91–100 of 105 posts
We also did not have data on the types of masks being worn or on masking adherence rates in the two school districts It is known that this is an aerosolized pandemic. Airborne. Cloth and surgical masks do not work. Source – there are many to choose from: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S014067362... The posted study on mandates has effectively no meaning. Closed FFP2/N95-style masks work. This is fa…
We also did not have data on the types of masks being worn or on masking adherence rates in the two school districts It is known that this is an aerosolized pandemic. Airborne. Cloth and surgical masks do not work. Source – there are many to choose from: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S014067362... The posted study on mandates has effectively no meaning. Closed FFP2/N95-style masks work. This is fa…
This has been known since 2020. From the beginning, the public health message could have been "protect yourself using a N-95 mask", but for some reason they went with "protect others using a cloth/surgical mask". The only reasonable explanation I can find for this is that N-95 masks were in short supply at the time and they had to be saved for medical professionals. We needed a distraction to prevent the general publ…
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> The parent comment was a claim that their 3 year old did not get COVID in a preschool/daycare setting because of widespread mask wearing. Both yours and theirs can be true. Perhaps preschoolers in Asia have better parental modeling of proper mask wearing, having been a fairly widespread practice in some areas since the first SARS. Perhaps there's a difference in how careful the teachers were to make adjustments whe…
In Singapore you almost never saw kids even young as 2 years old not wearing a mask right. My daughter started wearing from 1y7m and it took about 1 week of adjusting it correctly when she would touch her face or mask to her just leaving it alone. While you see most westerners wearing their mask below their nose, the kids follow suit. In Taiwan since September last year, enrolled my daughter in school, every kid in h…
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Children age 2-5 are learning faces and how to speak. If they can't see each other's faces and mouths, they don't learn a basic part of human interaction. Think a little more broadly about "harm".
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Children age 2-5 are learning faces and how to speak. If they can't see each other's faces and mouths, they don't learn a basic part of human interaction. Think a little more broadly about "harm".
Maybe they'll end up being more understanding and kind to autistic people who have troubles with reading faces or maintaining eye contact regardless of being raised up with masks or not. That would be nice.
We also did not have data on the types of masks being worn or on masking adherence rates in the two school districts It is known that this is an aerosolized pandemic. Airborne. Cloth and surgical masks do not work. Source – there are many to choose from: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S014067362... The posted study on mandates has effectively no meaning. Closed FFP2/N95-style masks work. This is fa…
That's awfully binary. With SARS-CoV-2 it is a probabilistic thing, where your chances of actually getting an infection depends on how much SARS-CoV-2 you are exposed to and for how long. Even a cloth or surgical mask does lower that probability. Not enough that it is likely to make a difference if you are going to be exposed for a long time, such as spending hours in room with infected people like might happen at sc…
> Our findings contribute to a growing body of literature which suggests school-based mask mandates have limited to no impact on the case rates of COVID-19 among K-12 students. I’m glad that public health officials are actually doing this research and publishing these conclusions. Maybe I’ve gotten cynical, but I was worried that there would be limited retrospection about positions taken during the pandemic given the…
> Maybe I’ve gotten cynical, but I was worried that there would be limited retrospection about positions taken during the pandemic given the political sensitivities. Hopefully we learn from our mistakes and are better prepared for the next pandemic.
Hehe, that's a great joke to start monday with
Also, look under the authors, it lists "truth in data LLc" a right wing conspiracy nuthouse.
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Not sure how to parse the question; answering both ways. How long can a person wear one? The few times I work in office I wear one all day, and don’t find it difficult. How long can a single N95 be reused? I’d read research indicating the real limiting factor seems to be the quality of the seal, and the straps tend to fail before the mask loses efficacy. Basically, if it seals without air escape, you’re good.
> How long can a person wear one? The few times I work in office I wear one all day, and don’t find it difficult. I can't wear the 3M ones I have (with a decent seal) for longer than half an hour without getting lightheaded.
Another option is to look for a respirator with an exhalation valve. You give up a level of source control but any exhortations to "protect others!" is pretty silly when they come from people who aren't wearing anything to protect themselves. The Aura has a vented model (9211+) which I've not tried but have heard excellent things about.
You could also consider a half-face elastomeric respirator. You wouldn't expect it, but I've found the ones made with a quality silicone material (3m 75xx / Honeywell North 7700) to be far more comfortable than disposable N95s. They have far more breathable area, which is a major plus. When adjusted properly, they also do not "dig into your face" the same way disposable respirators do - you can keep the straps surprisingly loose & still maintain a seal. And they have a much lower TCO because the respirator media lasts for a long time. Muffled speech is the biggest problem, but speech diaphragms go a ways towards fixing that.
In general though, as you move up the ladder of protection you end up using tools that are both more effective & more comfortable. Pre-pandemic I had a crawlspace under my house spray foam insulated. A team of three guys crawled around under my house in mid-August while wearing full face respirators. They told me they were actually more comfortable than the old half-mask / goggles combination they used to use.
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If you look at EU standards for asbestos removal [1] this really isn't the case. Ditto for the other examples you cite. Almost nobody doing industrial work with comparable PPE doesn't spend at least 1-2 hours of a typical workday out of the PPE. The linked PDF has an example of a typical workday when removing asbestos, note how many times it involves putting on or taking off the PPE. I'm not making any claim about CO…
> Almost nobody doing industrial work with comparable PPE doesn't spend at least 1-2 hours of a typical workday out of the PPE. Which leaves many thousands of hours in PPE, for many thousands of people. If the N95 masks caused health issues, we'd know. If someone can demonstrate a) a mechanism and b) any evidence for such an effect, I'm all ears.