Would everyone wearing face masks help us slow the pandemic?

As cases of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) ballooned last month, people in Europe and North America scrambled to get their hands on surgical masks to protect themselves. Health officials jumped in to discourage them, worried about the limited supply of masks for health care personnel. “Seriously people-STOP BUYING MASKS!” began a 29 February tweet from U.S. Surgeon General Jerome Adams.
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But some health experts, including the director of the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, think that’s a mistake.
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“It’s really a perfectly good public health intervention that’s not used,” argues KK Cheng, a public health expert at the University of Birmingham. “It’s not to protect yourself. It’s to protect people against the droplets coming out of your respiratory tract.”
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https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/03/would-everyone-wearing-face-masks-help-us-slow-pandemic

The case for not wearing masks is based on two things: 1- that they are scarce, and 2- that they protect others from you, but not you from others. So they are useful only if you're not infected.

We don't want scarcity to affect medical personnel. But there are instructions online on how to make a proper mask for yourself. And you can certainly purchase filters online.

On the second point, what's wrong with you protecting others? There are many people walking around who are asymptomatic and may be infecting others. If everybody did this, then we would all be protecting each other.

None of this is a substitute for social distancing. The protection is partial and the positive effects are limited. But it is something to be considered by those who have no choice but interact with others. Some have already started a campaign for this called #Masks4All

 

An interesting idea.

I can see why most banks have gone to Drive-Thru only.

 

My company has 49 3D printers and 20 more on the way. The owner was contacted by the federal government and asked to start 3D printing masks so that's what we've been doing along with trying to keep up with the demand of what we're already printing. My supplier was also contacted and told he was essential for providing the materials to companies making these masks. The people we get our printers and parts from were also contacted and told that they were essential for providing printers and parts to the government agencies they work with. Needless to say, my wait time on the normal bi-weekly order of 1,750 kilograms has been pushed back a little, as well as my stock parts for the printers, and the printers I'm buying as well.

 

A full condom body suit and an electro shock collar should be mandatory also

 

Wearing masks could help in the following ways
1. Help hide your identity from the facial recognition AI drones searching for you
2. In black scarf or handkerchief mode, may fool ANTIFA or Muslim Radical Jihadist that you are one of them thus saving yourself from attack by bike lock to the head Or by machete
3. May make you appear to be a medical student and aid your efforts to to attract opposite sex or whatever sex you are trying to attract
4. If Army gas mask, (and with camo BTUs) may allow you to appear to be National guard and travel to your hardware business and other business currently shut down by unconstitutional decrees by Marxist left kook mayors and governors

 

Of course a mask will reduce the likelihood of infection (n95 if you can get one), along with a pair of form fitting safety glasses.

I think they're just trying to prevent people from hoarding.

 

I remember old western movies when the robber in a handkerchief mask demanded "hand me all the money". Now it's going to be exactly the opposite

 

I'm sure that's for medical workers. Which are, of course, the highest priority.

I'm curious, what do you print the masks on? Some sort of cloth?

 

There is also the fact that used with poor habits (which it is natural fall in to) they could actually increase infection risk and the false security they could engender might lead people to subconsciously take more unnecessary risks. For the average person following social distancing rules I doubt use of masks would provide any significant benefit. I'd be happy to see evidence otherwise, though I don't know that it exists.

And the fact a lot of those instructions originated from the companies selling those filters is a complete coincidence.

 

I've thought this all along. It has become common for Chinese people to wear masks in public because of the pollution. I'm sure it played a role in stopping the spread in China. As this is a disease of the respiratory tract, it makes perfect sense that the best protection would be a respirator filter.

I find it interesting that the industrial N95 respirator masks offer better protection than surgical masks. Luckily I just happen to have a couple hundred on hand. I would think that lots of industrial and construction companies would also have stockpiles on hand.

 

I don't know what the other poster was talking about, but 3d printers make plastic parts. I do not think that one can make a filter or anything like a surgical mask. However, the higher end respirators use replaceable filters. Like the army surplus respirators. Entire masks could be made with a 3D printer, but not the filters.

I saw an ad the other day. It was about an open source ventilator with many of the parts 3D printable.

 

N95 masks actually do offer some protection for those who wear them. They catch small droplets of moisture where the virus lives. Now, a person would have to change them out regularly so there would have to be a ton of them on hand.

 

I inadvertently initiated a new thread concerning this topic:

http://www.politicalforum.com/index.php?threads/masks.570430/

I would appreciate an administrator transferring it to this thread.

Thank you.

 

I have a beard, and that is the first thing one learns in industrial settings, they don't work worth crap with beards.

You also need something to keep droplets...getting in the eyes. A face shield...

The mask mainly keeps you from dropping others, so yeah, it slows the spread. Then you must still wash hands after treating your mask like a virus itself when disposing of it.

If you think a mask is going to make you safer than social distancing, so you don't social distance, big mistake.

 

Sure, social distancing, but a mask would make a big difference. Because water droplets can remain suspended in the air.

 

That has been my understanding. I was wondering if there are some type of 3D printers I wasn't aware existed.

I wonder if they meant face shield

https://vancouverisland.ctvnews.ca/...face-shields-for-front-line-workers-1.4873672

 

The straight forward answer is that masks only protect others from you. If you don't have the virus, wearing the mask has zero benefits. It certainly doesn't protect you. So, if you wear the mask, the assumption is that you need to protect others from you. I get the idea that folks want "something" that they can feel protects them, but it just doesn't work that way. It may be impolite to suggest this, but the only way folks become immune to the virus is by having it and surviving. The myriad of flus that are already out there work the same way. I understand that some folks in the medical community find this one particularly dangerous, but like SARS, H1N1, etc, folks mostly aren't actually going to succumb to it. Likely, most folks won't at least. So, that isn't a moral position, it is simply the factual one.

It still doesn't mean that wearing a mask for most folks is either a prophylactic measure, or a good use of resources.

 

And drops get on you clothes and stay there for 9 hours maybe, so people could still give it to themselves by not thinking of that too. Like the other day, I was paying attention to the direction of the wind, while staying away from someone, I kept positioning myself accordingly, not just for me, but for them.

I think it's not a bad idea if we all had them, but probably best for the Government to hand them out than for us to hoard masks. Search "hoarding masks."

This should be a lesson, a time for solutions not political crap; maybe Congress set up a Government program to hand out the masks..., make them like a prescription item to prevent hoarding...
If we are running out of anything, it's the lawmaker's fault.

Motorcycle riders without full face helmets maybe are at higher risk too. Any little bit helps.

 

Not sure why you thought you needed to repeat what I already stated on the OP. But what you suggest.... Calling it "impolite" sounds almost like referring to Ted Bundy's murders as "impolite". Your statement is a non-statement. And, worse yet, it's useless and full of inaccuracies. But the worst thing is that it's dangerous. But here is where the "non-statement" issue makes it difficult (maybe by design) to even comment on it. You don't state where you got this ... notion... that the only way to become immune is by having it. Ever hear of vaccines? Or comparing it with the seasonal flu or others, which even Trump (source of the nonsense) has stopped repeating in public given that it has been debunked so thoroughly.

I don't know if masks may be a good measure or not. But spreading misinformation definitely is not. And I'm happy that part of the Social Media has started to realize this, and banned those who insist on spewing it. Alas!... we will always have Fox and their echochamber.

 

As you say, stop spreading misinformation. You should take the hint. Masks only protect folks from folks wearing them, not the other way around. Ask the experts. CDC says:

“CDC does not recommend that people who are well wear a facemask to protect themselves from respiratory illnesses, including COVID-19. You should only wear a mask if a healthcare professional recommends it. A facemask should be used by people who have COVID-19 and are showing symptoms.”

So, clearly, this is problematic then for your narrative. Why do you suppose that you feel that you have a right then to spread misinformation at all? Since, as you suggest "you don't know"... but you're willing to dismiss those of us who do? Laughable.

Yes, if you can develop a vaccine, it essentially does what having and surviving the virus does, by creating a "memory" of the infection that your leukocytes then remember. So, perhaps it would be best to leave the immunology to those folks who actually understand it, and not try to fake it. So, you can "believe" that my comment is dangerous, but in the real world, life is actually fraught with perils that I'm positive that you're entirely unaware of. I would also point out that "seasonal flu" is seasonal because it's one that we already are aware of, and enough folks have either created sufficient antibodies or we have developed a vaccine. The only difference is that this is "new" which is why it is referred to as novel, meaning prior to this, it hadn't mutated in a way that could bridge species and infect humans, and this is the first time it has. That doesn't mean that a) folks won't develop antibodies (because they are, and those are being used now to help in building a vaccine) or b) that everyone infected will develop real symptoms. That is reality. I apologize that it doesn't conform to what you've been told to think from the media that you have so much faith in, but that actually is the truth. So asserting that this is somehow "debunked" simply means that you're relying on information that does put you actually at risk, more than not, and spreading it to others is it's own moral quagmire that you're creating on your own.

 

That sounds kinda familiar. Where did I read that before? Oh! Now I remember. On my post!!!

Did you even read it? Obviously you didn't.

Thank you. So hopefully you now know enough not to repeat in public that dangerous nonsense that "the only way" to become immune is to get yourself infected.

 

This is false information. Perhaps the CDC only says this because some people do not use the mask correctly.

A mask and a face shield absolutely helps prevent infections. That is why health care providers are wearing them.

The bit about only keeping the infected from infecting others but not keeping the uninfected from getting infected, is almost funny.

 

If you're infected or around infected you need a mask. If not, give any masks you have to infected people or health care workers treating them. It won't hurt to wear them, but with the shortage most of us aren't the priority.

N95 respirators are made out of polypropylene.

I don't now how much I'd trust them, but I don't see why a 3d printer couldn't make one.

 

Take it up with the CDC. I'll take their assessment over yours every time. Health care workers wear them because they are trying to keep any condition they might have from transferring to a patient, not the other way around. When health care workers need to protect themselves from patients, they wear biohazard suits. Sorry if this undercuts your narrative.

 

Revisionist history isn't your strong suit. You did, in fact tell folks that wearing a mask protects them from others, which, clearly it does not. Yes, you should heed your own advice and stop spreading the misinformation that you are. And frankly, the worst of your efforts is this "dangerous nonsense" BS. If you're being vaccinated, you are, in fact, being exposed to the virus. Meaning that you are, in fact, being infected. That's how this stuff works. Perhaps you don't like the word smithing here, but it doesn't change the facts of the process.. Again, why is it that you feel that you're entitled to spread the kind of BS misinformation that you are now?