video shows, it really helps to know a few extra things, such as how you should use those masks and what materials are the best ones if you make your own home made mask.

https://phys.org/news/2020-04-video-effective-masks-coronavirus.html

@humy said
There was a rumor going around that members of the general public shouldn't ware face masks, implying they didn't help. Often this rumour was deliberately spread to discourage members of the public hoarding face masks because else such hoarding might prevent the people that need it most, like health care workers, from having them.
So do face masks really protect against catchi ...[text shortened]... ake your own home made mask.

https://phys.org/news/2020-04-video-effective-masks-coronavirus.html

That's not a rumour, it was what the WHO was saying a couple of months ago. I still can't watch videos on this machine, so I haven't watched the video. My current thinking about this is as follows:

I don't think a face mask significantly reduces the chances of the wearer contracting covid. The reason for this is that they'll reuse the face mask and if it's done it's job then it will have viruses in the material - so there's a handling risk, hospital staff have procedures which eliminates this, but ordinary people do not.

What masks do do is prevent a cloud of droplets from the person wearing it from reaching other people if the wearer coughs. So a mask enforces coughing etiquette. There's some evidence that masks reduce the spread of the virus, but I think the blocking is from the wearer to other people and not the other way around.

I'm wary of this because the government would like to end lock down as early as possible and these things might encourage them to think they can come out of lock down without cases being sufficiently reduced and without being able to do contact tracing, which requires a sufficiently small number of active cases for it to be viable.

There will be enough people who refuse to wear masks that the politicians we seem to have brought down on ourselves being encouraged to think they can end the lock down will just add to the litany of crisis mismanagement they've achieved.

@humy

Wear a face mask

@eladar said
@humy

Wear a face mask

I never go outside and never meet other people so I guess there's no point until if or when I do. I do wash my hands often though especially straight after I have sorted through a grocery delivery; One of the things one should be wary of. One should think of the various possible second-hand contact contamination transfers on various surfaces.

Let it sit 3 days and the virus, if it was there, will be gone.

@eladar said
Let it sit 3 days and the virus, if it was there, will be gone.

This defies the purpose in the grocery delivery if the stuff's perishable.

@DeepThought

True, but if it is not it can sit. Perhaps you can make your orders accordingly.

It is now socially acceptable to do anything it takes to protect ourselves and our neighbors.

YouTube



you know you want to

@deepthought said
That's not a rumour, it was what the WHO was saying a couple of months ago. I still can't watch videos on this machine, so I haven't watched the video. My current thinking about this is as follows:

I don't think a face mask significantly reduces the chances of the wearer contracting covid. The reason for this is that they'll reuse the face mask and if it's done it's ...[text shortened]... ink they can end the lock down will just add to the litany of crisis mismanagement they've achieved.

This.

@lemon-lime said
It is now socially acceptable to do anything it takes to protect ourselves and our neighbors.

[youtube]E004Fo6_BSk[/youtube]



you know you want to

Buy me a balaclava or eff off.