Ask About Masks

   I spent most of yesterday afternoon pouring through articles on the effectiveness of wearing face masks to prevent the spread of illness, as well as my usual obsessively reading of statistics. I decided to just share my thoughts, whether accurate or not. Heck, the media and politicians do it all the time. So, take the following with a grain of salt or bolt of cloth, whichever works for you.

I haven’t watched the nightly news in – I don’t know – thirty years? But besides spending too much time reading COVID19 articles on the internet, I’ve been catching some of the world and national news on TV. Just tonight they aired a piece on the use of masks during this pandemic. I saw a similar piece online.

First, you have to realize what kind of masks there are.

As you may have heard, the N95 or respirator mask is the most effective. But to attain that standing it needs to be the right size and worn appropriately. And when it is worn appropriately, you can barely breathe because it is stuck tight to your face. You cannot wear it for long without coming out for air. It is also a one-use product. Despite all of that, it claims to be 95% effective in keeping out bacteria, most viruses and other pathogens.

The standard surgical mask is one size fits all, which like anything with that label, means it really only fits correctly on half the people. It’s a little bit more comfortable, but the downside to that is that comfort means you can breathe – air can get in which means pathogens can too. I couldn’t find the statistics on how effective wearing one is.

With all this hype, people have started sewing their own fabric masks. (God bless them.) They are easy and quick to sew and don’t take much for supplies. They are perhaps more comfortable than the first two options, for the same reason you sleep on a cloth pillowcase and not one made of paper. Different studies I’ve found on these homemade masks is that they are only 50% effective. Is that enough to make a difference? Perhaps.

Here are the crucial things to remember, though, no matter what kind of mask you wear.

Once you put it on, you cannot touch it again. Every time you try to itch your nose or adjust it coz your glasses are fogging up, you compromise its effectiveness. And when you touch it, you also expose yourself to whatever bugs the mask has already captured, totally defeating the purpose of wearing it. So, you still need to remember to wash your hands. A lot.

Also, disposable masks are not reusable. Throw them in the proper garbage when you take them off. I don’t know what people plan on doing with their fabric mask. Wash them every day? I’m not sure.

With all this in mind, is it worth it to bother with wearing a mask? It certainly doesn’t hurt, except for one thing. Wearing a mask, of any kind, does not make you invincible. Bacteria is pretty small, but you can see them with a regular microscope. Viruses are way smaller (did I read somewhere that they are 100 times smaller than bacteria?), so they can get through smaller holes in your paper mask or cloth mask.

Your best bet to avoid catching anything from the common cold to COVID19 is to wash your hands, avoid contact with sick people, wash your hands, be careful around anyone as you never really know who is sick, wash your hands, don’t touch your face if you can possibly help it, wash your hands, cover your cough and sneezes, and wash your hands.